Scifi Watch » syfy

Eureka Renewed for a 4th Season

David Halpert — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 23:27:34 +0000

Fans of the popular Syfy original Eureka will be happy to know that the show has been green-lit for a fourth season for 22 episodes, which will likely to air next summer. The original announcement came in late July at last month’s ComicCon in San Diego.

The announcements included some intriguing news items:
• One or two episodes of the new season have been set aside for a musical episode. We know Colin Ferguson is a comic and improv performer, but can he sing? Ferguson hinted to the panel that he might not feature heavily in that episode. Erica Cerra (Jo Lupo) can, but she seems likewise wary of a musical episode.
• Matt Frewer will return as the (mysteriously absent) animal expert Taggart.
• Show runner Jaime Paglia confirmed that Allison’s pregnancy wasn’t planned – they decided to incorporate Salli Richardson-Whitfield’s real-life pregnancy.

Actress Erica Cerra, who plays Deputy Jo Lupo, was happy that the show will continue for a fourth year.

“We were thrilled, and more so that it’s 22 episodes,” Cerra said. “Last year they made an attempt to do 21, I believe it was, and we got cut down to 18 because of the writers’ strike. So we’re thrilled, and the way we found out was so much fun, getting word before the end of the season. You’re usually waiting until much later [to get word of renewal or cancellation]. I love working on this show, and we have a really great cast and crew, and we’ve got a good thing going. It’s nice.”

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Stargate Universe Trailer Released in Theaters

David Halpert — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 23:17:38 +0000

For those of you that had the fortunate pleasure of seeing either Halloween II or Final Destination 4 this weekend, you would have noticed a new trailer for Stargate Universe just before the film. For those of you that have no idea what I’m talking about let me just say that Stargate Universe is the third-installment of the Stargate television franchise (after Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis).

Stargate Universe follows the adventures of a present-day, multinational exploration team on board the Ancient spaceship Destiny. Transported to Destiny in a distant corner of the universe and unable to return to Earth, members of the team are forced to remain on the vessel and fend for themselves.

While this is the show in a nutshell many have already drawn comparisons to the show Battlestar Galactica. Nevertheless, I look forward to watching it as the show remains one of the most anticipated series to air this fall, especially for fans of the Syfy channel.

Despite not being able to get my hands on the actual movie trailer, I’m able to provide you with the recently released extended trailer for the show. I hope it is to your liking. Enjoy!

Scifi Channel Becomes Syfy Channel

David Halpert — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 23:35:27 +0000

The popular specialty channel, SciFi Channel, owned by NBC Universal and home to such television programs of Eureka, Torchwood, and Battlestar Galactica has decided to rebrand its website and magazine from scifi.com to syfy.com.

Now (as Robert J. Sawyer points out on his blog) most science fiction authors don’t like the term ‘sci-fi’ to describe their works. For many writers of the genre ‘sci-fi’ brings with it a connotation of entertainment science fiction, basically Star Trek and Star Wars, what people’s perceptions of science fiction are rather than what it actually is meant to be. If anything, Sawyer notes, authors prefer the abbreviated SF.

Dave Howe, President for the channel, said that the Sci-fi name was limiting and followed it up with this statement in a recent article to the New York Times (read the full article here). “If you ask people their default perceptions of Sci Fi, they list space, aliens and the future,” he added. “That didn’t capture the full landscape of fantasy entertainment: the paranormal, the supernatural, action and adventure, superheroes.”

Honestly, I don’t really care for the change. I think the bigger question is who will receive the domain name for Scifi.com? Will it simply direct users to the new syfy.com? Personally I get new users added to Twitter every day just by virtue of having ‘Scifi’ in my username ‘ScifiWatch’. In my opinion I think the change will do more harm than good. For one thing it may detract some advertisers and viewers who have long been loyal to the Scifi brand. But putting that aside for a second, despite people’s perceptions of science fiction, when you see the Scifi Channel it’s a clear indicator of the genre. What do people conjure up when they hear Syfy? Some kind of sponge?