TV Guide's Matt Roush Slams Sci Fi (Again!)

Man, I love this guy. Here he is, answering his reader mail:

Question: I just read the Jan. 7 TV Guide Online interview with Sci Fi Channel president Bonnie Hammer about the cancellation of Farscape. I am copying the exact things she said: "Even though Stargate is sci fi, it's very broad sci fi. It's not serialized. Every episode, you can come to it whether you've watched the one before [or not]. They are self-contained.... Farscape, on the other hand, got very, very serialized. It got very 'in.' ... They had brilliant and sophisticated writing, but it was so narrow that it basically was an invitation to not tune in if you weren't totally familiar with the show. It was brilliant when you got it, and some of the characterizations were truly amazing, but it took a little too much work." So my question or comment is, Farscape is too serialized, yet Sci Fi just went out and purchased The X-Files and is now running reruns of this, one of TV's most serialized "in" shows around. They also showed Babylon 5, another very serialized show. Do you think they are covering up to try to make it the show's fault and the fans' fault? They seem to have given carte blanche on the direction of the show and never said they would like to see more stand-alone episodes. Does this make sense? — Theresa M.

Matt: There's no good way to justify this cancellation, and in this interview, Hammer came perilously close to admitting what I believe to be the truth: Sci Fi believed Farscape was too smart for what it considers its core audience to be, whatever that is. This is yet another indication that any show that requires attention, demands loyalty and rewards intelligence is an increasingly endangered species, even on so-called niche networks that are supposed to be encouraging such things.