Heh. I wish I had so much free time that I had to find something else to do. Between a job with longish hours, a long commute, going to the gym and 2 kids (not to mention the weekly game), I don't have enough free time to watch that much stuff as it is.
I didn't watch the new BG. Did I avoid it because it wasn't the original? No. I avoided it because the early reviews I heard of it sounded awful (cylons are now sultry women who have glowing spines while they have sex). I vote with my attention-share. While BG was on, I was playing Prince of Persia or watching something on Tivo. Or playing D&D.
As far as the SciFi Channel is concerned: I remember when they first came out, to do their ptiches, as the regional SF conventions. They were there to generate buzz, and to invigorate their potential viewer-base. It was
embarassing. The reps from SFC were painfully ignorant of their audience, and it was clear when the sharks started circling that they realized it. They had come with beads and shiny trinkets, and expected the natives to be pleased. However, these natives were restless. They weren't prepared, for example, to answer the questions that were asked. Any halfways knowledgable person should have expected a "Will you be showing Star Trek?" question. They stared in horror, clearly not having expected it. They flubbed the answer for five minutes before giving the actual answer they should have. They came expecting guys easily cowed geeks, and found that they didn't really know that much about SF fans. The people who ran SFC's excellent website and scifi weekly were there at the con at different panels...and they immediately distanced themselves at every opportunity. "Oh, I don't have any connection with programming decisions or things like that." was heard several times an hour.
And that is the problem, right there. SFC gave lip service to being a channel for SF fans...but it's not, and never really was intended as such. It's a channel that air shows that have some SF element in them, from Wonder Woman to The Man from Alantis to The Food of the Gods to Mann and Machine. If they can attract the core SF fan audience, that's swell...but they're not going to cater to them. I lost hope in the SFC the minute I saw my first "FTL feed". Oh, how awful those were.
Does that mean that SFC is a complete failure? No. In fact, they've done some excellent things over time, like the talk shows they had or the news show with Harlan Ellison doing commentaries. Their show-slot where they'd show old shows that only went a handful of episodes was excellent, too.
But jdavis has a significant point. I see more Science Fiction on other channels than I actually see on SFC. SFC was the first channel to show anime...but Cartoon Network figured out how to actually use it. While SFC showed the same four movies over and over, CN figured out how to make the format work. Shows like Cowboy Bebop and Blue Gender, which are perfect fits for SFC (due in part to their broad appeal to people who aren't anime fans). And if you want to see a monster movie or science fiction film from before the mid-80s, you'd best head over to AMC or TCM, instead.
I don't watch SFC because it doesn't offer me anything anymore. And that's a shame.
(
by the by, LightPhoenix...Tenacious D fan, are we? Eric's Grandma wouldn't like the title of that song, now would she? 
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