Article on SyFy Channel
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Doctor King
Lieutenant Junior Grade
Fireshark?!
Oh, come on.
You won't laugh when you see a flaming shark in aerial combat with a squadron of F-16s.
Or maybe you will. We hope that you will.
Of course, I'm going to watch!
Fireshark.....
Fireshark?!
Oh, come on.
You won't laugh when you see a flaming shark in aerial combat with a squadron of F-16s.
Or maybe you will. We hope that you will.
Of course, I'm going to watch!
Fireshark.....
Don't forget the theme song! If Sharktopus taught us anything, it's the importance of a catchy theme song:
"Fireshark!
"Its bite is worse than its bark,
"It's hotter than hot . . .
"Watch out for . . . Fireshark!"
Doctor King
Lieutenant Junior Grade
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!
I like them both, actually, and a lot of other things. And I'd love to see an Analog channel, but that won't happen-- for the very reason that it would be way over the heads of the vast majority of the audience. I was just commenting on Dennis's derisive and inaccurate remarks about Science Fiction.
Ah, but the question is, why would anyone expect (or even want) a scifi tv channel to be Analog?
Buck Rogers and The Blob have been with us always, and, traditionally, the pulp stuff has always been more popular (and prolific) than, say, Things to Come or Blade Runner. So why would one expect Syfy (or any commercial scifi station) to be running Heinlein or Gene Wolfe adaptations 24/7?
Then again, I always prefered Weird Tales to Analog . . .
Although the perfect Sci Fi Channel would probably be a nice mix of Pulp SF and Hard SF.
I've already proven it: Real SF requires more intelligence and imagination and knowledge (or at least desire to learn) than other genres by definition. Or are you going to sit there with a straight face and tell me that the audiences for Isaac Asimov and Danielle Steele are interchangeable?
Because as we all know, James Joyce, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Joseph Conrad, J. D. Salinger, and Ernest Hemingway all had no intelligence, imagination, or desire to learn. If only they'd had a fraction of the talent of Kevin J. Anderson.I've already proven it: Real SF requires more intelligence and imagination and knowledge (or at least desire to learn) than other genres by definition. Or are you going to sit there with a straight face and tell me that the audiences for Isaac Asimov and Danielle Steele are interchangeable?
Or are you going to sit there with a straight face and tell me that the audiences for Isaac Asimov and Danielle Steele are interchangeable?
But what about Asimov versus Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, or Daphne DuMaurier?
I'm not familiar enough with the romance genre to really know who writes the good stuff and who are the hacks, but I suspect that, like all genres, there's a wide spectrum between the classics, the award-winners, and the potboilers. No doubt the true devotees know the difference.
All I know that I've seen too many clueless people dismiss all science fiction as juvenile tripe to make the same mistake regarding romances, mysteries, westerns, or whatever. No single genre has a monopoly on quality or educated readers.
Comparing Asimov to Danielle Steele is like dismissing sf by comparing Jane Austen to L. Ron Hubbard . . . .
To turn your argument on its head, are you seriously going to argue that BATTLEFIELD EARTH attracts more intellectual readers than PRIDE AND PREJUDICE?
It's funny that this kind of "reasoning" is exactly what Theodore Sturgeon identified as the problem with mainstream evaluations of popular contemporary science fiction: "No other literature is judged so exclusively by its worst examples."
That aphorism can be turned on its head: attempts like this one to exalt sf and its fans as somehow above the common herd depend upon cherrypicking the worst examples from all competing fields of endeavor. It's intellectually lazy if not outright dishonest, and in that regard scarcely persuasive that skiffy fandom represents an "intellectual elite."
That aphorism can be turned on its head: attempts like this one to exalt sf and its fans as somehow above the common herd depend upon cherrypicking the worst examples from all competing fields of endeavor. It's intellectually lazy if not outright dishonest, and in that regard scarcely persuasive that skiffy fandom represents an "intellectual elite."
Hmmm...is Shirley Bassey still in the business?
Okay, just to play devil's advocate, don't all networks cancel shows every season? Why should syfy be any different? Or are we holding it to a higher standard just because it's the scifi channel?
I mean, I miss FARSCAPE, too, but favorite shows get cancelled sometimes. That's just how it works.
True, but Farscape was SciFi's flagship show at the time. How many networks cancel their most popular shows without warning? That cancellation came out of nowhere and didn't make any sense.
They renewed Farscape and then said: "OMG J/K LOL"
That's a great quote. I'm going to have to remember that one.
And, yeah, I find that's a fairly common rhetorical trick on the internet. Whenever there's a debate like this, people always pit the best examples of one genre (or author or medium) against poor or mediocre examples of the opposition, thereby stacking the deck.
If want to argue, say, westerns versus horror films, you don't pit THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALENCE against BRIDE OF THE MONSTER. That doesn't prove anything, except that John Ford was a better director than Ed Wood.
If you really want to argue genre vs. genre (which strikes me as something of a pointless exercise), you need to pit the best against the best. THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN versus PSYCHO or whatever . . . ..
Yeah, but it's a pointless exercise as you say. It's like "Ice cream versus sex" - yes I have a preference, but as a dichotomy it makes no sense.
I was never able to get into Star Gate, either the movie or the series. I have made several attempts to but just couldnt get interested. Dont get me wrong Im not knocking them and a lot of people liked the shows. But since Sci-Fi canned SGU, on a whim I started to watch episodes of it on HULU and I gotta say I actually like it. It went in another direction and IMO a good one. Im just sorry I wasnt there from the get go. Good solid Sci-Fi drama.
I've already proven it: Real SF requires more intelligence and imagination and knowledge (or at least desire to learn) than other genres by definition. Or are you going to sit there with a straight face and tell me that the audiences for Isaac Asimov and Danielle Steele are interchangeable?
The only thing you're proving is that you have no idea how to put together an argument. You picked a good (although I'm not a fan) sci-fi author and compared him with one that is not well respected. If I picked Kevin J Anderson and said sci-fi must be shit because the romantic genre has Charlotte Bronte and Jane Austen you'd laugh at me. Just as how I am laughing at you.
They may (or in some cases, may not
) be good writers, but they are still mainstream writers. Reading F Scott Fitzgerald simply does not require as much of the reader as Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein et al. It's simply not possible. It's the nature of the genre. All literature requires certain things of the reader-- literacy, of course, some basic understanding of Human nature, and so on. Real SF requires in addition a higher level of intelligence and imagination; that's why it appeals to a minority of readers.Make any comparison you want. I was using sarcasm to help make the point, but it doesn't matter. The comparison is not between specific writers, but between the fundamental definition of the genre. If somebody dismisses SF as "juvenile tripe," then they either are clueless as to the genre, or don't know the difference between books and TV.
So, again, you can honestly sit there and state that SF as a genre does not require more of its readers? That's worse than intellectually dishonest-- it's political propaganda.
Making a point using extreme examples is hardly a bad argument. You can laugh all you want, but it won't change reality. Reading Jane Austen-- or Nathanial Hawthorne or Shakespeare or revered writer of your choice-- simply does not require the knowledge, imagination and intelligence that SF does. That's just not the way reality works. Just because you can change the spark plugs doesn't mean you can rebuild a transmission.
SG-1 is kind of fun. Don't know that it was ten seasons worth of fun, but how much really is?
They may (or in some cases, may not
That is utterly absurd. There is ZERO proof to back up such nonsense.