Zap had some rather pissy things to say about us. Oddly enough, he sent this to our Dragon Page email addresses, when the topic is clearly TV. Must not have been listening to us for too long or he would have known where to send the mail.
Wanna see it?
You people call yourselves Sci-Fi fans? The BEST season in
YEARS for science fiction fans has just started and most of you
aren’t even bothering to watch the shows…and it sounds to me like
most of you have already decided not to like what’s on anyway.Here’s a tip, people…SUPPORT scifi on television and we’ll get
more of it and better choices. Put scifi to work by supporting these
new shows. I’ve watched each of the shows and think they all are
better than that fucking “MANIMAL” shit I grew up with.If you want scifi…WATCH IT!!!
-A REAL SCIFI FAN!
What a jackass…sure this year has a lot of sci fi and it appears the industry may hit big but I don’t see you guys bashing every show out there.
Obviously, he doesn’t realize that you guys ARE watching. Or perhaps he hasn’t heard of TiVO? Or he doesn’t know what it’s like to have a LIFE and not be able to watch TV shows when they air.
F**k ’em, I say. Intelligent people LOVE your show. 🙂
We only bash the crappy ones.
What this person doesn’t seem to realize is that the Slice of Sci-Fi staff consists of more than just the on-air personalities,… so even if Mike or Evo may get not to see every single minute of sci-fi available on television or at the movies, there will always be at least one of us that views and reviews the programs for their on-air rant.
I can guarantee that most movie critics do not sit through every single minute of all the movies that are released on a weekly basis…but they do have a staff to help them out with many of those features.
I would have to say, having worked with Mike and Evo as their News Director that it would be difficult to find a more informed couple of on-air personalities in the area of a wide-range of science fiction, fantasy and horror television, books, movies and podcasting.
While they may not know the minutia of how many hair follicles are on an average Wookie, they do know what’s what and who’s who in that part of the genre that counts and is most interesting.
Standard Fanboy rant… though I would think it would help if you’re trying to promote good scifi, you may want to mention what show you’re refering to… Battlestar Galactica is excellent, though this season isn’t thrilling me as much as the first, Stargate SG-1 is doing pretty well despite the loss of their entire cast (usually a jump the shark situation but they’re making the best of it), and Stargate Atlantis doesn’t suck… As far as the networks, most of those new Lost clones aren’t scifi, they’re horror, and not really that good… so what more does he want?
I can’t agree with that guy because the shows were disappointing. I won’t blindly watch shows just because they’re called “Sci-fi”.
Of course they’re better than MANIMAL. It’s one of the worst shows ever.
Well said and AGREED, Sam.
I can only assume Zap had listened to Slice of Scifi Ep 25, where only Summer had watched Threshold. Surface and Invasion had not yet aired. He is not giving you much time to watch these new series!
Yes Slice should look at these new series but lets see a few episodes first, giving an opinion based on just the pilot doesn’t help anyone.
I can partly see Zaps point that we must support Scifi/fantasy. We have lost to many series, cancelled by network executives before they have had a chance to make their mark, Firefly and Brimstone to name just two.
So yes give these series a chance but if they don’t cut it then most of us have other things to do with our lives than watching crap to ensure we are given more crap.
If we do as Zap says and just blindly watch anything that is labeled SciFi then we will end up with crap like Manimal, Automan, Hard time on Planet Earth, and that Kight Rider rip-off with the Big rig truck (I can’t even remember the name of that show)(and those are US shows that UK tv networks thought good enough to buy – God knows what they left on the shelf that you had to endure).
Network Exec’s are not going to spend millions on imaginative well written television if they know that we will watch any cheap derivative rubbish because it comes with a SciFi label.
What shows is he upset that you didn’t like? On one hand, he has a point. Networks aren’t going to think “wow, we made a bad scifi show and therefore it got poor ratings”, they’re going to think “we tried scifi and it failed”. So it’s reasonable to watch even the crap in the hopes of encouraging something better. But then, you run the risk of only encouraging more crap while subjecting yourself to content not worth watching. For me? I don’t have enough time to watch the crap AND the good stuff, so I’ll just stick with the good stuff. Those willing to make the sacrifice for the greater impact, more power to you.
Hey John,
I think Zap misses an important point: Supporting *every* SciFi show that comes on won’t change anything.
About every 5-10 years, we get a new batch of SFF, usually in response to one or two hits that surprised everyone the previous season. Remember back in early 90s? “Babylon 5” was one of the shows that jumped on the ST:TNG bandwagon. This season is nothing new. From past experience, there is probably only one or two quality shows in the bunch and the rest won’t be very good.
The execs don’t care about that. What matters to them is ratings. New shows are designed to tempt people over to a new channel. I hate to say this, but even if we watch everything, as an audience segment, we don’t supply enough ratings to save *any* show.
Hard to believe? Well, you don’t hear (most) fans complaining about the crappy cancelled shows, do you? Yet even when we support the good shows like Firefly or Farscape, they still get cancelled. Basically, we are a much smaller segment of the viewership than the ones that watch shows like Nip/Tuck.
What makes a good SFF show succeed is when, for whatever reason, the show appeals to people outside of the core SFF community.
Anyway, we are doing the right thing. We are supporting the good SFF shows and, when they get cancelled, we are making huge amounts of noise about it. It is the only way to let execs know what kind of shows matter.
What’s the other way to make SFF succeed on TV? Make more converts.
So, Zap needs to get off *his* butt and convince others that SFF is a genre of TV worth watching. Because, from the way I see it, Mike, Evo, the Ninjas, and the rest of the staff here are already doing a great job of that.
So, wait….you didn’t watch the first episode of Threshold and you’re not sf fans. Never mind that the premiere of Threshold aired agianst one of the last two eps of BSG we’ll get for the year 2005. No, let’s not let that disuade us from dropping an e-mail tearing in to you guys.
And ya know, y’all are human and you probably have lives outside of just watching SF. I know–it’s hard to believe, but it’s true. And I am sure your families would appreciate seeing you every once in a while. So, I don’t hold it against you that you didn’t see the new stuff.
Besides, Invasion if just lackluster. Surface I won’t go near with a 10-foot pole and Threshold has yet to wow me as Lost did last year.