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The Man From Earth

David Lee Smith, John Billingsley, Tony Todd

Dear Monkeys in Charge of the SyFy Channel:

First off, I would like to apologize to our primate cousins for comparing those noble creatures to your ham-fisted management since 1992. Last year, much like putting perfume and a lipstick on a hog, you still have a hog, you changed your name from the Sci-Fi Channel to SyFy because you wanted to shed your nerd image, as if that was the reason your channel has not enjoyed the success it should have. While you were at it you might as well put an umlaut somewhere in the name for all the good it will do you. Geeks and nerds pulled up stakes, switched channels, and left your channel long ago. Before you came up with the marketing slogan “Imagine Greater,” maybe it should have been tattooed on the forehead of everyone in your boardroom.

Other cable networks like F/X, ESPN, and Comedy Central, started off as the punch line to standup comedians’ jokes. Over the years, they have transformed themselves into staples of American culture through smart programming. Your channel, on the other hand, has languished like a fish flopping on a bank. How can I say this? After almost eighteen years of invading homes across the nation, your most popular program is pro wrestling, with oiled up, steroid enhanced, grown men in short shorts playing grab ass. Your longest running show is called Ghost Hunters, basically a low-rent version of American Chopper except without the cool motorcycles. Now, if my toilet is clogged by something supernatural, the TAPS plumber team would be first on my speed dial, but I have had to suffer through over 100 episodes of dust on the lens, white noise, and “did you feel that.” Fine, cheap programming is the name of the game on cable, but does the American public really need another half hour of Abbott and Costello walking around spooky old buildings, this time throughout the world, with Ghost Hunters International? For the love of God, does the world really need “90210 meets Scooby Doo” with Ghost Hunters Academy where college age kids are trained in the ways of stupidity? Now your reality programming cup runneth over, and when the low moments of television are discussed, Stan Lee’s Who Wants To Be A Superhero will be mentioned in the same breath with Manimal, the XFL, Cop Rock, and The Man From Atlantis, did you really need to bring out of hiatus Scare Tactics? Granted the three hosts, Tracy Morgan, Shannen “I am a conservative Republican who married the Girls Gone Wild dude and cannot get along with anyone” Doherty, and Stephen “Why isn’t Jesus in the rad section of the bookstore” Baldwin, all could be in reality series that would rival anything on television because they are so crazy. Apology letters should be written to Allen Funt’s family for tarnishing the legacy of Candid Camera. “Are you scared?” Yes, after an hour of watching this show I have misplaced my common sense and cannot find it.

Still, going after reality programming is as easy as winning a slam dunk contest against a kid in a wheelchair, but instead of being a guiding light for the imagination, your original series and programming decisions have been akin to a handbook on successful French military strategies. While there have been high points, Taken, Dune, Farscape (which was cancelled early) and Battlestar Galactica and high hopes for Caprica and The Phantom in 2010, but your television series have been as bland as a Norwegian buffet. Flash Gordon, a staple of pulp sci-fi since 1934, was so watered down that it was almost a homeopathic answer to good fantasy stories. Your bubble headed script writers did what Ming the Merciless could not, kill Flash.

Of the thousands of comic book characters out there, like Grimjack, Preacher, Y: The Last Man, Ex Machina, Fables, Scout, 100 Bullets, Sandman, Concrete, Coffin and Exterminators, series that would have your network be the buzz of the water cooler even among non-sci-fi fans, the only toe that your have dipped into this pool is the awful Painkiller Jane, which was mercifully cancelled after a season. If teenage boys want to see hot chicks in leather, there is this thing called the Internet that they can now go to. You have ignored the huge cannon of literature out there. It is just begging for a mini-series or series to be made from them like Isaac Asimov’s The Foundation series, E.E. Smith’s Lensman series, any Robert Heinlein or Philip K. Dick franchise, Ender’s Game, Larry Niven’s Ringworld or Dan Simmon’s Hyperion series. Classic two-fisted pulp heroes like Doc Savage, Sky Captain, The Rocketeer, Solomon Kane, Dr. Coffin, Buck Rogers, or Tarzan could all get the re-imaginations they deserve. Where are your meetings with writers and producers that are currently capturing the public’s imagination? Their names alone, especially if unhandcuffed, would bring thousand of fresh eyes to your channel. Where is your Daily Show-like newscast with updates of what is happening in geek culture, or interviews with creative fiction creators, and popular science writers and researchers? Even when approached by producers of a quality franchise, Charlie Jade, your network at first rejected the franchise as too difficult for the American viewer to follow, i.e. American audiences are dumber than Japanese, South African, and European viewers where the show was a cult hit, and once it could not continue for a second season due to production costs, you buried it in the middle of the night.

Instead of quality programming your network is still the butt of late night jokes for its awful Saturday SyFy original movies. I have watched eighty-five of these films that, if shown to Guantanamo Bay prisoners, would probably be considered torture. Names like KAW, Man-Thing, Frankenfish, Mega Snake, Mansquito, Kraken: Tentacles of the Deep, Sabertooth and Vipers, films that even Ed Wood would have had too much talent to be a party to. It is hard to believe that the recent Mega Shark versus The Giant Octopus was so bad that it was beneath the acting talents of former teen queen Deborah Gibson and Lorenzo Lamas. I understand the economics of these films. They are cheap to produce, often costing under $1 million, and can be pumped out onto video to enormous profits. The problem is the quality of such projects turns off your customer base, damages your reputation, and low cost does not necessarily mean comically bad. Take the science fiction film The Man From Earth, which cost less than $200,000 to produce and has been a monster hit on the Internet for months. Almost all of the action takes place within the four walls of a cabin. Its sci-fi bloodlines are clear, it was written by Jerome Bixby, who wrote for the Twilight Zone and Star Trek (TOS). William Katt (Greatest American Hero), Tony Todd (Star Trek), and John Billingsley (Enterprise) are on hand to get the geeks to pop. About the same star power wattage as your original films. Unlike your SyFy movies, this film understands that sci-fi is not about mutant fish or ray guns, but about ideas. The premise is simple. What would happen if a gentleman who is about to move, John Oldman (David Lee Smith), announces to his friends for the last decade that he has lived for more than 14,000 years. A very simple premise. But here is the thing, unlike most of your programming, it is smart. It takes for granted, they “imagine,” that its audience are intelligent enough to follow the storyline. The film takes sci-fi seriously. You can watch this movie on Netflix, instant view, or download it off a per-to-per service on the Internet. (the director has actually promoted this and has stated that it is one of the main reasons for the film’s success.) Hopefully, it will inspire you to “Imagine Greater.”

Verdict: Home Run