Space: The Imagination Station - True SciFi

For some time I've been tracking new topics on the SyFy (formerly well known as the American SciFi network), bulletin boards. One third to one half of the new topics board wide are from users condemning and complaining about the new line up. It's true, they've been straying for years, adding wrestling, reality television, terrible ghost hunting shows and most recently a cooking program to their lineup. It's depressing watching the channel that brought us hits like Farscape, Stargate Atlantis, and Battlestar Galactica go straight down the crapper. Their heyday is over. Their core audience feels shunned.

All that has little to do with what's happening on our very own Canadian Imagination Station: Space. I love this channel. Any day of the week you'll find wall to wall Star Trek with shows like Lost, Smallville, V, and Doctor Who (yes, the new one!), sprinkled in. As my writing takes me stoically striding away from regular Space Opera convention (the Spinward Fringe series is taking a decidedly un-Star Trek / Star Wars turn), being able to flip to the Space station while I'm house sitting is a warm comfort.

That's why, when I was receiving yet another new topic notification from the SyFy bulletin boards entitled "Sci-Fi fans should fight back" a thought occurred to me. I'm in Canada, where we still have a science fiction themed channel that's true to itself, why not praise it for doing things the right way instead of attack a channel that has clearly lost its way?

Space: The Imagination Station doesn't have much original programming, and what little it has is pretty low budget, but it's not bad. They have a show called Inner Space that reports on science fiction and pop culture and the reruns they have are absolutely appropriate. They're the reruns we love, ranging from Star Trek to canceled shows like Defying Gravity and Flash Gordon. Most fans think these shows were canceled before their prime, and Space isn't afraid to pick up the completed episodes of these orphaned series. I appreciate a lot of the reruns because I can't afford to buy boxed sets of Star Trek: Generations, Deep Space 9, Voyager or Enterprise. I'm not alone, many of us science fiction fans can't afford to buy these huge collections.

Missing are the awful SyFy movies, made on a pauper's budget with screenplays that leave viewers choking on bad dialog and cliche. This week on the Space channel they're featuring Final Draft (B Grade starring James Van Der Beek), Hitcher (the A Grade Horror remake), The Mist (B Grade starring Marcia Gay Harden), The Fog (B-ish grade remake starring Tom Welling, Selma Blair), The Last Sect (B Grade vampire film starring David Carradine). They may not be top shelf, but every single one of those films beats the most recent SyFy films: Mega Piranha and Monster Ark. To me, it's better to pick from the B Movie shelf than to continually try to make a low budget scifi/horror film and fail every single time, at least in SyFy's case. I'm aware that many great directors started with B grade low budget film, but there's no spark in the SyFy drivel. I've never seen a quality film made exclusively by SyFy. Over the last year those films have been a continual source of complaints on the SyFy bulletin boards.

There are shows like Stargate: Universe, Caprica, Eureka, Sanctuary and Warehouse 13 that live on SyFy, but those few bright spots don't redeem the station. I hope the lower budget shows in that list have other buyers lined up, because I doubt the all new SyFy network will continue to carry them with the way they're going. The funny thing is that all those shows are filmed in Vancouver.

So, looking away from the tragic example the American SyFy network is setting and back to our own lower budget but higher quality Imagination Station, I'm compelled to say thank you. Thank you for being the home of beloved reruns, fantastic B and low A grade films, original programming that may be short in size and budget but big on ambition, and for staying true to your own name.

May you forever be absent of terrible reality television, wrestling and cooking shows.

RL

If I were offered a television deal from the SyFy station at a one million dollar budget per episode, and another deal from the Space Station at three hundred thousand an episode, I'd take the deal from the Space Station. It's better to be amongst respected reruns, instead of crammed into the embarrassingly bad SyFy schedule.

Whatever Happened To The Spinward Fringe TV Series?

Some time ago the SyFy channel's President stated that, even though they've green lit Stargate Universe and Battlestar Galactica derivation, Caprica, he didn't believe that they had their next great space opera program.

So, being the bright eyed optimist that I am 1% of the time, I announced on their forums that Spinward Fringe was that space opera.

I invited people who watch this site to participate, lending their support to the thread and a few people did so despite the drastically dropping popularity of the ailing SyFy channel.

As I expected, the executives don't visit the SyFy forums unless it's a thread attached to an established television series, and even then it's a very rare thing. Let's face it, they're far too busy making existing and future shows happen to visit the General Topics section. That's all right, I didn't expect to get the attention required for anyone at the SyFy channel to give me a call and hear a pitch or five. It was only the first step.

In a post on the SyFy boards I took the opportunity to thank the board regulars and supporters who posted on the forum and update everyone on what's happening with the Spinward Fringe television series.

You can check that out here: http://forums.syfy.com/index.php?showtopic=2335588&st=0#entry6493766 on the SyFy Channel forums.

Suffice it to say it'll be a very long time (I assume), before we see the Spinward Fringe series adapted for the big or small screen but that's to be expected. It takes a long time and a lot of effort to get in touch with anyone who can make that kind of thing happen the right way, especially for an independent on the outside of the industry like myself.

That doesn't mean it's impossible. I'm beginning the initial work for a screenplay before Christmas and I'll be developing it throughout 2010. That'll most likely take a year. In the meantime I'll be building a contact list, submissions addresses and getting ready to enter contests that lead to development contracts. There are two such contests in Canada alone, so I'll be looking for others until 2011, when I start submitting.

Why will it take so long?

The answer is simple.

I'm not going to let this slow down what's most important to me and most of my readers: writing new Spinward Fringe books and improving my craft. Writing is my first love, not hobnobbing and submitting.

Even though I know submission time is far off and results (as well as the various rejection letters I'll be recieving), are a great distance off, I can't help but momentarily muse on what a producer would have to say after discovering how many books there are.

Considering I already write the books like a high profile television series or series of movies, it would be very interesting to see what industry pro's would have to say. To be honest, I'd much rather hear what my readers have to say, however. You're the ones who really matter, after all.

RL

[What do you think of Spinward Fringe as a television show? Would you rather see it as a monthly TV Movie? Or on the big screen as an annual film? What flavour of Fringe would you prefer?]

The Sci-Fi Channel Becomes The SyFy Channel

I write in the science fiction genre, so the following is sort of like throwing bricks in a glass house, but I couldn't help but weigh in on this topic.

In a monumentally pathetic move to re-brand the Sci-Fi channel so they can register the logo as a trademark and "reinvent" itself, the genre representing channel has renamed itself as the SyFy channel.

This move follows after GE (the owner of the SyFy Channel) attempted to register Sci-Fi as a trademark and claim ownership of the logo and failed. Now they can register the new name as a trademark but will suffer for it since, historically, people who refer to Science Fiction as SyFy typically don't enjoy, respect or understand the genre or the fans. This is absolutely perfect considering the SyFy channel started falling out of grace with Science Fiction fans as they started piling on bad reality television shows, wrestling, and other unrelated television shows such as Ghost Hunters. Add the fact that they use the channel as a dumping ground for long dead series that play right next to more impressive reruns. I've also heard many, many science fiction fans complain that they show the same movies over and over again, this is true. Pile atop that the straight to DVD B-Movie and worse quality "Sci-Fi Original" films that they use as filler or feature during prime time the station has turned some die hard Science Fiction fans away for good.

On a more positive note I have enjoyed some original programming (the Stargate Franchise, Battlestar Galactica, Farscape, Eureka and others), but I find those shows are making up for the rest of the poor programming less and less. I shouldn't expect integrity and quality from a channel GE sees as a secondary concern compared to other stations such as MSNBC but there was a time when the Sci-Fi channel was pretty good, good enough so our Canadian version couldn't measure up. Those days are gone, sometimes the Canadian Sci-Fi channel (simply named: SPACE), is actually better.

It's sad to see a genre channel increase its rate of deterioration. We can only hope that science fiction content continues to invade main stream television so we don't have to channel surf to SyFy.

RL