tv execs hate sifi
The trouble is, is that sci-fi shows get tagged as cult, as as soon as that happens it is deemed to be unpopular to the mainstream audience.
Very few programmes have survived beyond cult status and the few that have are resigned to smaller networks, Lexx survived because it was happy with it’s lot, it accepted it’s cult status and carried on.
The one’s that think they can be bigger, i.e Farscape, Andromeda and Mutant X just fall flat on their faces, because they think they have a product that interest everyone and invest money in this belief, and when they do fail, the small followings they have scratch their heads and wonder why.
Stargate has held it’s own, and doesn’t belong in the category above, the same can be said about Star Trek and the X-Files, they did manage to appeal to broader audiences, but in turn the followers of the smaller sci-fi fayre (like above) decided these programmes to be unworthy, but regardless of this those programmes continued to draw in significant figures.
But it’s beginning to look more and more likely that new Sci-fi show’s need a big stage to reach the dizzy heights that Star Trek, The X-Files and Stargate SG-1 have enjoyed.
To be honest I think the Sci-Fi channel is actually detrimental to new sci-fi, but then Andromeda and Mutant X still go to show that disasters can still happen away from the sci-fi channel.
I guess Sci-fi has now become unoriginal and it’s an impossibilty to get a story that doesn’t relate to another sci-fi show in some way, and you have to be a risk taker to invent originality as was the case with Lexx, but at least it did try.
Maybe less is good for now, let the dust settle and maybe we will see something new that while might be unoriginal, might just give the public the taste for sci-fi again, at the moment the market is saturated with abysmal shows like Mutant X and Farscape, and it could well be the case that most viewers are tedious of seeing so much rubbish coming from the world of Sci-Fi.
ADM