Science Fiction, Not Syence Fyction

When the SciFi channel became the "Syfy" channel, I felt a subtle nausea. There was wrongness. Like when you bite into something and it's bad. Not bad as in you don't like it, bad as in rotten, as in pre-born maggots are waiting, as in if you let that linger in your mouth you're gonna hurl.

Sure enough, this feeling was justified.

Where there were once fun and campy and even occasionally good things to watch, "Syfy" now makes National Enquirer level trash. Pseudo-reality series that are worse than reality. Like "Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files" and "Legend Quest" and "Haunted Collector", one more vapid and vomitous than the last.

There are a few good series still going: "Warehouse 13", "Eureka" and the new series, "Alphas" are all fun and good entertainment. I'll probably keep watching "Ghosthunters" just for the jeering outlet. But Syfy has taken the science fiction out of their modus operandi in more ways than one. What the hell is "Marcel's Quantum Kitchen" or wrestling doing there? It's bad enough we get Hollywood types faking pathetic investigations, now we have inane people doing mindbogglingly bad cooking to prove nothing, and a bunch of posturing loudmouths in spandex on what used to be my favorite channel. Oh and let's not forget the greed questing in things like "Hollywood Treasure" or "The Haunted Collector", the latter of which goes around relieving people of valuable items after declaring them the source of hauntings.

What the hell? Science fiction is and always has been the refuge of the nerds, the brainiacs and the reclusive. This programming is not for us anymore. It's for National Enquirer readers. Maybe that's why they changed the name to something easier to spell.