Rosencrantz & Guildenstern, Ltd.

I’m finally back from an 8 day trek across Texas, down to the Hill Country, then to Houston, and back up to Lubbock; in all I clocked around 1400 miles on my car.  With my internet being spotty at best, I didn’t have much of a chance to post anything, but now that I’m back for a couple weeks, I should be able to get some more stuff up.  With that in mind, I thought I’d make a few comments on the upcomming SciFi Channel name change.

I mention in one of my reposts (Adventures in Bad SciFi – Bloodsuckers) that I have had a love-hate relationship with the channel.  Both SF (hard science fiction) and sci-fi (space opera, Star Wars, and other “(insert genre)-in-space” fare) are two of my favorite genres of literature, movies, comics, and overall entertainment.  Add horror and fantasy into the mix, and you have the vast majority of my reading/watching material right there.

However, I have not really watched the SciFi Channel as much as I expected to.  That has been a result of a couple of things.  First, much of what’s on it is bad.  It’s just not quality; hence my soon-to-be-resumed series ‘Adventures in Bad SciFi,’ which was inspired by the weekly “SciFi Channel Original Movies” that play on most Saturdays.  It is true that there has always been bad, cheesy sci-fi; it’s almost a subgenre.  But unless a movie is bad enough to be entertaining, then it’s just boring.

Second, I have reached a place in my life TV-wise where I just don’t watch much serial television the way I used to.  I haven’t watched a regular series as it airs in years.  Instead, I tend to watch TV shows (such as Doctor Who) in large chunks of episodes, on DVD, DVR, or other means.  As a result, I have yet to watch much of Battlestar Galactica, which is really right up my alley, every Friday.  I’m probably going to get the DVDs and watch it that way.

Thus, my SciFi Channel viewing as been spotty.  I also forgot that the executives at the channel have added shows that are either non-sci-fi/fantasy related (ala ECW; why is wrestling on it at all?) or reality shows (Ghost Hunters got old after 10 mins of one episode; “Oh, no!  It’s dark and our cameras can’t capture crap, but we’re all freaking out anyways!!!”) and I just get tired of that crap.

So, with all that said, how do I feel about the name change?  First, it’s a stupid name.  When I looked at it, it immediately became “sifee” (short i, long e) in my head.  They claim the renaming allows them to trademark the name (which they can’t do to a genre like “sci-fi”), but the claim that the new name somehow makes the channel easier to identify is ridiculous.  However, given my general feelings about the network as it is, I’m not really surprised.  I’m not going to boycott the new SyFy or anything like that.  I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing: barely watching it at all, except maybe every Saturday evening for a really bad “original movie.”