All these shows sound like they suck. They make me long for the days of Deepspace 9 and Babylon 5 or even Earth 2.

Ahaaahahaha! Earth 2 was so bad, it missed the curve on nearly all points. Forgettable series. Same for Space Above and Beyond. Low budget, bad ideas, bad decor.
DS9 is the one new Star Trek show that is still watchable, because they had good story arcs and scripts, and the actors were not too bad.
Babylon 5 was a gem of acting and writing and music despite horrible budget constraints.
"Isn't strange, G'kar? When we first met, I had no power and all the choices I could ever want. Now I have all the power I could ever want - and no choices at all. No choice at all."
- Londo to G'kar, their last meeting before they would kill each other years later

Halleluha I8rmoore!

!!What happened to Boldly Going Nowhere??!! i was soo looking forward to that one!

seriously, scifi now a days to waaaaay too serious and dramatic (good as they maybe, Lost and BSG can put u on Prozac). we need a good comedy to break the deression

Didn't anyone notice an unusual absence in the list? What about the SCI FI channel. Don't they have any pilots in the works for the near future. Oh I forgot they only do reality shows and wrestling.

Let's not forget about ghost hunters, bad mythical monster movies and a whole bunch of reruns

I have to agree about Scifi channel. While they have put on some great original series, their original movies are uniformly terrible, and having the Ghost Hunters and wrestling is almost more than I can stomach. They seriously sold out their brand name for bad gambits for ratings. They need more shows like Battestar Galactica and Sanctuary. I am not holding my breath on the new Stargate series. Ripoff of ST:Voyager, anyone?

I've been saying that for months. They need to dump the trash, stop making assembly line movies so that they can have a new (bad)movie every week and get down to business putting out quality sci fi. They should stick to sci fi also and dump the westling all together.

The Sci Fi Channel learned how to make movies from watching Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea reruns. A new monster every week.

Sci-Fi has the pilot movie for Stargate Universe coming out sometime this summer/fall, so don't forget about that. Generally Sci-Fi has taken a more ambitious role in the past few years and acquiring the rights to a lot of other shows. Any long-time fan of the network would instantly realize how much work they've been putting into making new series. You would never see a Sci-Fi original series in the 1990's. They brought Stargate SG-1 and made it their own. They have Eureka, Sanctuary, BSG, and some other prime material. They don't have the budget and names like FOX and ABC, so you really have to give them some credit for what they work with.

Speaking of Eureka, we were supposed to get like 21 episodes this season. Where'd it go? All we got was an eight episode bloc. When is Sci Fi airing the next 13 episodes?

Also, I agree about the Sci Fi Channel. Too much reality crap and wrestling (which I don't even understand being on Sci Fi). If they don't have the budget for more quality original series, that's fine. There are plenty of old series to rerun that were GREAT Sci Fi. Air that!

Did we forget who owns Sci Fi channel. Try Universal Studios. So don't say they are short on money. BSG is over in 8 episodes also.

Virtuality sounds amazing and with Moore behind it I think it will likely be the best thing on tv.

DS9 was a good show as Trek shows go but Babylon 5 and Earth 2 were crap in the same mold as Stargate.

the nbc offering sounds like a rehashing of Jericho

I wish they would make a series about "Babylon 5":The Next Generation" or something like that. I would also go for Deep Space 9: the next generation. I don't like some of the shows that are called Sci-Fi on NBC. Seems like they forgot to call on the SCIFI Channel (NBC/Universal property) on how to do it right.

I thought the adaptation of Locke And Key was going to start soon?

The Scifi Channel has seriously gone down hill. Destination truth is referred to as a hit?! Since when? Compared to what? Estate of Panic, Ghost Hunters, Ghost Hunters International, Ghost Hunters college edition, Professional Wrestling...

To be honest I lost faith in The Scifi Channel when they didn't continue The Dresden Files.

"Did we forget who owns Sci Fi channel. Try Universal Studios. So don't say they are short on money."

yes, true, but they dont have the same bank account. Scifi cant just say "hey parent company, can i have 45 million dollars?" NBC and Scifi run on separate budgets.

How right you are about the Dresden Files

Maybe if they did things right daddy would give them more money

A Long Time Asleep

The story about Joshua Randall, a regular, run of the mill guy from the Midwest, trying to make sense of his life. Randall goes to sleep one night, and when he awakes, he is 523 years into his own future. Randall must discover how to live and function in this new environment. His real troubles begin the next morning, however, when he awakens in 972 AD, and is surrounded by a group of Celtic warriors led by a Shaman named Merlin.

And so on it goes with Joshua, each day he awakens to find himself in a new place and a new time. Each and every night he spends a “Long Time Asleep”

PLEASE let no network ever again make a show about stupid women and magic....ugh.

at least scif does give us the "doctor",gave us first wave and the invisible man,and gave us sliders fans two more seasons(only the first part of season 4 was any good) and also picked up MST 3000 for a couple more seasons.scifi may have given us some bad stuff,but they have given us some great entertainment too.

I see dont understand comments like these

'DS9 is the one new Star Trek show that is still watchable'

that is one of the worst acted shows in the HISTORY of sci fi.

if you think the acting in that show is good you know NOTHING about good acting.

The doctor is a product of the BBC and sci fi broadcasts it one full season behind.

I will give them the credit for doing a lot of good for Scifi, we have had awesome series TV because of them.

But, on the other hand, I have to agree, their movies are horrible B movies. Why not divert some of that money into producing good TV and leave the crappy B movies to some one else?

Just my suggestion.

I am probably one of the biggest TREKIES around and even I couldn't watch DS9

amen!

voyager was my favorite. (season 4 -> that is ;))

/me sits back and waits for the bashing for this comment.

dear god, im glad I sold my TV last week. Its all mind-rott - especially the sci-fi channel and the pop-culture trendy rubbish that the BBC and ITV make these days...im shocked there hasnt been a surge of independant stuff yet - you know where sci-fi can have the freedom and artistic vision it deserves. I guess the sheep would still flock to dr who and stargate atlantis though, a pity.

Howard Beele, where are you ?

I loved Voyager but for some reason I seem to remember all Star Treks airing on networks other than Sci Fi except for RERUNS!!!!!!

bring back same cast new episodes of
Star trek:Enterprise.....

Bring back the Dresden Files! Why Sci-fi took it off the air is beyond me. It was a great show and just like Firefly it was yanked. Really stupid move Sci Fi. Bring it back!

Let's face it, ratings are more important than quality and and good acting. Sci Fi proves that with ECW every Tuesday night

last couple of seasons of Startrek :Enterprise
were great bring new episodes and same cast back

Are either of the two people that watched the Sci Fi channels movie "ROCK MONSTER" out their? Just wondering if they noticed the rip off of the monster in Galaxy Quest.

B5 was better than DS9. SAAB was decent.

Day One sounds an awful lot like Jeremiah or even Jericho.

Are they going to try to get Rick Springfield to reprise his role as Christopher Chance in the 1993 version of Human Target?

I may be "Wine & Cheese" with my Sci-fi, But The Sci-fi Chanel does need more Shows like Battlestar Galactica or Babylon Five. (I know they didn't create B5). Except Battlestar, Sci-fi really hasn't produced anything worth it's salt since Dune and the sci-fi site itself. Admittedly, Sci-fi in general has gone down hill. also I admit the really good stuff has been far and few between anyway.

I hear someone might be doing the Foundation series, Probably swedging the first two books together. While I can be glad someone recognized the no-brainer of doing a classic besides Dune. Why must it look like they'll need to ruin a classic by swedging the first to books. Truth be told, If you read Foundation. The special effects would only be minimal by todays standards. Except for paying decent actors, that make it cost effective. If production companies really need help with a idea, The correct answer would be to hire J. Micheal Strazynski and use a fomula like Babylon five. Then have each episode approximately equal one chapter of the series.
Not necissarly by Sci-fi, Other stories might be -
A Stranger in a Strange Land
Slaughter House Five (I know, but an acceptable remake)
The Sirens of Titan (This would be difficult to pull off, even if done by a master)
Dark They Were, And Golden Eyed (also Difficult)
Remake the Martian Chronicals.
The Illustrated Man- In production, Hope it's not ruined.
Melmoth the Wanderer
Neutron Star (or many others by Larry Niven- These might be particularly good choices for Sci-fi with there pulp, But Niven is pulp of excellent quality)
Boat of a Million Years- Poul Anderson.
or Choose any number of classics.

One Idea might be an anthology. Ever see the printed series- Years best Sci-Fi, One story per episode. Something like the Outer Limits but Fresh.

How about they bring back Babylon 5: Crusade? TNT axed that after 13 episodes.
Or Firefly for that matter.
Maybe instead of showing crappy Sci-Fi movies, the Sci-Fi channel should show more classic SF series, like Star Trek or Lost in Space. Maybe some British SF like Blake's 7, Red Dwarf or the 1st run of Doctor Who? And put 'em in a decent time slot to boot!

I say a reboot of farscape, I know the
webisodes are coming out, but they need a true series.

If we are talking about best series, Charlie Jade was masterful for what it accomplished

Don't talk of rebooting farscape. Reboot means 'do over.' Farscape doesn't require a 're-make.' It deserves continuation as does The Dresden Files. Not continuing The Dresden Files was the worst television mistake I had seen in a long, long time.

The person here who brought up Sliders and Mystery Science theatre, that was back before Bonnie Hammer took over The Scifi Channel. After she took over everything changed. I thought her leaving then The Scifi Channel would go back to it's old quality. I was wrong. And yes, I am still bitter about The Dresden Files. Have I mentioned I liked that show?

"... their original movies are uniformly terrible, and having the Ghost Hunters and wrestling is almost more than I can stomach."

Agreed. I've almost forgotten Sciffy was even there. Every weekend, as I tab thru the menu, it's a new idiotic movie about Kracken, giant crocs, mantacore.

W-T-F? Seriously.

I think scripted tv is going the way of the dodo. It makes alf sad.

If we're talking about filming or serializing books, consider the works of Peter F. Hamilton:
- the Night's Dawn trilogy
- The Commonwealth books
All dealing with Humans spread out over many planets. Nano-technology. Organic technology. And some metaphysical aspects as well. But brought in a scientific manner.
And most of all, a lot of action.
What more would anyone want.

"Day One" -- In the aftermath of a "global event" that devastates the world's infrastructures, a small band of survivors strive to rebuild society and unravel the mysteries of why the event took place.

Sounds as if the creators and producers of "Jericho" should have a lawsuit ready and waiting to be filed against NBC and Mr. Alexander. Then again, NBC ripped "Heroes" off from "The 4400."

Where is all this venom against B5 & DS9 coming from?If you want to talk about horrible acting, check out Kate Mulgrew on voyager, an otherwise fine series ruined by her wooden portrayal of Janeway. Meanwhile B5 & DS9 had beautiful story arcs that were easy and lots of fun to watch, Ben Sisko's trips to the 1950's not withstanding. Either one of wood be great on the Big Screen. MORE GIANT SPACE BATTLES PLEASE!!!

ECW is on Sci-Fi as part of the package NBC Universal made to put WWE programming back on USA Network (also owned by NBC Universal).

Babylon 5 is a great moment in Sci-Fi television! JMS had a five year arc set up at the beginning and it shows. You can watch shows from the 4th & 5th seasons and see things come to fruition that began in the first season. I wish Sci-Fi would acquire the rights to run that show because I believe it still stands up to anything produced today. And it pretty much wrapped up all it's storylines by the end.

B5: Crusade never got the chance to get off the ground because TNT wanted to micromanage it and they completely screwed it up. I would be in favor of a restart as long as JMS was in charge.

RE: Star Trek. Let's be honest. All variations had their good points and bad points. But they all got better the longer they stayed on the air.

The_Arcane mentioned Asimov's Foundation being filmed. I've always thought this would be a great mini-series for the Sci-fi Channel to tackle. Unfortunately, it's been optioned by Roland Emerich, the man who brought us such unwatchable classics as 10,000 BC and The Day After Tomorrow. So, don't get your hopes up about that one.

There is a treasure trove of sci-fi and fantasy writing out there that I think would translate well to the screen and I'm sure acquiring the rights to a lot of it wouldn't be too unreasonable even for cable TV. Sci-fi has proven it can take a classic work and do it justice with Dune. They've proven they can make quality "big budget" sci-fi with the return of BSG and Taken. So I think it's doable.

Unfortunately, as someone pointed out, the demand is for lowest common denominator stuff rules and it's usually cheap to make, so from a business standpoint, it makes sense. Reality shows are cheap to make and offer a much larger return for their money than, say, BSG. At least in the short run, and that's all anyone seems to be interested in these days.

The Sci-fi Channel isn't really for diehard science fiction fans. At least not any more. It's for the everyday person who might lean to watching a cheesy sci-fi movie over reruns of Law & Order. They throw the sci-fi diehards a bone now and again to keep them interested, but even that seems to be more rare.

In the current climate I really think all the real science fiction fans can hope for is maybe one really good series. I have hopes for Caprica. Ron Moore took Trek to an incredible new level of story telling with DS9 and he continued that with BSG. He has a dark, intricate vision that makes good television, period. It's just a plus that it happens to be science fiction.

Maybe Sci-fi will change its tune, but as long as people are watching Ghosthunters and Destination Truth and, yes, even wrestling (obviously someone is watching), they're going to stick with what's making them good, easy money.

No need to get too excited about FOX shows, most won't last, i.e. New Amsterdam or Tru Calling. ABC is also notorious for cancelling shows just as they're getting interesting. So, I won't be holding my breath. As for the writer's comments on CBS, I think he means (*yawn*) for CSI, not NCIS. CSI has been on so long, and the characters are so boring now, it's this generations Murder She Wrote.

You know, there are a lot of great comments here. If more people started talking about how displeased they are with this channel maybe they would sit up and take notice don't you think. I started making comments months ago hoping it would snowball and this is the first time that paople voiced their displeasure with this channel. Just maybe their is a glint of hope for the future of Sci FI.

Sci-Fi Channel wasn't forgotten people (nor is it lacking in upcoming pilots--Caprica, Startgate Universe, and Warehouse 13 come to mind). This was a list of broadcast network premiers, and Sci-fi Channel is a cable network.

In simple terms Ghost hunters sucks Treks tired of them New movies some good some bad Charley Jade sucks Reality shows sucks Battlelstar is a sci-fi soap opera should have been done better Dresden good should not have left Eureka hurry up and come back on before we forget Doctor Who the same thing Babalon 5 needs a come back Did I mention ghost hunters suck biggest wast of air time ever

i'd love to see a decent version of V and Day One sounds like it could be fun (jericho fans don't need to get upset by that...they are different shows, yes i know you hate the fact that jericho was canceled by another network, but you don't have to ruin everyone else's fun)

virtuality so far sounds horrible, though i love Battlestar.

and to most of the other commenters...you are typical sci-fi fans...reply to an article about sci-fi on network tv and instead of discussing that, whine about the fact that a mediocre, poorly produced show like b5 is no longer being made (if you like crusade you'r even worse) or that you don't like scifi sat night movies. neither of which have anything to do with network sci-fi shows. you realize no one will ever listen to your opinion as long as you do stuff like that, right? actually, you probably don't. never mind....

Is 'Back' from CBS not sci-fi? It's billed as being 'about a man who disappeared in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks only to suddenly show up, eight years later'. I've seen it attributed with a time travel explanation and not just the lead character going underground for 8 years.

And I suspect that the Sci Fi Channel wasn't mentioned because this was about fall season pilots, and cable channels don't fall into the same launch schedule for new shows.

Of this bunch, Human Target (which isn't terribly sci-fi) and Flashforward look the most interesting to me. Flashforward in part because I've read the book it's based on, though I know they're adapting the concept more than the plot.

I wouldn't mind seeing the "Human Target." I enjoyed the series the first time around when ABC did it with Rick Springfield.

Im still bitter at sci fi channel.
Im surprised that it took over 8 hours untill knightwatch mentioned it.

I MISS FARSCAPE!

BSG took a great idea and made it better looking.
And Im talking about the "Harvey" idea. I LOVE ME SOME 6

" to be honest I lost faith in The Scifi Channel when they didn't continue The Dresden Files"

Fairly short time for you. I lost it long ago when they axed Farscape and Exposure. Hey SciFi lets have some reboots of old Universal classics that didn't do well in the 80's like Otherworld and maybe Street Hawk. They couldn't be worse than the dren that passes for programming on the channel these days.

The only one that sounds remotely interesting is virtuality, mostly because 1. outspace, and 2. Ron Moore. The rest won;t be watched. Bring us some sci-fi in space! If we can't have our BSG, bring back Firefly or Space Above and Beyond!

Most of those new shows sound really bad and unwatchable to me.I am sick of all the YARM (yet another remake) and will not watch any more of these reboots.I willl read a book instead and maybe learn something in the process.
I might be interested in Virtuality but not the others.Day one does sound like a Jericho ripoff but then again what is not a ripoff coming from Hollywood.

http://www.doctravis.com/node/46

baen TV!!!

"DS9 was a good show as Trek shows go but Babylon 5 and Earth 2 were crap in the same mold as Stargate. "

Hey McTex, you are a fool. DS9 was Trek's theft of Babylon 5, and it couldn't hold B5's jock.

I would love to see SciFi (or any channel/studio for that matter) take on Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series as a weekly serial. It would be a tall order to do it justice, but if they have the same caliber of detailed FX and fine acting as they put into most BSG episodes then it would be worth it. Of course, it's closer to high fantasy than scifi, but then again SciFi does occasionally run the occasional gods-awful dragon slaying movie.

What the hell do you mean by "(yawn) NCIS"?

Some douche wrote: "Hey McTex, you are a fool. DS9 was Trek's theft of Babylon 5, and it couldn't hold B5's jock."

DS9 had superior acting, more realistic scenery and effects and better story lines than that juvenile B5. Of course all of this is subjective you idiot. DS9 was the first Trek show to really question the liberal mindset of the Star Trek universe – the ridiculous idea that man is inherently good and that man’s future could be one of peace and prosperity for all. This is probably due to Moore’s influence. No wonder BSG blows away all of it’s competitors as it accurately portrays human nature in all of it’s horrid glory.

Where does all this "you can't like DS9 if you like B5" crap. These shows are not matter-antimatter. I happen to like both and there hasn't been a large explosion yet. Watch one, Tivo the other and be thankful there's Sci-Fi on TV to watch at all.

1!st on my wish list of Books to be made movies is 'Protector' by Larry Niven. Then do Ringworld by same author as a Mini-series,

Too bad Enterprise peaked only after it's future was already written in onto a gravestone.

Note: Some of B5 was cheesy, but so much of seasons 2-4 was beyond good that it is a Classic show in my mind.
Finally: Loved 97% of the darker, new BSG series. Thats the highest % I gave to any show in last 5 years. NO show is perfect.

I agree with the comment about running older/classic shows during "prime time".

Maybe Tues, Wed, or Thurs nights? It would be nice to see Six Million Dollar Man, Shadow Chasers, Automan, Red Dwarf, the 70s (80s?) Invisible Man, and such.

Would like to see a "retro-line-up" instead of a block of old shows. And lets face it, a lot of us work during the day when they do run the many "classic" episodes.