I’ve still got another few weeks until Destiny sails off into whatever it sails off into but my American friends are already bemoaning the demise of Stargate: Universe. The series has had some excellent character development with Eli becoming more assertive and beginning to believe in himself and Greer changing from being a surly liability into a dependable stalwart. I will miss the theme music which I loved, not least for its difference to the other themes in the franchise, and, as always in these situations, I will forever wonder what would have happened in the end. Well, I’ll wonder about it for a couple of weeks at any rate.
We can analyse why the series failed and I don’t think we will ever get the right answer. Undoubtedly a lot of it has to do with SyFy’s change in tone in an attempt to move it from a genre channel showing reruns of shows that were originally shown elsewhere with a smattering of its own original products to the niche that had previously been taken by the Hallmark channel. In such a place, something as dark (and not just in terms of the lighting) as SGU did not fit. There were, after all, precious few episodes that ended with those last five minute tension breakers that characterised the other SG series and pretty much the whole of the Star Trek franchise. I couldn’t really imagine Young, Rush and Telford sitting round a table in the mess hall making a quip about whatever they had just faced in the manner of Kirk, Spock and McKoy at the end of a Star Trek episode and that’s pretty much de rigeur for the family orientated shows that are becoming the SyFy norm.
I would imagine that as the SyFy channel continues to evolve there will be a few of the lighter shows there, like Eureka and Warehouse 13 but I predict that the ultimate SyFy series will be something like CSI:Tycho set on a colony on the moon in the near but indeterminate future, in which a team of cynical detectives each with their own characteristic character flaws will solve crimes using an array of technology that is not too different from our own.
The team leader in CSI:Tycho will be a male, heterosexual, charismatic (and yet for some reason still single) recovering alcoholic, while his trusted lieutentant will be an attractive third generation female lunar colonist. She will possess some mutation that she is keeping secret from the rest of the team that was the result of poor shielding from cosmic rays in the early days of the colony. These two will be aided in their investigations by a crusty old medical examiner of European descent (most likely Scots), a young female detective with a crush on her boss and a fascination for handguns, a once disgraced detective (either sex), in whom the team leader saw True Potential (TM), and an autistic technician with a interest in an obscure youth subculture. Whether or not the series will feature a theme tune from The Who back catalogue is a matter of debate.
However, much of the SyFy produce will be the truly dire made for TV movies that are already becoming more and more common. I’m not sure if SyFy is trying to capture the “so bad it’s good” market with fare such as Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus but they too often fall short of the mark and hit the “so bad it’s merely bad” target right in the gold. When you consider the fact that they changed the channel branding to move away from the supposed ridicule that “SciFi” gave them to “SyFy” in an attempt to be taken seriously by the mainstream, the proliferation of such dross seems counter productive.
Silly spellings neither generate mainstream appeal nor make one appear to be edgy and relevant. Likewise, dumbing down simply alienates what has been shown to be viewer base that can be loyal to the point of obsessiveness. Shows like SGU, while dark, are intelligent and thought provoking and a channel wanting to show that it’s produce is not mere fluff with added lasers and explosions would be better promoting such shows than consigning them to the cutting room waste bin.
Tags: drivel, grumpy, pop-culture, satire, tv
