No More SciFi Friday

I can’t take any more of this. It has to end. Tonight’s the night. I’ve been a sci fi fan since I was a little girl. I never bought the stereotype moms in Ozzie & Harriet, Leave it to Beaver, or Father Knows Best. I liked the short skirts in Star Trek.

Starting with Star Trek, my love affair with sci fi continued for a few decades of TV, movies, and a few writers.

From Gene Roddenberry to Ray Bradbury to George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, I’ve traveled the worlds, kept the faith.

That faith ended Friday night as the SciFi Channel’s SciFi Friday season came to a close.

What happened? What shook the faith?

I’ve grown tired of being sucked in to a serial vortex that even an experienced Mississippi River catfish would know to avoid. The moth has stopped short of the flame.

It’s the hook. The past year there have been three Stargate SG-1 season finales. Not one. Not two. But three.

The Stargate franchise spawned Stargate Atlantis, a lame parallel which has has yet to find legs, but sandwiched between Stargate SG-1 and the highly acclaimed Battlestar Galactica, my not need legs.

Tonight was a triple whammy. Three season finales, one after the other, a SciFi night to remember that I’m ready to forget

What went wrong? I’d prefer the SciFi Channel stretch out the finales, say, one per week over three weeks. I’d also prefer few seasons within a season. That’s only a part of my gripe.

At one time, in the early days of television, perhaps in the 90s before the internet, TV seasons began about September or October and continued until perhaps May.

Some TV shows ended the season with a cliffhanger, a finale that left you hanging a few months. Remember, “Who Shot JR?”

The SciFi Friday Bermuda Triangle of Stargate, Atlantis, and Galactica have conspired to keep me eager and wondering, and ever ready to come back for more.

No more.

Why? I’m tired of being played like a bass, or pulled in like a Marlin. I do all the work and still get cooked.

Stargate SG-1 started it all with a season finale about this time last year. They followed it up with another season finale in the fall of last year. And, here we are, still in Winter 2006, and yet another season finale.

Enough already. The occasional two-parter, a “To Be Continued…” I can handle, but this is over the top too often.

Despite my regimen of exercise to maintain good posture, Galactica was the straw that broke the camel’s back. It took two seasons for Galactica to go from Cylon attack to Cylons-be-gone.

Then, in one final episode, 18 months pass, the stupid idot leftover humans vote Gaius Baltar as president, they find and inhabit an earth-like planet, and get conquered (again) by the Cylon tyrrany, while the fleet (and BattleStar Galactica) jumps faster than light to who-knows-where.

Enough already. I don’t want to wait until October to be treated like that again.

Both Stargate SG-1 and BattleStar Galactica should be targeted by unscrupulous lawyers (is there another kind?) in a class action lawsuit to pay back time to viewers; time that was lost while watching reruns, and scene reruns, and even more scenes, again and again.

No major TV shows have had more efficiency in reducing production costs than those two. Each episode begins with, “Previously…” on BattleStar Galactica, or SG-1, respectively.

Then, scene after scene from previous episodes are woven into the current episode, reducing the cost to produce the current episode. There are flashbacks, flashbacks of flashbacks, dreams, imaginary dreams, and so many human-like Cylons you can’t tell who’s the good guy or the bad guy.

No more SciFi Friday. I’m tired of being played like a violin, lured like a struggling and helpless fish toward the hook, careening through the evening like a moth’s inevitable journey to the flame.

I’m mad as hell and I can’t take it anymore. Oh, I’m giving Desperate Housewives the boot, too.