Sort of mean, but definitely funny…

Updated on July 28, 2010 By Ken Begg 22 Comments

The Onion bases a bit on the tendency of nerds to never stop complaining about even obscure old sci-fi series getting canceled (unless like The X-Files they lasted sooo long that they ran themselves into the ground).

Pin It

  • John Campbell

    It was truly sad the way the X-Files ended up. So so many great episodes and they have to end it that way.

    Hell they even killed off CSM!!

    CSM, this Morley’s for you!

  • Mr. Rational

    Yeah. I often get this way about Firefly. I still claim that rant is a justified one, but what can I say? When they nail us, they nail us good.

  • John Campbell

    I must confess to being on the Farscape rantwagon…

    The onion has some hysterical stuff!

  • TongoRad

    Well, at least with The Tripods there is a third book out there so you can finish the story and you’re not left hanging. I recently got my son into watching that one, actually, and that was a big selling point. Wait till he sees the big cliffhanger at the end of season two…

  • BeckoningChasm

    That was perfect. I have to say, though, that I’m glad they changed my name and the show I was talking about.

  • Rock Baker

    I admit I’m not deep into the internet, but I’d be willing to bet that there are folk out there who spend much energy lamenting the early cencellations of Logan’s Run, Galactica 1980, and Beyond Westworld. (I must come clean and say that I have wished second seasons had been filmed for Battlestar Galactica and UFO. And I would’ve liked if The Norliss Tapes had gotten a series. Wonder Woman should’ve done another season with the WW2 setting. The Terminator series should’ve at the very least been granted a TV movie to wrap things up! Firefly should’ve been renewed! They should’ve made a follow up movie or a second series after Project: ALF! Lost in Space should’ve had a wrap-up movie too!! I CAN’T STOP! I CAN’T STOP! SURE, LOGAN’S RUN COULD’VE GONE ON FOR A WHOLE SEASON, WHY NOT?!!)

    ahem

    Say, who was a better painter, Gil Elvgren, Bill Randall, or Pearl Frush?

  • Gamera

    Don’t get me wrong – I loved Firefly and wish it had gotten more of a chance but some of the Browncoats are a little- um intense. I never really got into Sliders but yeah the article is a good spoof on the more intense fans.

    At least Firefly and Farscape did get movies that gave some sense of closure to the series. The shows that just ended leaving you hanging like Galactica (no 1980 was NOT the second season no matter how Universal pushes it- 1980 was the first reimaging) and Crusade are annoying.

    Still life goes on, I’m not going to worry about it too much…

  • TongoRad

    Alien Nation got a wrap-up movie (or three) as well, but by then the magic seemed to have disappeared. The way I remember it, the series ended on a pretty dark and apocolyptic note with the overlords coming to earth to reclaim the slaves and also to enslave the human race as well. By the time the movies rolled around the tone was lighter and things were back to business as usual. Maybe my memory is a bit hazy there, but I definitely do recall thinking “this is what they came up with?” Oh well…

    I remember watching Logan’s Run pretty religiously, being the right age and exact target demographic for the show, apparently. I’ll have to see it again before I consider joining a support group, however, you know- just to make sure it holds up :)

  • BeckoningChasm

    Of course, the granddaddy of them all: Star Trek shoulda got its whole five years!

  • Rock Baker

    For what it was, Logan’s Run wasn’t a bad series. Mostly it tried too hard to be Star Trek (Rem seems nothing so much as a happy Mr. Spock), as many of the episode plots seem made for the earlier show (but then, D.C. Fontana was the script supervisor). The main thing that struck me was that, for a show produced by MGM, it was pretty cheap. They would always use the exact same shot of Logan starting up the hovertank. (On a side note, anyone know what ever became of the hovertank?)

    Galactica 1980 was a mess. At times it was a charming mess, but a mess all the same. I enjoyed the cast, but little else is worth writing home about. I have to admit, I REALLY wish they’d given us a second season of Battlestar Galactica. I keep hoping that the original cast will find some way of getting the reunion film made, but Universal is still being a jerk in the matter.

  • It could’ve been worse. You could’ve got a second season of Battlestar Galactica, only it’s the third or fourth season of the reimagined series.

    There! How d’you like them apples?

    For anyone who hasn’t seen the reimagined series–what’s the matter with you, anyway? Get a move on! But take your friendly Count’s advice: Watch up to the first six episodes of season 3, and then stop. No, you won’t see them get to Earth, and yes, as in the case of the original series, that’s for the best.

  • John Campbell

    Loved Logan’s run!

    Galactica 1980 is a horror fest! Flying motor cycles?!?!

    Does anyone remember the show “The Fantastic Voyage” from the late 70’s? Had Roddy McDowell in it?

    Or Space 1999! (I had a toy version or the spaceships they used!)

    The Man from Atlantis!

  • Ericb

    I remember the Roddy Macdowall series but it was called “The Fantastic Journey” rather than voyage. The only reason I know about it is because I had cable TV for a few months in 1994 and they ran it on the then new Sci-Fi channel. Back then they were wall to wall old sci-fi movies and television series. I remember they also had these themed moive weeks and one week they had old giant bug movies on every night. Those were the days.

  • The Rev. D.D.

    Yeah, thanks to the SFC I got great copies of a few Gamera and Godzilla movies, back in the day, as well as a week where I got to see a bunch of ’50s horror movies I never had (I distinctly remember Kronos, Monster on the Campus and Fiend Without a Face among them), along with ones from my youth (The Land Unknown and Tarantula, for instance).

    Man I miss those days. The very rare gem like Mega Piranha just doesn’t cut it, although I understand some of their original series are pretty good.

  • Rock Baker

    I miss the early days of the Sci-Fi Channel too. It was there I finally got to see episodes of the Supermarionation classic Stingray. And it was paired with Captain Scarlet! The later show was new to me, but the more realistic puppets only made it better. I loved those shows, they were pretty much half hour effects segments. I also remember watching a lot of the Incredible Hulk. I’m not sure what’s worse, that they stopped showing cool stuff, or that they stopped showing cool stuff so long ago. That first couple of years was great stuff. I think what killed them was the same thing that tends to kill a good station: origional programming. Just about any time a channel tries its hand at making its own shows, the quality of the channel drops like a stone. At least we had a good (if too short) run of MST3K.

    I can’t recall if Sci-Fi showed Space: 1999 or not (but I’d guess they probably did for a while since they also aired UFO and The Prisoner). I didn’t see it until last year, when Pop picked up the complete series and I borrowed them. The first half of the first season was sluggish and often had me scratching my head (forgive the spelling, but I couldn’t figure out if they were trying to be cerebral or just surreal). The second season was pretty good I thought. Plenty of action and effects stuff.

    Missed Fantastic Journey. Just this week I’m watching Beyond Westworld (which I’d never heard of, in fact nobody in my family had, until Pop found it at the G-Fest). They shot five episodes and aired only three. I can see why. While nothing nearly as bad as Our Man Flint: Dead on Target (which cries out for at least a nugget review on this site -Horror of the Blood Monsters too, but that’s another issue), they didn’t seem to have a lot of faith in the premise. The concept here was good enough, but the show just seems so bland. Well, I still have two episodes to go, maybe it’ll improve.

  • Marsden

    TongoRad: What happened was the Newcomer Overlords, or Slavemasters, were in orbit around an outer planet, like Jupiter, and they sent a lone scout who Gerorge identified as some kind of super soldier, like a ninja/ranger/special ops guy to get the Overlords (the ones with the wrist tattoos on earth) in line for the take over, but meanwhile the doctors discovered a cure for the nasty virus the Pure Earth people came up with to kill off the Newcomers. They then infected the scout and when he returned to their ship they wrote it off as too dangerous, also the one female newcomer appealed to his better nature and her said they were all dead already, but I’m not sure about that last part.

    They made like 4 more movies but I don’t remember them.

  • TongoRad

    Thanks, Marsden. I must’ve seen the other movies but not that one- I’ll have to track it down somehow but it’s good to know what happened.

  • The Rev. D.D.

    Rock–Yeah, they played Space: 1999 once or twice back then. Hell, they played Automan and Misfits of Science and I think they even played Gemini Man.

  • Rock Baker

    Good times.

    They say you can pick up old trasmissions if you send a satellite far enough out (others claim such broadcasts dissolve over distance). If this is true, I imagine there might be profit in a service where you can link your set to a satellite in position to catch these signals. If you could move through the signals then you could watch anything you miss or didn’t get to see. The early Sci-Fi days, Monstervision and 100% Weird, the premire of I Love Lucy, or you could catch the show you missed last week. Sadly, I’m sure all this will ever be is an entertaining pipe dream.

  • Marsden

    TongoRad: Certainly! Sometimes I think I’m the only one that liked that show.

    Rock:
    That’s the plot of about 50 different TV shows from Star Trek to Futurama! Specifically when LLLR from Omicron Persei 9 invades earth to see the finale of “Single Female Lawyer”

  • Rock Baker

    Exactly! If all those invaders are doing it, we need to find a way to do it too! (I think the first time I saw this plot, it was an episode of Amazing Stories where midgets from another galaxy came to Earth to see Milton Berle, or something like that.)

  • sandra

    Tongo Rad/ Marsden: The ALIEN NATION movies were based on the outlines the producer had written for the second season that never happened. They were all novelized, and can still be found at the UBS ( at least, in my area).