Scifi's new programming

[Greg Cox]

Compare that to shows with a compelling and continuing storyline like Battlestar Galactica, Defiance, HBO's Game of Thrones and House of Cards. I find myself coming back week after week to see what happens next. Afaik, Syfy only had Defiance and Bitten. They needed more of this kind of show.

Okay, I'm really enjoying Defiance, but Bitten is proof positive that just being highly serialized does not make a TV series watchable. Lord, that show is tedious. I love werewolves, but even I gave up after about five episodes. I'm not sure how you manage to make a sexy blonde werewolf boring, but Bitten is glacially-paced, utterly humorless, and plays like a bad, cheaply produced soap opera--especially when you compare it to other modern-day werewolf shows like Teen Wolf or Being Human, which are much wittier and more creative with the concept.

Plus, as has already been pointed out, Eureka and WH13 were hardly the standalone procedurals they're being described as. Heck, Eureka once rebooted their entire timeline--and never reset things to the previous status quol

And as for the wrestling thing . . .yeah, it's annoying, but it's only about two hours a week. The way people talk, you'd think Syfy was running it 24/7. The way I see see it, two hours a week is no big deal--and certainly not worth bitching about every time somebody brings up the Syfy channel . . .

 

[Relayer1]

I've really lost faith in genre shows over the last few years. I've started watching Falling Skies, Grimm, Vampire Diaries, True Blood, Continuum and loads more. Some I quit early, some I even bailed on late in their run like True Blood.

A couple I stuck with got cancelled (Caprica, which I didn't miss and Stargate Universe, which I did), and I've only really stuck with Warehouse, although I'm still sitting on Defiance season 2 unwatched on the Tivo - I'm undecided.

I really need some something not set on Earth, some space opera or hardish sci-fi. Otherwise I'm just going to be left with 'normal' T.V. !

 

[Greg Cox]

A couple I stuck with got cancelled (Caprica, which I didn't miss and Stargate Universe, which I did), and I've only really stuck with Warehouse, although I'm still sitting on Defiance season 2 unwatched on the Tivo - I'm undecided.
!

For what it's worth, Season Two of DEFIANCE is definitely worth checking out.

No spaceships, excepts for the ones that occasionally crash to Earth, but still worth watching . . .

 

[Relayer1]

A couple I stuck with got cancelled (Caprica, which I didn't miss and Stargate Universe, which I did), and I've only really stuck with Warehouse, although I'm still sitting on Defiance season 2 unwatched on the Tivo - I'm undecided.
!

For what it's worth, Season Two of DEFIANCE is definitely worth checking out.

No spaceships, excepts for the ones that occasionally crash to Earth, but still worth watching . . .

O.K., I'll give it a go.

Couldn't quite bring myself to cancel the series link anyway...

 

[intrinsical]

Yes, Eureka and Warehouse 13 had arcs. Its why I added the word (almost) in there. But the fact is so long as I already knew the concept behind and cast of either shows, I can easily jump into pretty much any random episode, in any order I like and still be able to enjoy the show.

Okay, I'm really enjoying Defiance, but Bitten is proof positive that just being highly serialized does not make a TV series watchable. Lord, that show is tedious. I love werewolves, but even I gave up after about five episodes. I'm not sure how you manage to make a sexy blonde werewolf boring, but Bitten is glacially-paced, utterly humorless, and plays like a bad, cheaply produced soap opera--especially when you compare it to other modern-day werewolf shows like Teen Wolf or Being Human, which are much wittier and more creative with the concept.

I too bailed on Bitten after the fourth episode. The same happened with Ron Moore's Outlander. However, I attribute the reason to both shows specifically written for the female audience and not because they are badly written serialized shows.

 

[Greg Cox]

Yes, Eureka and Warehouse 13 had arcs. Its why I added the word (almost) in there. But the fact is so long as I already knew the concept behind and cast of either shows, I can easily jump into pretty much any random episode, in any order I like and still be able to enjoy the show.

Okay, I'm really enjoying Defiance, but Bitten is proof positive that just being highly serialized does not make a TV series watchable. Lord, that show is tedious. I love werewolves, but even I gave up after about five episodes. I'm not sure how you manage to make a sexy blonde werewolf boring, but Bitten is glacially-paced, utterly humorless, and plays like a bad, cheaply produced soap opera--especially when you compare it to other modern-day werewolf shows like Teen Wolf or Being Human, which are much wittier and more creative with the concept.

I too bailed on Bitten after the fourth episode. The same happened with Ron Moore's Outlander. However, I attribute the reason to both shows specifically written for the female audience and not because they are badly written serialized shows.

Nah. It's not a gender thing. Witches of East End was on Lifetime of all things, and definitely skewed toward a female audience, but it was still a lot of fun, no matter how many X-chromosomes you have.

By contrast, Bitten was just badly written and paced. Among other things, they introduced a small army of supporting characters without really giving us a reason to care about them--aside from the fact that I guess maybe they're important in the original novels. (I remember the very first episode had a long scene involving the heroine's psychiatrist's fiancee that seemed to serve no narrative purpose other than to introduce one more tertiary character whose significance was not readily apparent.)

Plus, it didn't help that you had a reluctant heroine whose whole schtick, week after week, was that she didn't want to have anything to do with all this crazy werewolf stuff and just wanted to have a normal life. Sure, Buffy used to pine for a normal life, too, but you didn't have to twist her arm every episode just to get her to, well, actually do something interesting . . .

Lots of brooding and talking, very little action, and a story that moved like molasses. That's not a gender problem. That just a boring TV show.

 

[cylkoth]

By contrast, Bitten was just badly written and paced. Among other things, they introduced a small army of supporting characters without really giving us a reason to care about them--aside from the fact that I guess maybe they're important in the original novels. (I remember the very first episode had a long scene involving the heroine's psychiatrist's fiancee that seemed to serve no narrative purpose other than to introduce one more tertiary character whose significance was not readily apparent.)

I stuck with Bitten all the way through. It wasn't the fun, train wreck of a show that Under the Dome was, but I just had to see where and how things turned out. And the heroine's wolf pack brother's fiancee, did lead to something significant, storywise.

But S1 was a jumbled, confusing mess and it's a miracle that it won a second season.

 

[Greg Cox]

I was actually kinda fascinated with Bitten--in a train-wrecky way. At every point, they seemed to be making the wrong creative decisions. I'm not surprised that the bit with the brother's fiancee paid off in the end, but the thing is, you have to give the viewer a reason to keep watching while you're doing all the setup stuff.

At times, I got the impression that they were trying so hard to incorporate stuff from the novels that they kinda forgot that they had to make each individual episode and scene worth watching in its own right, particularly for us folks who hadn't read the books and weren't already invested in the characters.

"Ooh, look everybody! Here's that popular character you all loved in the books! That's enough to carry this scene, right?"

Um, not really . . ..

Going beyond BITTEN, there's a trap that very serialized shows can fall into. They can get so caught up in advancing the big arc plot, and moving the story along from Point A to B, and servicing every ongoing subplot, that they forget to make the individual eps entertaining in their own right.

"Um, not much is happening in this ep."

"Yeah, yeah, we know. But just wait. All this setup stuff pays off big time six episode from now!"

 

[Owain Taggart]

I will never understand the issue people have with wresting on SyFy. It'd be one thing if SyFy chose to put on wresting instead of other programming, but that's not the case. It's actually the exact opposite. The money SyFy makes off of wrestling allows it to spend on science fiction programming, which traditionally is one of the most expensive genres. People should be thrilled with the role wrestling plays in SyFy's budgeting process. I just do not get all the negative reactions to it. Ok, it's not your thing, it's not mine either. Just don't tune in, there's plenty other things to watch.

I don't hate it. In fact, I used to watch it back when I was younger. I understand why they're doing it though, as they do have to fund everything they create, and they do create most of what they air, so it has to come from somewhere. For me, it's more about the puzzlement of sports appearing on a sci-fi channel as I don't think the audiences are the same. I do wish they could find a different way to fund their programming. Anyway, that's the last I'll say on it.

 

[Tim Walker]

Perhaps people will tune in for the wrestling....and discover that they like cheesy monster movies.

 

[eyeresist]

Eureka and Warehouse were great 'fluff' and I was distinguishing between these and 'crud' (you will note the ease with which I use these complex technical terms) - good fluff deserves it's place.

No, I still refuse to concede the term "fluff". Especially if you define fluff as meaning (1) not beating viewers over the head with heavy-handed socially conscious metaphor, or (2) deficient in grimdark. Most of these "revolutionary" continuing-narrative shows are essentially soap operas. Self-importance is not the same as intellectual seriousness (actually, it's the opposite).

I agree, there is room for both the light hearted and serious stuff. Keep the cheesy/campy monster movies, keep the Eurekas/Warehouse13s. Even keep a show like Face Off.

But what other programming would you choose? (Besides reruns).

New Star Trek!

SYFY : The Home of Star Trek

Looks nice, dunnit?

 

[Tim Walker]

I would definitely take a look at a new Star Trek series.

Speaking of a new series, some people were asked to devise their own space opera pilots. http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?609307-Pitch-your-Space-Opera-Pilot

 

[eyeresist]

Here's a thought experiment-if you were to design an original space opera series-a new 'verse-what would it look like?

There's a hell of a question!
Which you just changed to something else while I was writing my answer!

I'd be interested in something about mutation and new biological relationships. People being artificially adapted for new environments, humans who integrate themselves into vehicles or weapons or artificial environments, people cross-bred with genuinely alien lifeforms, or subject to alien parasitism.
These concepts might conjure some short story ideas, which in themselves might not be very interesting (oh god, not another sentient spaceship), but I'd be interested in seeing how this broader trend would affect human culture, how the different "new humans" would interact, and the ongoing argument about whether the human race could still be said to exist as such.

Which seems very abstract put like that. In practice it would be a show with various bizarre cyborgs and mutants attempting to co-exist, or even understand each other. Imagine a Star Trek show featuring characters like Spock (human-alien hybrid), Data (AI approaching humanoid sentience), Dax (human-alien biosymbiosis), Bashir (genetically improved human), a Borg (human-machine hybrid). and no regular humans. This show might need subtitles.

 

[Tim Walker]

Sounds like hard science fiction-with lots of biotechnology, cyborgs, etc. Actually, I think such a series could be set on Earth-sorry, no sentient spaceships. Set during the not so distant future. Perhaps in the show the characters could refer to a Biological Revolution or a whatever-revolution (analogous to the Information Revolution of recent years).

 

[eyeresist]

Sounds like hard science fiction-with lots of biotechnology, cyborgs, etc. Actually, I think such a series could be set on Earth-sorry, no sentient spaceships. Set during the not so distant future. Perhaps in the show the characters could refer to a Biological Revolution or a whatever-revolution (analogous to the Information Revolution of recent years).

That could work. It could be called Singularity, meaning the postulated AI singularity event would coincide with or rapidly lead to a biotech singularity. I don't necessarily think of the show being hard sf. In a way, it would be another version of the way Trek uses different aliens to represent different human attributes, so really it would be all about people.

Of course, it would be very expensive to produce, and a show without humans would be very hard to sell, so this can't be more than idle speculation.

 

[Tim Walker]

Unless this is a transitional period, so there are plenty of Version 1.0 humans around-who would be busy reacting to these new fangled beings.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Eureka and Warehouse were great 'fluff' and I was distinguishing between these and 'crud' (you will note the ease with which I use these complex technical terms) - good fluff deserves it's place.

No, I still refuse to concede the term "fluff". Especially if you define fluff as meaning (1) not beating viewers over the head with heavy-handed socially conscious metaphor, or (2) deficient in grimdark. Most of these "revolutionary" continuing-narrative shows are essentially soap operas. Self-importance is not the same as intellectual seriousness (actually, it's the opposite).

I agree. These were good, solid shows. Nothing fluffy about them.

 

[Relayer1]

Eureka and Warehouse were great 'fluff' and I was distinguishing between these and 'crud' (you will note the ease with which I use these complex technical terms) - good fluff deserves it's place.

No, I still refuse to concede the term "fluff". Especially if you define fluff as meaning (1) not beating viewers over the head with heavy-handed socially conscious metaphor, or (2) deficient in grimdark. Most of these "revolutionary" continuing-narrative shows are essentially soap operas. Self-importance is not the same as intellectual seriousness (actually, it's the opposite).

I agree. These were good, solid shows. Nothing fluffy about them.

I think we're using the term 'fluff' differently. I've said that there is good, well made, entertaining fluff. It may be lightweight, fanciful, implausible or tongue in cheek, but can still be great television. To use another genre, there's room for 'Chuck' as well as 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy'.

Fluff vs Grit. Both can be good - the term fluff isn't derogatory.

 

[Greg Cox]

No, I still refuse to concede the term "fluff". Especially if you define fluff as meaning (1) not beating viewers over the head with heavy-handed socially conscious metaphor, or (2) deficient in grimdark. Most of these "revolutionary" continuing-narrative shows are essentially soap operas. Self-importance is not the same as intellectual seriousness (actually, it's the opposite).

I agree. These were good, solid shows. Nothing fluffy about them.

I think we're using the term 'fluff' differently. I've said that there is good, well made, entertaining fluff. It may be lightweight, fanciful, implausible or tongue in cheek, but can still be great television. To use another genre, there's room for 'Chuck' as well as 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy'.

Fluff vs Grit. Both can be good - the term fluff isn't derogatory.

Fair enough. Although phrasing like "just fluff" can sound sort of dismissive and derogatory. My argument would be that there's nothing "just" about "fluff."

But, yeah, I like "Chuck" and "The Americans" and think there's plenty of room for both . . .

 

[Tim Walker]

Suppose that you are a Sy Fy suit. It is your job to come up with a profitable schedule. What would you do?