SMBC Comics Forum

Well I was reading the latest penny arcade, and it directed me to this article. Now, I pretty much never watch the Sci Fi channel, but this is pretty ridiculous. As the bald man (Holkins/Tycho) said,

Whenever I read things like this I always feel as though I'm going a little crazy, but it's possible I am more sensitive to shit of this particular variety.

I agree completely.

For me, it's slightly more alienating than their decision to show wrestling programmes on the channel. I've always been into Skiffy things, and I honestly am having a difficult time in quantifying how upsetting this is to me; this choice feels like a betrayal of everything that Science Fiction is supposed to be.

Science Fiction is the Court Jester of all storytelling media; It's allowed to play with the heavy concepts and find new ways of doing things purely because it is generally seen as trivial and geeky, despite being far wiser than many people realise. Attempting to bring it into the mainstream and feed it to people who really don't 'get' that Sci-Fi is a way to talk out the major problems facing Society is not the most intelligent move.

Hrm. I've got a whole mess of things that I want to talk about regarding this, but as yet all of my concepts are inchoate. All I know for certain is that I have completely lost respect for the Sci-Fi channel.

Like I said, I didn't watch it. I did, however, respect it. It is pretty much the only channel to go for sci-fi programming. Now it's giving itself a new image just to play it up to non-losers (they pretty much called geeks losers).

Yeah, I'm not sure I see the wisdom in deliberately alienating your entire viewing demographic. Maybe they're just setting up so they can jump out of a closet and shout "April Fools!" in a couple of weeks.

Edminster wrote:Hrm. I've got a whole mess of things that I want to talk about regarding this, but as yet all of my concepts are inchoate. All I know for certain is that I have completely lost respect for the Sci-Fi channel.

Until now, I thought that word was "incohate".
You never know what you'll learn on the SMBC forums!

Colbert mentioned it on his show tonight. Cool.

Edminster wrote:For me, it's slightly more alienating than their decision to show wrestling programmes on the channel.

While I love those types of stations for a lot of things, their programming choices often bother the hell out of me.
I rarely watch SciFi, but I do with some of the other channels. And what I have seen irks me somewhat.
Dog the Bounty Hunter on the Outdoor Life Network?
Axemen on History? Not to mention some of the "historical" movies they sometimes show?
How do these relate? I don't understand.

Lethal Interjection wrote:

Edminster wrote:For me, it's slightly more alienating than their decision to show wrestling programmes on the channel.

While I love those types of stations for a lot of things, their programming choices often bother the hell out of me.
I rarely watch SciFi, but I do with some of the other channels. And what I have seen irks me somewhat.
Dog the Bounty Hunter on the Outdoor Life Network?
Axemen on History? Not to mention some of the "historical" movies they sometimes show?
How do these relate? I don't understand.

I don't remember the name of the network, but I remember thoroughly enjoying the show Junkyard Wars. It was so cool. Unfortunately, they stopped showing it, and they didn't replace it with something similar. Instead, the network decided to only air show about home decorating and flower arrangement. They took one of the manliest shows on television and replaced it with some of the sissiest shows on television. It was horrible, and I'll never forgive them. Was it TLC, maybe?

ChooChooTrain wrote: I don't remember the name of the network, but I remember thoroughly enjoying the show Junkyard Wars. It was so cool. Unfortunately, they stopped showing it, and they didn't replace it with something similar. Instead, the network decided to only air show about home decorating and flower arrangement. They took one of the manliest shows on television and replaced it with some of the sissiest shows on television. It was horrible, and I'll never forgive them. Was it TLC, maybe?

I think you are right. I heard so much about that show, but I never had cable or satellite growing up (actually I've only lived in a house with it for about 16 months of my 26 years) so I never actually saw it. I always wanted to, though.

That was a great show, and I think it was originally on the discovery channel in the U.S. and then switched to TLC.

I love how that show was originally hosted by Kryten

Edminster wrote:Skiffy

For a moment I worried this was some furry thing.

Now I study linguistics which might confuse me, but I read Syfy and think [sifi], or "see-fee". So the name sounds plainly dumb to me.

I don't know, I play video games in my basement and I'm just not that interested in most sci-fi under any name. To me it sounds like one of those attempts at pandering to the "cool, edgy crowd", which I am always told exists somewhere out there and will actually fall for something so ridiculous. But I don't think a name change to stay "hip" really fools anyone or changes anything.

LordRetard wrote:

Edminster wrote:Skiffy

For a moment I worried this was some furry thing.

You're thinking 'yiffy' and I'm going to burn in hell for knowing that. Some knowledge is forbidden for a reason, people.

Edminster wrote:

LordRetard wrote:

Edminster wrote:Skiffy

For a moment I worried this was some furry thing.

You're thinking 'yiffy' and I'm going to burn in hell for knowing that. Some knowledge is forbidden for a reason, people.

What, I know what it means too. I am anon, if you remember. (Although I don't take part in their hatred of the furry fandom. To me, it's just another fetish. Trust me, there are worse ones out there [i.e. cat-stomping. Seriously who gets off on that stuff?])

Sci-Fi as a phrase annoys me. It really ought to be said as 'sigh-fih', not the rhyming way. Even crazier, we could just say 'science fiction'! I'm sorry, that's just crazy.
/abbreviation snobbishness

Rainbow wrote:Sci-Fi as a phrase annoys me. It really ought to be said as 'sigh-fih', not the rhyming way. Even crazier, we could just say 'science fiction'! I'm sorry, that's just crazy.
/abbreviation snobbishness

That's why I prefer to pronounce it 'Skiffy'.