Caprica Canceled? It's The SyFy Network That Should Be Canceled

I just read that one of my favorite television shows, “Caprica”, has been canceled after one season “due to low ratings”. It’s no real surprise. The morons at the SyFy network couldn’t have made its success more difficult to achieve if they had intentionally been trying to do so. The show aired on January 22, 2010. Just as it began to pick up speed it screeched to a hault after only 9 episodes on March 26, 2010. Fans were told that the remaining episodes would not air until January of 2011. A 10 month wait! I remember thinking, “what the hell? Are they trying to kill this show?”

It was then passed down that Caprica would be moving from Friday to Tuesday nights to make room for WWE Smackdown. Yeah, nothing screams “Science Fiction” to me like professional wrestling.

On September 9, 2010 it was announced, with less than a months notice, that Caprica was to return on October 5th. Many fans still don’t know that it’s even returned, as there was a rush in promoting it and little effort to get the word out. And here we are on October 28th, with only 4 more episodes shown, and SyFy is announcing Caprica’s cancellation. Adding insult to injury, they’re removing the remaining episodes from television despite many favorable reviews, with a half-assed statement that the remaining episodes will air “in early 2011”.

I think I’m done with the SyFy network. While I also like Stargate Universe, it, too, has given fans whiplash from eccentric scheduling. Honestly, I’m tired of trying to track down shows on a network that has, from day one, pissed all over fans of Science Fiction. All you need to know about SyFy can be summed up by their horrifically bad original movies. They apparently honestly think their viewers are a bunch of pimple-faced teenagers or middle-aged losers who still live with their parents, who will lap up whatever B-movie confection that is peddled to them.

The original movies that SyFy comes up with are almost a parody of Science Fiction, and seem to focus more on the gargoyle and banshee crowds than anything remotely related to science, much less good fiction. It’s no wonder that SyFy never knew what to do with Caprica. It was an intelligent, well crafted series that showed an incredible potential to develop into a classic. There wasn’t enough cleavage from barbarian queens or blood spraying from the victims of giant crocodile attacks for the drones at SyFy to figure out what to do with Caprica. So they canned it.

I’m not surprised. But I’m disappointed. Frankly, with Caprica leaving SyFy, there’s little else to keep my interest there. And I won’t be surprised if Stargate Universe soon follows Caprica into the dustbin. After all, SyFy probably needs to make as much room as possible for future spin-offs from WWE Wrestling. If that’s the audience they’re really interested in, more power to them. But I think I’m done.

Hopefully another network will pick up Caprica and give this excellent series a chance to play out to its full potential. But I won’t hold my breath. And I won’t be watching SyFy anymore. It’s more about the disrespect of this network toward its viewers than anything else.