Y O Y the Syfy Channel?

I turned on my television over the weekend and realized that the Sci Fi channel had vanished.

The same shows were there, but the name wasn't.

In its place is something called the Syfy channel.

Whose dumbed-down, look-down-the-nose idea was this, anyway?

Do the network honchos think this is the next, hip iteration of the texting-literate generation? Or that we R 2 dum 2 no betr?

Sci fi, the venerable shorthand for science fiction -- a noble genre of literature and art and entertainment in its own right, with giants like Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury, Ursula K. Le Guin -- has been reduced by this phonetic and simple-minded non-word to something that looks like it's traded on the stock market.

I read that the execs who thought of this say it will allow them a ''broader range of content'' in programming. Terrifying words, those. Don't think for a minute that they mean more original programming, or more film classics like 2001: A Space Odyssey and Blade Runner and even Barbarella. My guess -- infomercials, and worse. The slick thinking must go that spelling it ''Syfy'' absolves the channel of any responsibility to the spirit of ''Sci Fi.''

Just the way that reducing the name from Kentucky Fried Chicken to ''KFC'' sent the web wild with speculation on the possibility that there might no longer be any real ''chicken'' in ''KFC,'' so now will people be, with much better reason, monitoring the amount of actual science fiction content in Syfy.

The Syfy channel exhorts me to ''imagine greater.''

So all right, I will:

I am imagining Rod Serling siccing the Kanamits on whoever thought this was a great idea. "Let's do lunch," they'll say. "You be lunch."

Follow Patt Morrison on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Op-ed columnist

Comments

[subgeniuszero]

To quote Harlan Ellison:

"The former [science fiction] says responsibility for your life is the key. The latter [sci-fi] assures you that you ain't got the chance of a hariball in a cyclotron. . . . It is obscurantism in illiteracy raised to the level of dogma. It requires that you be as ignorant today as you were yesterday. That you be no brighter than the sap who keeps playing three card monty on the street corner with a hustler who will never cut you a break. Sci-fi is what the Rancho Santa Fe sleepers were, not science fiction In that flashy but adolescent shell game called "Waiting for the UFO," they were philosophical suckers who turned away from the genuine wonders of the real world and all its solvable mysteries to embrace this sophomoric horse pucky of astrology and government conspiracies and re-casting of Jesus as Deep Space Navigator that had nothing to do with the problem solving and curiosity of science fiction. And it has everything to do with monsters, fear and dread produced by the dumbness of sci-fi. Greedy thugs only want to sell you movie tickets and poisonous delusions that enrich them by your stupidity and your fear. Because the truth is this: Neither heaven nor hell and certainly not a flying saucer can be found in the tail of a comet."

[NHBill]

Broadcasting traditionally has been identified with 4 letters or less. WABC or KCBS for instance. Many TV sets allow users to ID channels using 4 letters. SciFi is 5 letters. Changing to 4 letters SyFy allows for an easier ID and a more unique brand. See ...that wasn't so hard was it.

[hartkid]

"SyFy" = shut yer f'n yap. Wonder if they knew this before they changed over? I dropped satellite and didn't get a convertor for my tv when the digital switchover took place. I haven't missed anything. After about two weeks you don't even notice it's gone.

[Egghead]

I don't know what's sadder: renaming the channel to "SyFy," or cancelling the *Dresden Files.* I sense the same brilliant minds at work here.

[mredder4]

Please. Fans of the books (which I count myself amongst) realized right away that the TV show was drek. Brunette Murphy? (with a kid?) Hockey stick blasting rod?? Human-form Bob??? The word 'travesty' comes to mind. I can accept certain things in the interest of getting the material from the page to the TV, but it was just too much. That show doomed itself.

[BlackJAC]

The drumstick was the blasting rod. The hockey stick was the staff. And the way Harry's appearance was described in the books would make him conspicuous anywhere other than Salem, Massachusetts in October, something that's bad for a PI.

[luisnbill]

I read that the reason they changed their name was because they couldn't trademark the name "Sci-Fi" because it has common english language usage. A made up name like "Sy-Fy" will make money for them, or some such thing.

[robotfog]

I suppose it will enable them to stand out in a market where nearly everything is known as "Sci Fi". I guess that's an understandable reason.

I mean a "SyFy" show will be recognized as being on or from the SyFy network as opposed to it being seen as a "Sci Fi" show being produced for NBC or CBS or USA, or any number of other outlets..

[Chernynkaya]

Actually, they have embarked on some original programming: "Warehouse 13." I caught the pilot and it's not half bad- sort of a poor woman's cross between the X Files and the first Indiana Jones (thus the vast government warehouse in the final shot of the movie).

But Patt, this post is so beneath you. Why don't we read more of you here? I catch you on KPCC sometimes. You are such a professional that you never interject your opinions in those conversations. Why can't we hear them on HP? Inquiring minds want to know!

[llisa]

Siffy has really gone downhill. Most of the time, I don't even bother to check the listings.

[sisterdebmac]

Yeah, it's always cra pola "original" movies and repeats of shows I never liked in the first place whenever I do bother to check the listings. The only thing I'll likely watch on Siffy over the next few months is a little B horror/comedy they bought called Infestation, which debuts on 8/8. It looks unbelievably silly, but I love the cast.

[JScott]

Yup that's what happens now we're calling it Siffy......

that long lost sister to Saffy on AbFab.

[allthings]

I find creepier that stations like sci-fi, G4, and spike at certain times of the night

air back to back commercials for phone sex, male enhancement drugs, junk food, and job training programs. Are there really THAT many frustrated, lonely, average-endowed, unemployed, and overweight men out there watching this program? I immediately surf over to a 4th rerun of Iron Chef America.

[BlackJAC]

As opposed to all of the "get career training at Such-And-Such Diploma Mill" and ambulance-chasing lawyer commercials that air during daytime TV?

[BlackJAC]

Would you have preferred they take the high-falutin' Grecian route and called it "Psi Phi" or even "ΨΦ"? This isn't that big a deal.

[sisterdebmac]

How 'bout leaving well-enough alone. That'd work.

[cdub1991]

If everyone's calling you an idiot, then it it should be a big deal for them. Did anyone market test this idea?

[BlackJAC]

Considering that focus groups tend to be made up of unemployed losers who are there for the free food? The only people who consider this an issue probably have a T-shirt or tattoo somewhere that reads "Megatron Is A Gun," "Han Solo Shot First" or "George Lucas Raped My Childhood."

[mredder4]

You know what? Yes.

Yes, I would have prefered that they do something like that, because it would have demonstrated the existence of intelligence. Greek letters, OK, associated with Greek culture, which brought us a vast wealth of mythology, the forefather of sci-fi, that is amazingly acceptable.

[BlackJAC]

Science fiction didn't exist until after the Industrial Revolution.

[HGPilot]

Exactly. The owners of the SyFy have no interest in science fiction. They have an interest in gathering viewers to watch commercials. Most people think that a TV network's shows are their product and that their viewers are their customers. From their perspective of the network, we the viewers are their product, and the advertisers are their customers. They're in business to sell viewers to advertisers -- that's where their money comes from. If they can have a theme for the channel that consistently brings in a particular demographic that advertisers want, great. Otherwise, they'll show whatever gets ratings, such as wrestling on SciFi or poker on the Travel Channel.

[BlackJAC]

Science fiction is a dying genre.

[KeysE2S]

"Print is dead."
-Egon Spengler