What happened to Syfy's original programming?

Helix - another one I enjoyed. While it was still good the second season really wasn't up there with the first season. It is also a show I point out as an excellent way of ending a season when you are unsure of renewal. The season 1 finale would have been a great series finale with just some very minor editing, just take out the scenes of Ilaria Corp. in France and let the destruction of Arctic Biosystems end it.

I have no issue with comic based shows so I will probably check out Resident Alien

 

Isn't Walking Dead the most successful show on AMC? It's really good, although I guess I got bored with it. I just checked... I have 38 unwatched episodes sitting on my TiVo, from S8E5 to S10E10. I'm going to need a three day weekend to binge that many episodes.

ObOntopic: I really like most of SyFy's original series. I think I've watched all of 'em. Its movies, OTOH, are generally terrible and MST3K worthy. Of the current crop, Van Helsing, Wynona Earp, Magicians are all good. Love Magicians. I read the books before the show came out, which might make it easier to understand, although the TV series has now gone way beyond the books, which were covered in... what, just one or two seasons?

 

Not so much that they covered the books, as they wandered further and further away from them, until you can no longer see the books from where you are.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, as long as they keep the quality up. And they have, in a way that's, well, very different from the books.

 

Unless the serial killer is...

AN ALIEN! FROM OUTER SPACE!

 

I seem to remember at one point they had plans to produce a series or miniseries of Ringworld. I was really looking forward to that. I have no idea what happened to that one.

 

Yeah, it was announced a couple times. First in 2004 and again in 2013, but nothing came of it.

Netflix supposedly was going to do one too but never got around to it I guess.

 

Hell, they don't even broadcast that much second-run programming anymore. I think I've only seen The Twilight Zone and Futurama. How about reality, like Ghost Hunters and the like?

When I was younger, I loved the all day marathons of classic shows like The Incredible Hulk, Buck Rogers, original BSG, et al.

 

I suspect the advent of streaming services (and their need for material) has driven up the price for old programming..?

 

A lot of their bad Eastern European "original" movies are probably now bad Netflix "original" movies.

I was checking IMDB to see if one of my favorites, "FDR:American Badass" was a SyFy movie when I found a link to this hitherto unknown masterpiece: Helen Keller Vs. Nightwolves

 

Once upon a time, MST3K was a Sci-Fi Channel original series!

 

Not watched anything on SyFy since Dark Matter was cancelled.

 

A lot of second-run (10th+ run?) SF programming is on the Comet, Heroes and Icons, or MeTV channels:

COMET TV Shows / Series

Babylon 5
Hammer House of Horror
Mystery Science Theater 3000
Stargate SG-1
The Outer Limits

H&I | Shows

Adventures of Superman
Batman
Beastmaster
The Dead Zone
The Green Hornet
Highlander
MacGyver
Mutant X
The Pretender
Relic Hunter
Sheena
Star Trek
Star Trek: Deep Space 9
Star Trek: Enterprise
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: Voyager
Wonder Woman

MeTV / Shows

Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century
The Invaders
The Invisible Man
Land of the Giants
Lost in Space
Mission: Impossible
Planet of the Apes
Star Trek
The Time Tunnel
The Twilight Zone
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea

 

Didn't they run WWF (or whatever wrestling is called these days) for a while?
Its been a LONG WAYS from Science Fiction for a really long time. Even their made for TV movie about the generation ship that turned out to be a psych project in a warehouse was predictable and poorly done. Expanse was great - and too good for SYFRY.
I don't regard Sword and Sorcery or fantasy stuff as Science Fiction - tho I could enjoy some of Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser tales, if well done.

I think there was a single made for TV movie from that - and that was it! -
Oh wait, that was RiverWorld! Great potential but only a one shot!

 

Farscape was their biggest mistake. A show at its peak and cancelled at the wrong time. Bonnie Hammer made the call. I will remember her name until the day I die. It is impressive how much original programming they have had over the years.

 

El Rey Network is airing Stargate SG1, Stargate Atlantis, Starhunter Redux, and Quantum Leap.

 

Yeah, she's the one who tried to turn the SciFi Channel into the Wrestling Channel.

She famously disliked science fiction.

But Farscape is an example of the kind of show that has been both the gemstone and downfall of SciFi/Syfy...something really, really good, but too expensive to survive in that environment.

 

They don't air MST3k anymore. The best bet for those is either Netflix or a streaming service like Pluto TV, Twitch or Shout Factory. Also Svengoolie on Metv also airs the Hammer House films. In fact last night he aired The Horrors Of Dracula.

 

Yes they do. It's on the air right now. According to my TitanTV schedule, upcoming episodes:

Sun, Mar 22 1:45 PM Mystery Science Theater 3000 The Killer Shrews
Fri, Mar 27 10:00 PM Mystery Science Theater 3000 Hercules
Sat, Mar 28 12:15 AM Mystery Science Theater 3000 The Killer Shrews
Sun, Mar 29 12:00 PM Mystery Science Theater 3000 Night of the Blood Beast
Sun, Mar 29 1:45 PM Mystery Science Theater 3000 Indestructible Man
Fri, Apr 03 10:00 PM Mystery Science Theater 3000 Night of the Blood Beast
Sat, Apr 04 12:15 AM Mystery Science Theater 3000 Indestructible Man
Sun, Apr 05 11:30 AM Mystery Science Theater 3000 The Last of the Wild Horses
Sun, Apr 05 2:45 PM Mystery Science Theater 3000 Cave Dwellers