SyFy: Imagine Greater

I was finally able to catch a new episode of Eureka on the SyFy channel last night and before the show I saw this promotional commercial for their new look and concept. If you haven't heard, the Sci-Fi channel changed it's name to SyFy a few months back:

By changing the name to Syfy, which remains phonetically identical, the new brand broadens perceptions and embraces a wider range of current and future imagination-based entertainment beyond just the traditional sci-fi genre, including fantasy, supernatural, paranormal, reality, mystery, action and adventure. It also positions the brand for future growth by creating an ownable trademark that can travel easily with consumers across new media and nonlinear digital platforms, new international channels and extend into new business ventures.

Basically, they took a niche channel that offers a great lineup of specifically science-fiction based entertainment and ruined it by watering it down with shows about ghosts and wizards to increase their profits and audience share. Or even more basically, they took the "science" out of science-fiction for money. Sorcerers and unicorns are part of the fantasy genre and are most decidedly not sci-fi, no matter how you spell it. Harry Potter and John Conner should never cross fictional paths.

Despite my distaste for this new business model I do have to admit that their promo commercial is very well done, technically and stylistically. The music is a little lame but the visuals have a surreal, Big Fish quality to them and several scenes are very stunning. It of course didn't have the intended effect of making me want to watch these new fantasy offerings but I did enjoy watching them being advertised (it's also in HD so it looks great full screen):