An Open Letter to the SyFy Channel

[JamesSavik]

After passing up the SyFy channel for the 10,000th time I started to wonder. Why did they go to crap.

 

Then I used my mad hacker skills to get the mailing list for their board of directors.

 

I sent this. I'll let you know if they answer

 

 

To: Board of Directors

RE: More Crappy Ghost Reality Shows and Wrestling? REALLY!?

 

Dear Sir (or Mam):

 

Would you mind terribly bringing Science Fiction back to the SyFy network?

 

The channel lineup is GARBAGE. The shows for psychos that think ghosts are real? Wrestling?

 

PLEASE! My cats litter box has better programming.

 

Please do better.

 

I'll come back. I promise.

 

I'll even write something for you that'll be better than this mess.

 

I'm simply not going to watch this trash and I'm betting a lot of other people are changing the channel as well.

 

Why not try running Babylon 5 at 12:00 at night. It can't be any worse than what's on and no body else is airing it now.

 

 

----

James Savik

 

[Sara Alva]

Love it. I can't remember when the descent started...but I'm pretty sure it was better when they still had the letter I in their name.

[W_L]

Too expensive to produce even a half decent TV show.

 

I didn't realize that Jericho or Falling Skies was that expensive to produce (I should have known about Falling Skies, since Steven Speilberg was Exec Prod, but still).

 

I miss when Sci-Fi had great original series. Does anyone remember their version of the Wizard of Oz? Brilliant

 

The mini-series Taken was amazing and spellbinding tracking of alternative history (my childhood fascination with UFO paid off in that series as I knew almost every fact they added from Roswell to the LSD based government conspiracies )

 

The Three Stargate series were good

 

The new Battlestar Galactica was hell a lot better than the old Mormons in Space crap (no offense to Mormons ). I loved the metaphysical storyline for Baltar, the human issues of the characters, and the cold calculating schemes of the machines, Cylons. James, seriously, I hope you reverse your opinion one day.

 

I was never a Farscape fan and hated Andromeda on Sci-fi channel. I will not even start on the problems of Earth Final Conflict final season on Sci-Fi, my favorite Gene Roddenberry show and original Concept behind NBC's classic "V".

 

I've been with Sci-fi for almost a decade, I grew up on them, but the crap now on is worse than the late night re-airing of Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space, known as the "worst thing ever made into film" and I'd probably rated lower than crap.

 

If Sci-Fi could give a new space based science fiction story, I'd pay for premium. If they can't come up with one, call JMS, creator of Babylon 5, or Manny Coto, creator of Odyssey, as we could use more exploration into those sci-fi series. If they want to work on budget series, then call up Ron Moore again to finish Caprica or hell hire JJ Abrams, who can do a cheap version of Lost/Alias.

 

If all else fails, come to me and I'll pitch them a dozen sci-fi stories that I never even published on GA like "The End of Species" about an international space station, which inexplicably gets thrown back 64 million years to discover that earth was devoid of higher mammalian life and was facing complete ecological destruction due to the dinosaur extinction event. They will find that not all the Dinosaurs died out, but a few had develop advanced technology of their own comparable to our 20th century atomic era, but they pulled the trigger. From these beginnings, mankind will be the predestination paradox of all predestination paradoxes as the last Dinosaur species die out and they inadvertently genetically altered a mammal species, which begins to change eventually becoming Homo Sapians. These humans will eventually instill fundamental ideas into human instinct to protect mankind from dying out like the Dinosaurs, Higher level reasoning concepts like hope, love, and mercy would be used. There will be a fun twist at the end as the scientists' descendants create one final safeguard and overseer of development for their forebears' changes aka evolution into humans, a techno-biological entity known as God.

 

(Metaphysically, it makes such a huge twist, humans from the future made God, who helps make humans in the Present, so who created who? Too bad it's not a gay story theme and I wrote it in high school, so it is pretty crappy, but better than most of Sci-Fi's offering.)

 

Wouldn't that be better than Ghost Hunters?

Edited October 25, 2012 by W_L

[Gene Splicer PHD]

You can get all the aliens and science fiction you want, right over there on the History Channel, the Science channel, National Geographic Channel, and TLC.

 

It's not like there aren't aliens. Just ask this guy.

 

[JamesSavik]

Science Fiction is a lot more than aliens.

 

Many people like to call it speculative fiction: what if? At its best it explores questions about man, technology and our place in the universe.

 

At its worst... well there's Plan 9 from Outer Space and all of the bad sci-fi B movies made in the fifties.

 

Sadly the SyFy network is simply making more of that trash with made for TV bullshit like Sharktopus (I shit you not) and Super-croc.

 

How difficult would it be to buy a script from someone that wasn't a hack? How expensive would it be to do the same movie, same actors with a decent script?

 

Writing makes all the difference in the world. As someone that has written a few things, it makes me sick to see the stupidity, laziness and cynicism that kind of work represents when we all know they could do so much better.

[Celethiel]

Their short movies are trash, have been for years...(i know i've watched it for ten years)

And every television show they get they slowly warp until it drops in ratings and they drop it..

however I actually like their current tv shows on monday and fridays (except the wrestling), Alphas is coolish, and the show about the Seccubus: Lost Girl, Warehouse 13, Haven, and Sanctuary (if it's still going) are all good shows...

 

Face off I find interesting even if it's a reality show.

 

Their mini-series always seem to be good simply because they seem to put more work into them, however that being said they don't and haven't made many of them...

 

I liked Andromeda before they put it so that the caste was stuck inside a solar system and couldn't get out...

[Gene Splicer PHD]

Science Fiction is a lot more than aliens.

 

Many people like to call it speculative fiction: what if? At its best it explores questions about man, technology and our place in the universe.

 

At its worst... well there's Plan 9 from Outer Space and all of the bad sci-fi B movies made in the fifties.

 

Sadly the SyFy network is simply making more of that trash with made for TV bullshit like Sharktopus (I shit you not) and Super-croc.

 

How difficult would it be to buy a script from someone that wasn't a hack? How expensive would it be to do the same movie, same actors with a decent script?

 

Writing makes all the difference in the world. As someone that has written a few things, it makes me sick to see the stupidity, laziness and cynicism that kind of work represents when we all know they could do so much better.

 

They get those scripts cheap, don't have to pay a crew very much - they don't have to be very talented, after all - and the script writers can kick them out quick because there's no thought at all about how it will translate to a tv screen.

 

I agree with you a hundred percent, but they're not interested in quality or having an audience that actually thinks. They just want the content to be 'sticky' enough to keep the viewers watching the ads and soaking up the product placements. It's not like the current Syfy audience is one that you'd see at a lecture hall or owning a telescope. Their core audience thinks the Milky Way is a candy bar.

[Tomas]

I stopped watching the "Sy-Fy" channel shortly after they changed the name. It didn't take me long to realize that the "Luddites" and taken over the channel and it would never be the same.

 

I will admit to watching one series; "Haven", but that on a delayed basis. I can find better science fiction stories by amateur writers on the web than what is available on what is purported to be a "science fiction" TV channel.

[JamesSavik]

I miss programs like the Night Gallery and The Outer Limits.

 

The format: an hour long play written by established or unknown authors.

 

That would be bad assed but nobody is doing it anymore.

 

It's cheaper and easier to shit those barf-worthy reality shows.

Edited October 26, 2012 by jamessavik

[W_L]

This show looks interesting: a rip off of "Falling Skies" and "Alien Nation" though

 

 

They stole the hand held camera work from Falling Skies and the idea of Alien immigrants from "Alien Nation". It's a cute bastard child though, so I will give it a chance for the 1st season.

 

This show is new for Sy-Fy, so I hope they don't fuck it up. I love Battlestar Galactica and knowing their writers are here is interesting.

 

PS: "No one has ever done anything like this on TV series before" is bullshit quote.

 

I hope he does some fact checking, because they are retreading the area that "Alien Nation" already passed. (PS: the reason why I know that 90's series is due to re-runs on sci-fi and it was one of the 1st sci-fi shows to be open about sexuality and gender roles with a lot of gay/bisexual aliens and their females as leaders in their society.)

Edited October 26, 2012 by W_L

[Celethiel]

I miss programs like the Night Gallery and The Outer Limits.

 

The format: an hour long play written by established or unknown authors.

 

That would be bad assed but nobody is doing it anymore.

 

It's cheaper and easier to shit those barf-worthy reality shows.

 

I don't....

I found outer limits to be freeky, and probably the same with Night Gallery

[JamesSavik]

Big surprise: no answer.

[Xtro]

Not sure we get the same output this side of the Big Spit - Warehouse 13 still has wheels - but the rest is a little well-trodden-path. Not sure what happened to Bar Karma? That was interesting in its production and creation (I scavenge this stuff off Interweb torrent sites, even though I'm on UK cable - all that has are reality shows, or double-up HD channels, or +1s ie screened an hour later. There is little new originated material at all.) Perception completed in the US, then three weeks later we get it on the Watch channel, with a big round of publicity. That was a good first season, but I don't see where they could take it further. Another sadly lost in action was Raines - only screened 7 episodes, though, before it got cancelled/binned?

[W_L]

I like warehouse 13, but its no Eureka

 

As for night gallery and outer limits, I love both shows. My favorite of the scifi horror anthologies though is the new outer limits "The Appeal" is my favorite episode bringing the entire metaverse into focus. Science makes mistakes, but it is our greatest hope for future that allows us to go from inner most fantasy to the outer limits of our imagination.

 

Rod sterling deserve credit for being the father of the genre with twilight zone, but is dated for me.

[Celethiel]

There were several series that were on other channels recently that I wanted to see moved to Scy Fy so i could find them but... no not so far

[option]

isnt their demise tied in with 'sci-fi' being much more mainstream that it used to be?

 

> the main channels all pick up a sci-fi show each, & therefore those shows arnt on syfy

syfy then has less content, & the advertising spend shifts back to the main networks

 

 

> theres also the prolifieration of channels, so what content there is is being spread much thinner

syfy is then bidding against all these new channels for content, & is bound to lose some stuff, & not bid for others

[Zachary McGinness]

Hacker skills! Lolol! God to think I used to live on the Sci Fi channel.