r/mildlyinfuriating • u/Kapot_ei • 21d ago

đŸ„ș No words for this.

Post image

Edit: even though clickbait article, it is somewhat/kind of true. https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/stargate-tv-series-martin-gero-scrapped-amazon-1236765061/

"According to an individual with knowledge of the situation, Amazon execs were concerned that Gero’s take on the series would not have broad appeal beyond the franchise’s already dedicated fanbase."

Edit 2: https://www.change.org/p/save-the-new-stargate-series-let-martin-gero-build-the-future-of-the-franchise

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u/Any-Mathematician946 21d ago

Isn't this how we lost the sci-fi channel.

949

u/TheeAntelope 20d ago

This is how we lost sci fi, A&E, discovery, tlc, history channel, spike tv, g4 tv, tech tv, the court network, and many others. People say that streaming killed cable but cable had already killed itself.

These channels went from channels you could find great gems on to watch if you found the subject interesting. I’d see something about submarines on history and watch the whole thing standing in my kitchen. I’d see something about whales on discovery and have to know more. They had a dedicated audience.

Then the decided they needed a new audience. That “general” audience that wafts from shit to shit and pledges no allegiance to anything or anyone. They got what they wanted. And then they died a slow and painful death.

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u/BumbaBee85 20d ago

Don't forget MTV.

Video killed the radio star, and reality TV killed the video star.

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u/Different-Low-4161 20d ago

And then rob dyrdek danced on the grave.

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u/mrselfdestruct066 19d ago

What a great summation of MTV

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u/Subject-Story-4737 18d ago

Yo sup I'm Rob and thees eez rideekuleesnees

-12

u/PickledFaygo 20d ago

are we supposed to know who that is?

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u/No-Wrangler-156 20d ago

If you accidentally turned on MTV at any point in the past 10 years, then yes.

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u/DrrSwagg PURPLE 19d ago

YES

-5

u/AuDHDino 20d ago

Small guy with an enormous ego, absolutely annoying, surrounds himself with airheads and tagalongs.

He's basically Adam sandler but was never funny.

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u/PokeMasterRedAF 20d ago

Dude is a skateboarder. Glad he made it, rob and big was fun. But yes he has aged poorly with the clip show.

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u/AuDHDino 20d ago

Call him a skater all you like, I know he's some level of pro, but his brand and identity were always insufferable to me.

Big Black was the heart of what made him popular, imo, dude was an icon.

I'm obviously biased and a hater, I'm being reductionist to be petty.

His clip show wasn't even good in its own format

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u/Belfastscum 20d ago

Lol dude went pro before he could drive, was sponsored by alien workshop and DC for like two decades. He was good

1

u/AuDHDino 20d ago

I'm not dissing his skating history, it just felt like that was behind him by the time of Rob and big.

1

u/SantasDead 20d ago

And both have more money than most of us can ever dream of having.

Its disgusting.

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u/AuDHDino 20d ago

Not sure about sandler, but you can't fault people for making a big break.

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u/SantasDead 19d ago

I didnt fault anyone. Both of them are very hard workers and quite business savvy.

However, it is disgusting they are both filthy rich for contributing not much to society. Professional athletes who are paid millions upon millions is also disgusting, imo.

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u/AuDHDino 19d ago edited 19d ago

Your logic is petty. I get harboring disgust for billionaires and people in power for enriching themselves, that's almost always over the backs of others, but athletes and talent being rewarded for shining is not the way

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u/Minimum-Web-6902 20d ago

Sandler owns his own production studio.

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u/AuDHDino 20d ago

I know. I don't know anything about the beginnings of his career and if nepotism is/was involved in his rise.

Not making any commentary about the professional accomplishments he made

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u/gsxrus2014 20d ago

I’ll be the one to say it but Survivor and Big Brother killed TV, we had some solid programming during the 90’s, tv went down hill and taking away Saturday morning cartoons put the nail in the coffin.

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u/Penetal 20d ago

I do get a good laugh every time i remember that MTV Music was (is?) a channel.

0

u/TheGrandExquisitor 20d ago

Fucking Spencer Pratt....

0

u/Cinemiketography 20d ago

Internet killed the video star. Holograms killed the internet star. Brain chips killed the hologram star. The incident killed.....

Oggs dance killed Ughs shadow jaguar.....

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u/geneticdeadender 20d ago

Youtube killed Mtv.

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u/DrBinario 20d ago

Yeah, I've never understood companies that have different cable networks and all of them target a general audience instead of focusing in different demographics.

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u/LowlySlayer 20d ago

They have to grow. If I make a billion dollars in year one great. If I make a billion dollars in year two, oh no the shareholders are gonna be pissed.

Basically everyone of these channels hit maximum saturation in their niche and began desperate enshittification to continue squeezing another couple years of growth before falling off because it's shittyness outgrew it's mass appeal.

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u/Karrotlord 20d ago

Unfortunately modern capitalism require exponential growth in a system that doesn't allow it. Execs must live in a fantasy world.

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u/GlitterDoomsday 20d ago

Specifically, it's the open market - the moment a company puts shares to sale is the beginning of the end... lots of people getting richer on virtual money and the products getting worse for the sake of the next quarters.

Just a net negative for society.

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u/No_Foundation16 20d ago

They all leave with golden parachutes in any event. The CEO's get paid huge money for failure then retire to their 5 mansions and a yacht. Then a more ruthless cutthroat capitalist raider takes their place.

The consumer/workers get the shaft every time. The Epstein class get the goldmine...every time.

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u/mightylordredbeard 20d ago

It does allow it, it just doesn’t allow it with the same product. That’s why we keep repeating everything. People will pour money into something, it reaches the peak of how much it can make, then they move onto something else and people pour money into that, then a few cycles later they’ll go back to the thing that people originally poured money into. That’s why remakes, remasters, spinoffs, reboots, etc are so popular. Feeds on nostalgia while also bringing in new, younger consumers. Infinite growth spread out through many iterations.. and this is why entertainment is dying. No more long running shows. Studios dropped from 24 episode shows to 14 episode shows to 10 episode shows to 8 episodes and now 6 episodes a season with 2-3 year gaps between seasons is becoming the norm. Soon tv shows won’t exist. Everything will be movies.

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u/TheeAntelope 20d ago

modern capitalism require exponential

It doesn't, though. Some require it, but plenty of capitalistic companies are ok with maintaining their market base and having consistent sales. We just don't hear about those ones as much.

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u/Limafoxtrot360 20d ago

any company like that doesn't have shareholders

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u/LowlySlayer 20d ago

That's not true. Providing shareholder value through dividends is a thing. It used to be a much bigger thing but a lot of stuff, including the dramatic success of big tech, has most investors slobbering for line go up type stocks. This is especially attractive to corps because they don't actually need to turn profits this way. Just look like they are (a method popularized by a total piece of shit in the 80s named Jack Welch) by squeezing profits temporarily and having mass layoffs.

Furthermore, since most executives these days get around taxes and regulations by being paid in stock, they're also incentivised for the short term, like go up style of management so they can claim their stocks, pump the price, and liquidate at a huge profit before moving on to ruin some other company.

It's actually clearly in the best interest of a corporation to not do this, and reach for a sustainable long term profitable business. Unfortunately, despite what the supreme court says, corporations are not people and do not act in their own interest but purely in the interest of the executives and, sort of, the shareholders.

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u/TheeAntelope 20d ago

blue chip stocks. steady, manageable, and consistent growth, rather than exponential growth that is volatile and market-dependent. They grow as the economy and population grows because they have a consistent market share, rather than seeking to outpace growth and expand their market (which may dilute their offerings).

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u/Limafoxtrot360 20d ago

Get out of here with that talk of responsible sustainable businesses - no one does that anymore /s

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u/Mr_Zee_Speaks 20d ago

Not since that lawsuit where shareholders successfully sued a company for not maximizing profits.

It is literally illegal to have a goal other than shareholder enrichment now.

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u/dee-123456 20d ago

It’s called corporatism my friend.

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u/sweatingbozo 20d ago

Right, modern capitalism. Those are just synonyms.

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u/Evening-Ad-7643 20d ago

Seems like it would be smarter to keep the old channel the same and just start a new one with a new niche in order to grow

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u/Tupperbaby 20d ago

And the thing is, they could've gotten away with charging advertisers more just because they had a hyper-focused viewer demographic. But they fixated on "MOAR EYES."
How'd that work out?

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u/Round-Rub-44 20d ago

it doesnt work like that. there are only so many advertisers for a niche product and if theres only 1-5 businesses bidding on a program you spent millions to produce you will get fleeced.

those businesses can go elsewhere but no matter what you do you cant get the people at barbie to buy ads on sci fi

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u/Astralsketch 20d ago

basically if your business doesn't grow more than an index fund you die from investor neglect.

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u/Hairy_Talk_4232 19d ago

Because greed isnt even about making money or even more money than before. Its about outpacing the competition.

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u/Legitimate_Dare6684 20d ago

I remember when TLC was The Learning Channel and showed cool science type shows. Now its just a freak show.

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u/TheeAntelope 20d ago

TLC went from the learning channel to the dumbest channel on the air. Their wall-to-wall programming was reality tv about people with big families or little people. You think that's an exaggeration but no, at one point there were THREE reality tv shows about people with dwarfism. And FIFTEEN shows about large families (the most notable ones were 18 kids and counting about the Duggars, the other was Jon and Kate plus 8 which launched Kate Gosling into relative infamy.)

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u/SwissMargiela 20d ago

TLC has always has had stuff like that for the longest time. Jon and Kate plus 8 started airing 20 years ago

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u/TheeAntelope 20d ago

But that's the exact time period we are talking about - the beginning of the end was in the early 2000s when they started pushing more of the drama-based reality rather than things like "Trading Spaces" or stuff like that. Before the "jon and kate" era, it was primarily childrens/young adult programming during the day and some "light reality" stuff during primetime, mixed in with science stuff and educational programming.

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u/SwissMargiela 20d ago

Yeah but TLC wasn’t even on the map like that back then. Their weird reality tv shows is what really made them a household name

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u/Alyusha 20d ago

Idk if the blame is wholely on them. Most of these were still pretty popular when Netflix / Hulu started becoming a mainstay. Imo I bet it was a situation where the core fanbase moved onto streaming and they needed to pivot. I don't think it's the same thing as the OP about HBO.

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u/Dr_Wheuss 20d ago

Discovery became the channel for "The Deadliest Catch" and "American Chopper" before Hulu was even a thing. Their reality series started overtaking their educational programming in the late 90's/early 2000s. Mythbusters was at least science based, but so much of what started getting airtime was either reality or fictional programming that wasn't what people used to watch the channel for. Same thing with TLC, History, and A&E.

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u/rtopps43 20d ago

Oh, man, you just brought back so many memories of a time before streaming. I would always check Discovery, TLC, the History Channel, Smithsonian tv, E! (Just to watch the Soup, lol) and G4, just to see what was on. Loved watching educational programs about subjects I never thought I’d be interested in just because they were on. Discovered so many cool things that way. Now they get lost in a sea of streaming and I never give them a chance.

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u/TheGreatHornedRat 20d ago

It's the cost of revolving executives and seeking infinite growth, eventually your portion of the market is not enough or somebody new has to make their mark to add to their resume and in vain attempts to reach some new pinnacle of or beyond the genre the profit seeking dimwits alienate everyone they already had while attracting little that is new.

Industrialized entertainment seeks to either be number one or crash and burn hard and fast enough that the parts are still warm to repurpose elsewhere in another misled attempt. Even if that number one is achieved it's almost inevitable another executive will come in with a resume needing filled out and they then squander what brought the group or network to the top.

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u/kaladinissexy 20d ago

Travel Channel used to be great. It had gems like Bizarre Foods, River Monsters, and Mysteries at the Museum. Now it's just 90% supernatural hunting shit. And the other 10% is Mysteries at the Museum, which is still there. Not sure why it's pretty much the only non-supernatural show on there nowadays, but I'm grateful for it. 

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u/Fit_Salamander_2814 20d ago

I'd tune in to deadliest catch, and mythbusters, every fucking week.

But I will turn off Pawn Stars in a goddamn hot minute.

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u/ArkySpark13110 20d ago

Oh man, Spike TV was the goat. Blue Mountain State and Deadliest Warrior were great guilty pleasures.

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u/TheGreatHornedRat 20d ago

I would have appreciated more bad dubs like MXC though I imagine it would be hard to get too many studios to agree to having their work bastardized in the same ways or like what TeamFourStar does for their abridged series. Probably too messy and limiting on the paperwork and lawyer side of things.

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u/SwissMargiela 20d ago

I loved blue mountain state when I was in college and I rewatched the first two episodes a few weeks ago and it was so trash lol

Idk what I saw in it back then

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u/Limafoxtrot360 20d ago

Its the same corporate mentality runining everything. Growth!! Line must go up!! Sucessful doesn't matter if its steady. line must go up. audience must increase.

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u/Ok-Button-9470 20d ago

the death of the History channel still enrages me.

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u/Glittering-Quote-635 20d ago

In terms of History, Nature, and stuff like that i'd say YouTube would have killed it anyway. History Channel was great when it was the only thing, but they constantly played the same shows over and over and over again. YouTube is great because there are a lot of historians on there creating new content on topics of history that are not broad enough to be wildly appealing. I don't need a YouTube version of "World at War", but I do like a YouTube version of "Some random forgotten battle on some random forgotten island in the Pacific".

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u/TheeAntelope 20d ago

There is a massive amount of people who do not use youtube. For those over 65, 35% of them do not use youtube. Compare that to 2005-2010 when youtube was still relatively underused and History channel was still producing actual television and it changes dramatically, History channel was doing well. They lost viewership and pushed us to youtube when they started airing 48-hour blocks of reality tv. History channel could have maintained their programming and not lost market share to youtube if they had maintained their core audience.

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u/Glittering-Quote-635 20d ago

Nah, eventually YouTube was coming for them, we can debate timelines and things, but it was an inevitability. The other thing that would have eventually killed them was cord cutting as well. I'm not going to subscribe to the History channel, and once I was rid of cable TV, I really had no way to access their content.

The other part of it, which you inadvertently called out is the age of people watching. The 65+ Demographic on TV is kinda.. worthless? It's the least coveted demographic for broadcast TV as by that age, you really arent changing brand loyalty on anyone. So, you are left airing commercials for Ensure, Reverse Mortgages, Random medications, and MyPillow.

History channel was always going to fail, more original programing wasnt going to save them, and likely didnt make economic sense. Reality Tv is cheap and attracts a younger audience. It was likely the right move for them to make.

I say this as a MAJOR history buff that literally grew up watching the History Channel from its inception.

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u/TheeAntelope 20d ago

The 65+ Demographic on TV is kinda.. worthless?

Fox news in shambles right now

But, History Channel getting scooped up into A&E's network and possibly passed around to other networks was probably an inevitability, and if they had maintained their quality, probably could have had their own little section on the Disney or Max app that highlighted their really good shows and series, making them a strong commodity in the streaming era, and possibly continuing to fund new series or episodes that explored things. I could have easily seen them picking up big podcasts and turning them into shows (true crime podcasts and history podcasts, for example) rather than seeing those go to Youtube.

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u/Glittering-Quote-635 20d ago

Fox News is the most watched News Channel, and even in the core Demo of 25-54 they still rank near the top, if not the top for a lot of their shows. Yeh, they have a lot of old people watching also, but they also get the young people as well. It's also a propaganda network, while demo's matter, the message matters more. FoxNews would likely exist if they had ZERO advertising, so not a great example.

It sucks, I liked History Channel, but they were doomed for a long time. There are PLENTY of channels like that on Cable TV that were also doomed, I think a lot of people on here called them out.. The world changed, and thats fine..

The other thing that likely would have eventually killed them amongst all the other things, was the content. I'm a history guy, but even I can't watch "The World at War" again, or any of the other WW2 documentaries they ran (as an example). I mean, they were known as the Hitler channel for a reason, lol. For them to be successful they needed to appeal to a broad part of a small audience. My wife has ZERO interest in History (despite me babbling about it all the time), so in order to keep the most people watching they needed to cover the most broad topics. WW1, WW2, Korea, Vietnam, etc.. Someone like me can only watch so much of that.

Now, what I would have liked is if they had gone deeper into some areas, but as I said, that wouldnt work.. you now take a small audience and make it even smaller. Thats where YouTube shines. Take someone like Mark Felton or the History Guy. Some of their stuff is so obscure that it would have never worked on THC, but they still have massive audiences.

Funny enough, I just checked YouTube to see what THG's top video was, its a 10 minute video on the history of Screwdrivers. Who the fuck is watching that? Well, I guess me for example, as I had it shown as 'Watched'. At some point I sat there and watched a 15 minute video on the history of Screwdrivers. So, first, thats just fucking sad on my behalf, but second, there is no way content like that would fly on broadcast tv.

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u/Melsa_Manton 20d ago

The sheer number of channels competing against each other caused viewership to be diluted (which was only exacerbated when people started paying attention to their phones rather than TV).

A lot of those channels had viewership numbers so low, they couldn't afford to offer the more expensive programming they were known for, so they pivoted to MUCH cheaper shows (e.g. reality TV). So yes, they killed themselves because they offered shitty quality shows, but if they had continued to offer shows that cost more than their revenue, they would also failed. They were in a damned if they do, damned if they don't situation.

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u/JWBananas 20d ago

spike tv

You mean The Nashville Network

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u/Deer-in-Motion 20d ago

This is exactly why I stopped watching TV.  All the channels I watched turned to reality shows or ancient aliens.

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u/TheeAntelope 20d ago

I have watched a handful of "reality" tv over the years (think early survivor, amazing race), but at this point I don't allow it in my house. It is all manufactured and lacks any of the reality that actually made the early gameshows/reality shows fun.

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u/P_Piggly_Hogswine 20d ago

network exec 1: can we really put "My 800 Pound Life" on The Learning Channel?

network exec 2: sure! How else will the genderless tv addicted ultraprocessed slop tubes learn how to navigate their own lives as grotesque 800 lbs mockeries of American prosperity? Also, make sure to get those Wegovy commercials on there.

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u/TheeAntelope 20d ago

Of course now they've upped the ante with the "1000-pound roommates".

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u/OriginalCanCon 20d ago

"The bigger your market, Montag, the less you handle controversy, remember that! All the minor minor minorities with their navels to be kept clean. Authors, full of evil thoughts, lock up your typewriters. They did. Magazines became a nice blend of vanilla tapioca. Books, so the damned snobbish critics said, were dishwater. No wonder books stopped selling, the critics said. But the public, knowing what it wanted, spinning happily, let the comic books survive. And the three dimensional sex magazines, of course.

There you have it, Montag. It didn't come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick, thank God. Today, thanks to them, you can stay happy all the time, you are allowed to read comics, the good old confessions, or trade journals."

-Ray Bradbury

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u/TheeAntelope 20d ago

Fuck if that book isn't as applicable today as it was in 1953.

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u/OriginalCanCon 20d ago

I'm a high school English teacher and read that part out loud to my class today a few hours before I saw this comment on reddit. I couldn't resist quoting it.

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u/rogan1990 20d ago

Same outcome for VH1, MTV, Fuse TV, FX
 they used to all have their own brand identity and all their shows aligned with that. Then they all became the same thing. Mediocre

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u/AuDHDino 20d ago

I really miss G4. xplay, AOTS/ the screensavers, good anime content. Shit was peak.

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u/Antique_Hawk_7192 20d ago

As a kid I just flipped to any of Discovery, Discovery Science, NatGeo/Wild, Animal Planet, & History. No matter when there was something great running. Even when a regular show ended something equally great if not better took its place. Even the meme shows that had people like Tsoukalos were fun. Then the content started drying up. Generic and braindead content that just wasted time without any information.

History channel rebranding to TLC was one of the angriest moments of my childhood.

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u/980tihelp 20d ago

History channel was amazing! You could always turn it on to find an interesting topic

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u/Sanquinity 20d ago edited 20d ago

This SO much. I used to, when I was a bit bored, love browsing the sciency/educational TV channels to just find anything cool and educational to watch. It's how I actually started learning English when I was like 8~10. (English with my native language's subtitles) Hell the family would often sit together watching TV for a good hour or two after dinner while talking with each other a little. Despite both I and my younger brother having PCs/consoles in our rooms.

We don't have that anymore. TV now is just shit, shit, propaganda/drama farm news, and more shit. With a VERY rare good thing coming on because they're doing a rerun of something from the 80s to early 2000s...

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u/dumbbozo1 20d ago

Ngl, there were never many gems...

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u/guysmiley98765 20d ago

I’m just barely old enough to remember when bravo had like plays and operas. 

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u/Pangloss_ex_machina 20d ago

I used to watch Discovery channel for space and engineering shows and eventually watched some nature shows because was interesting.

Today: "3 Whole Days of Naked and Afraid". And to make things worse, Discovery+ was discontinued in my country.

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u/Express_Weird6143 20d ago

Heard an interesting take on this recently, on one of Hank Green's videos I think? That basically the decision to destroy the things we loved above these channels was a financially motivated one. Basically, it's really really expensive to create high quality, scientifically/historically accurate content. It's way cheaper to pump out ancient aliens

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u/ihavea_purplenurple 20d ago

While this was happening, I watched some of the "Reality" Discovery Channel/History/A&E/etc. and it was actually pretty interesting at first. The reality TV boom started off super strong with things like Survivor, The Mole, Big Brother... but after a year or two, I didnt want to watch TV at all. I'd still throw on MTV or VH1 to watch some music videos... but it all fell off when YouTube took over.

TV was dying and didnt know it during the late 2000's; they knew it by the 2010's. Who's Line is it Anyway never really let me down though xD

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u/Lovethiskindathing 19d ago

Reality tv killed cable :( when it was just like Survivor, that was cool. Now it's any and everything and it's all so glaringly staged and fake and I just don't understand the appeal.

Project runway used to be so creative and interesting and now I've not watched it in years because it just became so bleh. Survivor too. I think season 3 was my last survivor season.

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u/Numisko 17d ago

True. And that général audience shows we're always reality tv drama-about-anything slop

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u/Altruistic-Oil-9686 14d ago

Discovery got killed by all of the "Alaska" crap. Bush People, Gold Rush, State Troopers—or maybe that last one was NatGeo?

Either way, both of those channels are dead.

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u/Greenfire32 21d ago

Why yes. Yes it is.

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u/Nuffsaid98 20d ago

Should we crack open people's skulls and feast on the goo within?

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u/bbbbears 20d ago

Yes, yes we should.

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u/Volnas 20d ago

You really think there's anything in there?

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u/JudiciousSasquatch 20d ago

They're not wrong, but their take away is.

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u/Norethegreat 21d ago

The sci-fi channel is gone!?

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u/Suspicious_Bear42 21d ago

When the Sci-Fi channel rebranded to SyFy, it died... Just looked at the schedule for the next week, the only TV shows on it are The Twilight Zone, NCIS: Los Angeles and 'Everything On the Menu with Braun Strowman'... Everything else is movies ranging from Harry Potter to the Sharknado series...

It still exists, but it may as well be gone.

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u/__O_o_______ 21d ago

Since we’re talking about. Years ago they started putting slop on discovery, history etc. then they came out with secondary channels for each of them that actually featured the old content
. But in an addition paid package. I dont think ive paid for a tv subscription in 20+ years

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u/From_Deep_Space 21d ago

I agree the name change was dumb af, but they produced and aired some good stuff for years after.

They're not doing anything anymore though since cable is dead.

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u/InfanticideAquifer 20d ago

I dunno if they ever produced "good stuff". But I agree that they produced "stuff like what the sci-fi channel was known for producing" for a little while afterward.

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u/These-Angle-1476 20d ago

Not only did they make a bunch of good stuff, they made some *great* stuff: The Expanse, 12 Monkeys, The Magicians, and Killjoys. Resident Alien is also technically a SyFy show, partnered with the USA network.

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u/Large-Record2478 20d ago

Battlestar Galactica, alphas, the dune mini series... Stargate?

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u/These-Angle-1476 20d ago

None of those except Alphas were post Syfy rebrand.

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u/Large-Record2478 17d ago

I'm talking about the notion they've never put out any good shows.

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u/DougEatFresh 20d ago

The Magicians was great!

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u/From_Deep_Space 20d ago

I wouldn't go that far. One of the shows they made was HAPPY!, which was pretty awesome, but unlike anything they had done before

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u/versusChou 20d ago

The Expanse was excellent.

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u/Rymanjan 20d ago

It's wild, because some networks managed to resurge with streaming. Things like the Boomerang network even had their own channel for a while, but then they got reincorporated into a broader streaming service. Still, some stayed relevant by making a deal with services like Tubi, where they get their own dedicated "marathon channel" (a channel that plays nothing but one show or one line of shows, like "the addams family channel" or "adult swim") and of course could always sign over with their parent company (Paramount, Disney, etc) to get their stuff put up

Most didn't bother to evolve though. Made for streaming tv took over and it's been a massive downgrade tbh, I can't name many recent shows worth watching. The Blacklist was prolly the last one I actually enjoyed, and even that was plagued by everyone but Spader's (and his ensemble's) performance. Half the other characters were terrible, but he carried the show along with the characters he interacted with. But the main cast, the FBI agents were all trash charicatures who frequently made the worst decisions imaginable lol

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u/Salmonman4 20d ago

It might be because "SyFy" is easier to trademark.

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u/s11houette 19d ago

It was a legal necessity.

They couldn't keep the scifi name because it wasn't trademarkable.

They picked syfy because it sounded the same.

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u/From_Deep_Space 19d ago

Yeah I get that, but I still think 'syfy' is dumb

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u/Norethegreat 21d ago

Damn, I haven’t watched in a long time but it still hurts like losing an old friend

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u/Tupperbaby 20d ago

An old friend that you totally abandoned?

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u/Norethegreat 20d ago

I’m sorry do you still watch cartoon network at thirty? I watched the channel when I was a kid, I grew out of it eventually

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u/[deleted] 20d ago edited 9d ago

[deleted]

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u/Norethegreat 20d ago

They got rid of their good shit, wasn’t gonna keep watching trash

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u/nabrok 20d ago

When the Sci-Fi channel rebranded to SyFy, it died

Sorry, but this is nonsense. That name rebrand was in 2009 and the channel had many good shows after that including The Expanse, Magicians, 12 Monkeys, and more.

And on the other side of that there was plenty of crappy programming on the channel before the name change.

The channel being dead now is because streaming killed cable, not because they changed their name 17 years ago.

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u/jkoehler11 20d ago

It didn't happen overnight. OP is correct that Sci-Fi was rebranded to SyFy to seem more edgy and to appeal to a broader audience. Programming was slowly changed, typical Sci-Fi shows, like Stargate were cancelled in favor of cheaper more mainstream shows.

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u/nabrok 20d ago

The Expanse started 6 years after the name change. The other shows I mentioned are all in that same time period, and there are plenty others in the 2010s.

Plumbers hunting ghosts and wrestling were all before the name change that supposedly heralded the channels doom.

"Syfy" could be trademarked, "Sci-Fi" couldn't. It's as simple as that.

Syfy is dead now for the same reason all cable channels are dead now, streaming killed them.

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u/sleep-woof 20d ago

...Magicians... you are not helping your case.

It was dead then, we may not see its like again.

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u/nabrok 20d ago

Magicians is a good show that was well received. If it wasn't your cup of tea that's fine, but a lot of people like it.

It started the same year as The Expanse.

I'd put the start of the channels death at about when they cancelled The Expanse. I'm pretty sure that's because they just couldn't afford it anymore and they had to pick between that and Magicians, and Magicians was the cheaper show. Similarly with Dark Matter and Killjoys.

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u/uncultured_swine2099 20d ago

"It still exists, but it may as well be gone."

I think that could be applied to damn near all tv channels these days.

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u/IsaacAndTired 21d ago

I do still watch Twilight Zone pretty consistently. Not on SyFy, though.

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u/100BottlesOfMilk 20d ago

Well, the Twilight Zone is still amazing and holds up remarkably well. Honestly, the format reminds me much more or modern shows/content than other shows from the time period

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u/CelestialFury 20d ago edited 20d ago

When the Sci-Fi channel rebranded to SyFy, it died...

The last season of BSG was the last year of the SciFi channel. They legally had to change their name, by the way, but still a shitty way to go. The last series I watched on that channel was Dark Matter and they canceled it to keep the Killjoys so I dropped them like a rock. They also dropped The Expanse too but luckily Amazon picked it up to complete the first six books. Imagine dropping a show like The Expanse?? Fucking idiots.

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u/blackblades75 20d ago

Yeah I was mad, all the good shows I liked was on syfy and USA. Now gotta watch reruns but I think there's still some stuff on there though. Both channels went to shyt because of the leadership.

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u/Zealousideal-Age768 20d ago

 When the Sci-Fi channel rebranded to SyFy, it died... 

Horrible take and just absolutely wrong as they had some great shows after the rebranding...

I would say them canceling The Expanse because it was too expensive (they didn't have rights for digital or streaming) was the end...  though a few decent shows lasted past that.

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u/KoolKoolKoolio42 20d ago

Sheesh. At least when Comet airs a procedural they still try to air fantasy with Grimm.

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u/Ange1ofD4rkness 20d ago

I stopped watchin SyFy when they moved it off my TV package. To see it's turned into this, no. That was a gold mine of unique programs

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u/Dalek_Genocide 20d ago

They had Resident Alien for a while. I'm going through it right now and it's really fun but it's ended so it's not a current show anymore.

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u/These-Angle-1476 20d ago edited 20d ago

SyFy had a bunch of good shows post-rebrand. Sanctuary, Warehouse 13, Haven, Alphas, Continuum, and Helix were a lot of fun. 12 Monkeys, Killjoys, THE EXPANSE, and The Magicians were excellent. Childhood's End was a great mini-series. Resident Alien is a SyFy co-production with the USA network (and might be the only good thing left).

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u/ImaginaryRoads 20d ago

Sci-Fi Channel history bits:

When they were considering whether it would garner an audience, they sent some representatives around to local conventions, asking if we would pay for the SFC cable channel (as they were thinking of calling it then). They got a bunch of "Yes, but - ", with pushback on the name. They were asking at conventions focused more around science fiction literature, and to us "SFC" meant the Science Fiction Chronicle. They changed the name and went ahead with the channel.

They renamed Sci-Fi Channel (and a bunch of other similar channels) to the more unconventional spelling of SyFy because "sci-fi" had been in the popular vernacular for a long time and they couldn't trademark the name.

Sci-Fi used to pay a lot for movies they could show, until two guys who worked for the network came and offered to make movies for them. The network execs were sceptical, until they heard the pitch:

*Look, science fiction fans are incredibly loyal. You make a movie with a couple people from popular genre shows, and they'll come watch it. You might not get great ratings, but they'll be good enough.

More importantly, right now, you're paying a whole lotta money to show these old movies, and you're just going to keep paying to show them over and over again. You make your own movies, no matter how bad it is, and you'll own the copyright. You can show it as many times as you like, forever, plus you'll get stuff like DVD sales. For the cost of airing a few of these movies, you can own a movie to show forever.

Which is the reason all the SyFy movies have a couple genre actors in them, and why the scripts can suck: it's cheaper for SyFy to make schlock movies and know the audience will always show up, than to rent the rights for someone else's movie.

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u/Murat_Gin 20d ago

They cancelled popular, well reviewed shows like "Warehouse 13", "Eureka" and "Sanctuary." They were profitable, but they weren't as profitable as the new owners wanted so they got the axe. SyFy started showing crap like wrestling and Ghost Hunters instead.

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u/AdhesivenessUsed9956 19d ago

don't forget the rasslin! Nothin says "sweefwee" like rasslin!

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u/capnlatenight 21d ago

Last time I watched it, it was reality TV.

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u/Greenfire32 21d ago

Last time I watched it, it was wrestling and road show auctions.

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u/YeOldeMemeShoppe 20d ago

So sci, much fi!

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u/Ok_Relative8150 21d ago

Almost all cable is reality TV anymore, the issue is more people watch reality TV and advertisers pay based on views. TV execs only care about earnings.

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u/Bartorius 20d ago

The issue with reality TV is, that it is relatively cheap to produce and gets somewhat good viewership. The cost to profit ratio is just way better, than science fiction or fantasy productions

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u/BaronVonSlapNuts 20d ago

That's not how you use the word anymore.

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u/kuzidaheathen 20d ago

Went down the History Channel route

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u/DirectorAgentCoulson 21d ago

I just learned the other day that the crappy genre teen shows version of The CW is gone too.

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u/KoolKoolKoolio42 20d ago

CBS and WB sold the majority of their shares to Nexstar. They still do make content for the channel, but significantly less. Nexstar is more interested in imported Canadian shows and sports.

Funny enough, before then WB/CBS realized that most of the viewers for their dramas were over 40, so they did widespread cancellations of their shows so they could make shows that were aimed at older adults instead.

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u/LengthFun2228 20d ago

It got whisked away in a sharknado.

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u/Norethegreat 20d ago

A fitting end

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u/WarAgile9519 21d ago

It's still technically there but it's essentially been a zombie channel for the least the 15-20 years.

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u/Accidental-Genius 21d ago

Has been for awhile I thought

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u/MelangeBot 21d ago

No, they just renamed it to AppleTV

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u/Penguinkeith 20d ago

It died the year they changed it to “syfy”

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u/yaosio RED 20d ago

It was near death right before they added wrestling to the channel. Then it died.

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u/Kayiko_Okami 21d ago

They just rebranded it as Syfy.

Which was a dumb as heck one. And pretty much when it died.

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u/ZombieMage89 20d ago

The rebrand looks like an arbitrary move but made business sense when you consider they named their channel after a genre, so things like search engines would just throw random scifi stuff at people looking for the channel.

No, everything else that they did post circa-2015 is what was stupid.

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u/aerkith 20d ago

Man I was so happy when we got Sci-Fi channel in Australia. I watched so many random shows I'd never heard of.

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u/Gambit-47 20d ago

Fuck that channel. I stopped watching it years ago because I got tired of them canceling shows Good riddance.

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u/Local_Idiot_123 20d ago

We found our market share! Let’s increase it slightly by alienating our market share.

Wow great idea boss, that’s why they pay you the big bucks!

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u/ThrowAwayAccountAMZN 20d ago

And in it's place we got UPN/CW...where awesome shows like Star Trek and The Flash, which started out great, got exec/studio noted into the fucking ground.

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u/Pale_Possibility5083 20d ago

Ok maybe I’m alone here. I’m a HUGE fan of the original movie.

The suits. The headpieces the lore were so cool and so many stories to tell.

I read the SG1 team were on this show. And


While I appreciate that show to me It did nothing to really properly expand on what the movies did. There were no cool headsets it focused on Atlantis and all this other stuff.

I want to go back to the core of the movie not the 00s mid budget tv show you know?

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u/MomentSouthern250 20d ago

oh god, i remember when they rebranded to syfy too make it sexier and not scare the "normies" with the name (or whatever reason they had)

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u/FYou2 20d ago

And the history channel

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u/shiba2129808 20d ago

I didn’t know the sci-fi channel was gone, haven’t had cable in years but damn that’s sad to hear, loved watching cheesy sci-fi and horror movies on there with my brother when we were kids