Unearthed Arcana Why UA Psionics are never going to work in 5e.

Wasn't this around the time that they got onboard with a bunch of non sci-fi programming, such as reality tv?
I seem to recall that the official rationale was that it would give them the opportunity to expand into different types of programming. As far as the business analysts were concerned it was a naked cost cutting measure. It also occurred when there was a change in leadership in the network.

They have had a long-term conundrum: viewership goes up when they show new science fictions shows (especially when they hit the watercooler conversation level like the Battlestar Galactica remake), but they tend to be expensive. They seem to have hit the sweet spot by running a lot of Canadian science fiction shows.
 

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I suspect this is something held dear by sci-fi authors rather than something would effect the naming of a channel. I can sympathize with authors who think they are unfairly labelled as 'genre writers' by an establishment that uses labels like that as pejoratives. There's a group for whom popularity and genre are automatic disqualifications from the 'serious' fiction club. Those people suck.

Yeah, I don't get it sometimes when people want to talk about "real literature" and I'm an English Major.

Read Moby Dick for a college class, and when we got to the end, do you know the overwhelming message involved in Ishmael's life being saved? Friendship. It is quite literally the Power of Friendship, like any Saturday morning cartoon. He had other messages, obviously, but that one just jumped out at me. It also plays a huge part in the Lord of the Rings, after all, it is why Frodo and Same got to the mountain, because of the strength of their friendship allowing Sam to drag Frodo up.

One of my current favorite authors is a "no-name" on Kindle Unlimited. One of their fantasy series involved a plot by the villains to brainwash and enslave a sleeping goddess. And it worked (kinda). Then, in a later book, they actually deal with the identity crisis of the Goddess, who can't go back to who she was, but can't be who they made her into either, and the discussions between the sides of her church about what the canon belief will be.

They didn't dive deep into socio-political or allegorical stuff, but the baseline ideas were fairly complex takes on identity and who gets to decide your identity when you are a "public figure"

Heck, I'll make an admission, I've read porn that had a deeply layered story involving the struggle against your own dark impulses when you are powerful enough that no one can stop you. Does power corrupt and can you stop it from corrupting you too much was a major theme in that work. With amazing characterization and solid writing.

Even stuff I hate, like the Twilight series, can have a glimmer or two of a great idea, so I don't understand why people feel this need to point out an entire genre or sub-genre of writing and call it lesser. Sure, a lot of that genre might be drek (bodice rippers and romances, I'm looking at you, and you know it) but I'd never say it was impossible to find amazing writing within that genre.
 







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