MultiChoice and channel provider M-Net are missing the opportunity to start a self-compiled and dedicated science fiction and fantasy TV channel like M-Net Series Sci-Fi or M-Net Series Fantasy - an ongoing and glaring genre channel ommission from the DStv bouquet as the quantity and quality of these very specific shows proliferate.
South African viewers have to scour various TV channels to find what the industry refers to as "genre programming": science fiction and fantasy littered across as vast videorama diaspora which can - with a little work - be brought all together under one channel with one name clearly indicating its science fiction and fantasy.
I want a place where Fridays and Saturdays are kinda tongue-in cheek nerd heaven with a "retro" timeslot for silly movies like Sharknado (go look it up!) and library titles such as old Doctor Who and that very final season of Sliders we never saw and new cool stuff like the new animation two part Batman movies currently on M-Net (DStv 101).
Sadly Beauty and the Beast is on one channel, The Vampire Diaries is on another channel, Arrow is here, Revolution is there, Grimm is here, Teen Wolf 's first season was on Vuzu and neither M-Net nor MTV the past year could tell me what is going on and where that werewolf drama is going next.
Last Resort was dismissed and jettissoned by M-Net and will now be on Sony Entertainment Television, Once Upon a Time, Zero Hour and 666 Park Avenue thankfully showed up on M-Net Series (but first lets watch some Ellen and The Doctors). Fox Retro on TopTV serves up a bit of psychedelic sci-fi like Star Trek and Space 1999 on an ongoing basis while FOX has Falling Skies and The Walking Dead.
Yet there's a massive amount of new fantasy and science fiction shows coming. Granted, not all will be successful, but several will. Several already are and are even having babies in the form of spin-offs. Interestingly in a landscape where TV shows' ratings are falling, its the supernatural and science fictioney shows which saw their ratings grow the past TV season (Supernatural, The Vampire Diaries, Grimm all up.)
Earlier this month MultiChoice explained that the Syfy channel will not be added to DStv for the foreseeable future. So why can't South African viewers get a channel with a distinct name, where they know they will always find the fantasy and science fiction shows they seek, and just that? All together of the same type of television.
Why is the massive viewership success which e.tv is having with science fiction schlockfest movies such as Anaconda Ostrich babies XIV not making TV executives realise that there's possibly really a dedicated and big enough audience for such a channel?
In the year ahead on television get ready for shows like The Vampire Diaries spin-off The Originals, the Once Upon a Time spin-off Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, Agents of SHIELD, Almost Human, The Last Ship, Dracula, Sleepy Hollow, Reign, Tomorrow People, The 100, Star-Crossed, Intelligence and more.
And that's besides new seasons of existing science fiction and fantasy shows. (Go foreign content acquisition people, buy, buy, buy.)
It's all 100% science fiction and fantasy shows, as opposed to crime procedurals like NCIS, dramedies, dramas or reality. Yet, you're not going to see all of these science fiction and fantasy shows bundled together and played out over time on the same channel. Although they clearly belong together just like those puppies rescued from the gutter on CBS Reality.
While there's TV channels in South Africa for reality, channels for crime, channels for food and sport (even just martial arts within sport) (and yes, I also love all of them), its a
Under the Dome is here, True Blood has been everywhere, Spartacus has been nowhere, and Terra Nova went extinct while we were still waiting to see it in South Africa. And what's that sitcom with suburban aliens doing on M-Net Series and then Vuzu? Surely this can all be managed much better.
Where is that Jean-Luc Picard when needed to simply give the command: Make it so ...
