#scifichannel

When the SciFi Channel picked up Stargate SG-1 (from Showtime) in 2002, they promoted the new lineup with this art:

If I was being honest…I had never forgiven them.

 By them, I mean the Sci-Fi Channel. For what? Cancelling Sliders. It had been my favorite sci-fi show of all time. It was the one that resonated with me. It was a show that inspired me to write. So much so that I did my first fan fiction, fiction done by a fan for a show.

 Then there was Farscape. I had no intention of watching that either. Especially after losing Sliders to it I believed. And who would watch a show that was essentially Muppets in Space. Or so I thought. But boy, did it prove me wrong! After avoiding it for the majority of its first season, the finale episodes…and the introduction of a certain leather-clad half-Scarran…caught my eye. I slowly, but surely was hooked…until that was cancelled, too three years later. Never again, I thought.

 Since my ‘never again’ pledge, the Sci-Fi Channel had changed. After years of allowing itself to devolve into a channel full of constant movies, reality tv, and wrestling (Wrestling? Really?), SyFy (the name they decided to rebrand themselves as) finally decided to get back to what their purpose was supposed to be: sci-fi…old and most importantly NEW.

 One of the new shows was The Magicians. I remembered seeing the book when I was still living in Little Rock, Arkansas in the local library. I never knew it would become a show. More fantasy than sci-fi, but I liked it. Usually it was on Wednesdays.

 One Wednesday I happened to be home. I saw the new episode. And then I felt lazy. I allowed my television to stay on the same channel rather than turn it.

 I had been looking down. My ears still heard dialogue and sound effects. But I was not paying attention. Then a boom sounded off. I looked up. There was someone on some planet. They were in a space suit. All hell was breaking loose. It was intercut with space. Then I remembered that The Magicians was scheduled with another show called The Expanse. I texted my friend Lee about it since I remember she had mentioned it in passing.

 “Turn off the television,” she texted.

 “What?” I texted.

 She said I couldn’t watch it. That I had to go back and watch it from the beginning. I thought she was being silly on one hand. On the other hand, I wanted to see what happened in the scene that I had just watched. In any case, I turned the channel.

 But…I was already intrigued.

 About A Girl…Or Is it? The Expanse Season 1

 The Expanse took place in a future where Earth and Mars were vouching for power with a people in an asteroid belt (called Belters) caught in the middle. That was what I first started to get as I started on Season 1. Great world building in my opinion, complete with their own ways of speaking, dialogue, and traditions.

 And Season 1 was also a slow burn.

 A detective on the hunt for a missing rich girl.

 A man and his crew who get framed for something they did not do and make an unusual discovery. 

A female politician who swore like a sailor who stumbled onto an intergalactic conspiracy. What did they have in common? They were all part of the same story…the discovery of an alien element called the protomolecule.

 Not that they realized it. Yet.

 If I had to label the first season anything in terms of a genre, I would call it a mystery. Viewers were right there with Detective Miller (played in perfect noir by Thomas Jane) as he went in search of Julie Mao, the daughter of the rich man. Yeah, there was spaceships due to the frame-up on James Holden and his crew. There was the hint of aliens, but for the most part The Expanse stayed very noir with the hint of a conspiracy as provided by the swearing politician Chrisjen Avasarala. As the first season ended, the storylines converged. Three different people were part of the same storyline.

 It was a storyline that I continued to follow right into Season 2. Made easy by the fact that the people who wrote the books (James R. A. Corey), it followed quite well alongside the books I heard. I also loved the world building that was going on. The politics of Earth. The culture of people who lived on the Belt. How people from Mars were which was a more military mindset than people from Earth.

 I even saw the scene that I saw that one Wednesday. It was to introduce a Martian character named Bobbie. Another storyline introduced into all of this mystery.

 And then it happened.

 I was on Season 2, Episode 5. I was about to head into work. I had gotten dressed. I was about to turn it off…

 …and the episode went left into hard core sci-fi.

 The scene I had heard was faithful to the scene in the books that The Expanse was based on. The special effects were breathtaking. The visual was stimulating. Ethereal even. And the dialogue and action were on a whole other level. And storywise, the story of Detective Miller was reaching the end of an arc.

 I went on to work. However, the scene stayed on my mind. It was the last scene in that episode. It would be hours before I was home again. Hours before I could watch the next episode. My mind was on all the possibilities of what could happen next. In that moment of seeing how my mind kept coming back to that episode’s end, I knew.

  I was hooked.

  Gone?: The Expanse Season Three and the Almost Was

 I had been late.

 And by late, I meant that I had not watched the latest episode.

 It was Season Three of The Expanse. After hinting at war between Earth, Mars, and the Belt over the protomolecule, war finally came through in Season Three. Holden and his crew (love interest Naomi, crazy mechanic Amos, pilot Alex) had turned into a nice team as well as become a family. Chrisjen Avasarala had even been roped into, joining the team for an arc.

 So of course, the SyFy Channel had to cancel it.

 Wait? What?!?

 That’s right. Like so many shows before it, SyFy was cancelling The Expanse. After rebranding themselves as a SCIENCE FICTION channel again thanks to this show, DARK MATTERS, KILLJOYS, and good sci-fi miniseries, they were cancelling what was debatably their current flagship (because a case could be made that THE MAGICIANS was that, too) show. After putting my trust in them again, SyFy had gutted me again.

 Oh, well. I guess I could try to enjoy the last few episodes of Season Three, right?

 I listened. That day I was working out from home. Meanwhile, the latest episode was playing on my laptop. Holden was in a weird environment with what was Detective Miller who SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!...was dead and now part of the protomolecule. In hot pursuit was a team of Martians. And when they all made it to the same spot and despite Bobbie (she was part of the Martian team sent to arrest Holden…long story) playing moderator…all hell broke loose.

 And…a Martian was taken completely apart. By an ancient alien defense system. It pulled off the armor, the skin, and then turned him to matter…ash…for the planet. The acting. The effect. The music. It all came together beautifully.

 ‘Fuck me!’

 And I had stopped doing pull-ups. Jaw on floor. And I wondered again…

 …what was SyFy thinking cancelling this great show?

 ---

 Sometimes I forget.

 Times have changed since the day SLIDERS. Back in the day, fans had to accept that a show was cancelled. Or they would have to write in by letters. Or even send a signatured item.

 Not so much anymore. Since 2000, fan bases had gotten more organized. Thank you, internet, for fan bases’ ability to get organized and campaign for a show to come back. To get a network to change its mind about cancelling a show. Dollhouse. Timeless. And the fans of The Expanse…used emails and in the case of Amazon Studios, an airplane.

 As luck would have it…the president of Amazon Studios, Jeff Bezos, was a fan of the series. A fan…who wanted to see how the story ended. So…at a panel…he shocked the creators and stars of the shows (and the fans) by revealing that The Expanse would have its next season on Amazon Prime. Even better…later on…it was revealed that Season 5 was confirmed before the December release of Season Four.

 Good. A show that could pulled in the casual reader on a random Wednesday was a show that I felt had room to grow. While SyFy continued to have a bad track record when it came to actual sci-fi on their channel, I had to admit it. I was glad that I had left my channel unchanged that night. I was glad to have some hardcore science fiction that I was into. And better yet, there would be more years of it to come with nice twists, relatable characters, and situations that resonated in today’s world.

 So I was glad Lee had told me to start at the beginning. No need to rush. Let the show take its time, and you would be rewarded. And so I was.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEENk6_XFoA

Modern society's evolution involves stem cells, gene therapy, transplants, and cloning, but also exposes the existence of monsters that hold the key to our race's future.

As broadcast December 23, 1998 on the Sci-Fi Channel.

(Woo-hoo! Only one more video to go...)

As broadcast November 20, 1998 on the Sci-Fi Channel.

As broadcast November 23, 1998 on the Sci-Fi Channel.

As broadcast November 20, 1998 on the Sci-Fi Channel.