I LIKED Raptor Island. It was a good little TV movie. It promised you, via its title, that it would have lots of scenes of toothy dinosaurs chasing, trying to eat, and sometimes actually eating, people. It delivered on that promise, early and then throughout the movie. Practically everyone got eaten. There was much chasing. Many weapons were fired, often to no effect.
I wish more SF movies were made as diligently and well as Raptor Island.
And while we’re at it, can we complain about the types of commercials the Sci-Fi channel chooses to air? Mrs. Runestar and I have been watching season 2 of the new Dr. Who on Friday nights, but we’re about ready to throw in the towel. Every freaking commercial break (which do occur far too often!) features an ad for the latest hack-'n-slash horrorfest; either “opening soon” or “now on DVD”.
The moment the commercials start we both lunge for the remote and the ‘mute’ button. If I want gore splattered all over my TV screen I’ll watch the latest news from Iraq.
That would be Ur-Anus.
SciFi channel seems to be 30% ads and 60% crap. They do run a few cool re-runs.
You know, I was so excited about the idea of a “Sci-Fi” channel until I found out that they somehow thought “Sci-FI” included Horror and John Edwards. :rolleyes: Well, sure John Edwards is SF, but they didn’t present him as it.
I hate the new “BG”. None of the origianl programming is any good.
TNT is pretty bad too- I watched the new Librarian, but it was ruined by “lower thirds” for some fucking new TNT series. :mad:
It’s all about the money, honey, and which demographic the advertisers are trying to reach.
Well it certainly bugs me, esp. when I am trying to figure out what those graphics
down there have to do with the show I am watching. Hugely distracting…
Really?? Well I guess you do learn something new everyday. Are cable channels completely unregulated? What regulating authority is responsible for bleeping out profanity, etc on basic cable? What about the satellite feeds? I’m not saying your wrong. I’m just surprised that the FCC doesn’t claim domain because although the signal is delivered to homes via cable, surely airwaves are involved somewhere in the process.
After some googling, It appears the FCC does indeed regulate cable to some extent http://www.fcc.gov/mb/facts/csgen.html . To what extent the FCC regulates what, I don’t have the energy or interest to wade through that document to find out.
The notion that cable isn’t regulated is silly. If it wasn’t regulated, the cable channels would be playing the naked card a lot more often in an attempt to gain some ground on the traditional network channels.
Well, yes, that’s rather the point.
Darn you to heck! I’d noticed the oddly placed commercial breaks and the fades to black without going to commercial. But now that you’ve pointed out that it’s systematic and how they set it up by delaying the first commercial break, I can’t stop noticing it every time it happens. I’ll try to enjoy TNT anyway, but it’s going to be tougher for a while.
TNT and other networks showing syndicated versions of formerly prime time shows shave them to make more time for commercials. I’ve caught TNT cutting off the last half of sentences when going to commercial.
At times the SciFi channel in the UK was only 30.4 SF and Fantasy 
Sounds about right. Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ short-lived post-Seinfeld sitcom “Watching Ellie” actually had a clock ticking down, visible on the screen throughout each episode, and there were only 22 minutes of content.
I thought it was a grave mistake of the producers to be constantly reminding the audience how much clutter there is in network primetime.
I think the above is correct, but it seems like it’s gotten much worse over the past 10 or 15 years.
The lower thirds on USA are the worst IMHO. They have one for The Closer where there is crime scene tape strung across the bottom of the screen. The lead actress walks up to it, lifts it, turns and shines a flashlight out at the viewer. At this point a full third of the screen occupied with this stupid ad. The flashlight pulls your eye away from the action of the show you are trying to watch. Lather rinse repeat 5 or 6 times per hour.
I thought that was TNT, not USA.
Either way, it’s extremely annoying.
What’s even more irritating is when you look at the original production details of shows. Space: 1999 has a running time of 52 minutes!
I have a whole deck of those cards.
I wasn’t sure so I asked my wife. She said USA. This afternoon I saw that damn thing on TNT and went :smack:
The naked card needs to get played on** BSG**, and right now!
Nekkid Athena…(drool).
I watched “The Day After” about a week ago on Sci Fi and it was atrocious. Apparently they needed to find even more room for commercials since they removed 90% of the nuclear attack effects. Pretty much gutted the movie. Thank God for my DVR.
The amount of advertising is the least objectionable thing about the SciFi Channel. I mean, the idea had such potential, and look what they give us! Cheesy big-bug movies! Butchered adaptations like Earthsea and Riverworld! John Edward! Ghostbusters! Wrestling! And just when they’ve got something good going, like Farscape, they cancel it.
Their writers and programming directors need to spend some time hanging out at SF conventions. Learn to know their target audience. In fact, that could be the basis for a show – “This Week in Fandom,” or something like that.
While i agree with your criticism of the programming, i don’t think that having the programming directors hang out at a Sci-Fi convention would help.
Not because the people at a Sci-Fi convention are a bad indication of what true Sci-Fi fans like; but because, despite its name, the Sci-Fi channel probably doesn’t consider those people its “target audience.”
I’m sure there are plenty of smart people at the Sci-Fi channel. I’m sure they’re well aware of what Sci-Fi convention-type people like to watch. If they really wanted to program high quality science fiction that true fans would appreciate, they could do it quite easily. It’s more likely, in my opinion, that they’ve deliberately chosen to go the route they have, because they’ve decided that there’s a greater audience to be found, and more revenue to be gained, by doing it that way.