Enjoy your Gender Specificity while it lasts.
Sorry, we still do not have personal jet packs.
Save the Rainforests, thats where the ape overlords say the best bananas come from.
Racism is no longer a problem now that all inferior humans are slaves.
Don't worry, it turns out the moon is made out of fossil fuels.

Surprisingly amusing. You can check out more of these, along with the original ads that aired 10 years ago, by visiting None Inc. Just ignore the "visit Syfy" image that pops up and scroll down the top, orange window.

As part of the promotions for the new name for the channel, SyFy will be providing free wireless internet — dubbed "WyFy from SyFy" — at Union Square and Times Square, as well as building something called an "interactive Imagination Park" outside parent company NBC/Universal's Rockefeller Center to include program-centric promotion between July 7th and 12th. The network has also been named as the lead sponsor of the Museum of Modern Art's November-launching Tim Burton retrospective.

Admittedly, if you live outside of New York, this doesn't do a lot for you... unless you're an NBC affiliate, in which case you can enter a sweepstake to win a trip to San Francisco for some Warehouse 13 and Eureka goodies. Everyone else, though? We just have to wait for San Diego Comic Con, where the network plans a "larger presence"... and hopefully some spoilers and teases for the year ahead.

SciFi's rebrand into SyFy officially takes place on July 7th.

Syfy's Two-Pronged Rebrand Strategy [Broadcasting Cable]

The decision to cancel the show comes after months of speculation about its future; it's been known for some time that ITV was considering cancellation due to the high production cost, leading to producers Impossible Pictures offering a co-production deal with the SciFi Channel as an alternative way to lower costs. Instead, ITV decided to simply drop the show. An ITV spokesman told the Guardian newspaper:

After three very successful series of Primeval there are no plans at the present time for it to return to ITV. High-quality drama remains a key part of the ITV schedule although our current focus is on post-watershed [ie, post-9pm] productions.

Impossible Pictures, however, refuse to let the show die quietly, telling Total SciFi Online:

At the point where we finished the third series, we had every reason to believe we would be doing a fourth. Had we known there was any likelihood of cancellation, clearly we wouldn't have left half the cast marooned up a tree in the distant past. We can understand that some fans might be frustrated by this ending and we're sorry for that. It certainly wasn't our plan to leave things so uncertain. That said, some fans may know that there are ongoing talks for both a film and a North American series version of Primeval and if and when those projects come to fruition we will make every effort to carry on the story in a suitable way.

Obviously we're devastated that things should end this way with ITV. But we're absolutely certain that although this stage of its evolution seems to be over, Primeval isn't dead. We're very proud of what we've achieved over the past three years and we have every intention of keeping Primeval alive in other ways.

Primeval's final season is currently airing in the US on BBC America.

Primeval dropped by ITV [Guardian.co.uk], ITV cancel Primeval [Total SciFi Online]

Studies show that the KFC/BSG teaming was much more successful than normal advertising, both for the chicken shack and the show: Brand recall for the "hybrid branding" spots was at 103% of the norm, with KFC scoring 82% likability as a result, while Galactica's audience proved 29% more loyal as a result. It gets weirder; of the BSG fans who participated in the KFC-sponsored online activities like the "Hear The Fans" feedback forum or "Cheer The Fans"' embeddable video clips found themselves 23% more likely to eat at KFC as a result of the sponsorship. SciFi's VP of strategic marketing, Shari Weisenberg, is happy with the results of the sponsorship:

It was a good match... Battlestar Galactica has a deep, loyal fan base, which we know would engage both online and on-air. KFC saw it as a means to get new customers.

While SciFi can't point to specific KFC sales figures, they know that over 100,000 KFC coupons were downloaded during the promotion with "intent to buy." I wonder if this means we'll see more of this kind of crossmarketing in future on the soon-to-be SyFy, and less awkward deodorant plotlines in our favorite shows.

Sci Fi's 'Battlestar Galactica' Promotion Scored For KFC [Multichannel]

Heraclitus said you can't step into the same river twice, but that's what Syfy, having adapted Riverworld into a standalone feature in 2003, is trying with next year's more ambitious, four-hour miniseries based on Philip José Farmer's beloved novels. Judging by this Q&A at SciFiWire, however, scribe Robert Hewitt Wolfe (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, The 4400) seems undaunted by the prospect of alienating Farmer's loyal readers with an adaptation that ditches the original's storylines and relegates its protagonists to supporting character (or antagonist) status.

The basic premise is the same: deceased humans from across time find themselves living in a watery limbo, a planet-traversing river, where famous historical personages and obscure folk unite to unravel the mystery of their situation. Like the 2003 movie, however, the Wolfe miniseries will push aside the first book's protagonist (real-life Victorian explorer Sir Richard Francis Burton) in favor of a contemporary American protagonist (to be played by Dollhouse's Tahmoh Penikett) with a simple motive: to find his missing love (Smallville's Laura Vandervoort), who died with him in a suicide bombing.

Wolfe (whose strong résumé includes multiple episodes of Andromeda, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and The 4400) suggests that he wants to leave the saga's spiritual and philosophical underpinnings intact, but downgrading the swashbuckling, complex, real-life protagonist to a supporting role because American TV viewers might find him too obscure and unlikable doesn't speak well for the project's literacy and thoughtfulness. In fact, Wolfe hints that Burton may be more of an antagonist than a protagonist. Mark Twain, the hero of the second book, will turn up early on, having managed to build himself a riverboat.

Plus, Wolfe envisions future installments of this possible ongoing series, where he uses Farmer's platform as an opportunity to dig up various historical figures and watch them fight. "I'd love to do a story where the real Macbeth finds out about this play that has been written about him and is freaking pissed off because it makes him look like a dick!" Heh heh. Watch your back, Shakespeare!

Farmer, who died in February at 91, was reportedly upbeat about the prospect of this miniseries. These days, however, he's probably on a steamboat somewhere with Twain and Shakespeare, plotting vengeance.

British newspaper the Guardian is reporting that, despite Primeval being one of ITV's most successful dramas, the high production costs may force the network to share expenses with the UK SciFi Channel, allowing them to show the series before it ends up on its home network. While neither SciFi nor Primeval production company Impossible Pictures offered comment - and ITV's comment was a generic "no decision has been made about a fourth season yet" - an anonymous source was quoted as saying:

Everything is being looked at to see if the show can be brought in most cost-effectively and there is a plan that has been put to ITV which involves other channels. It is a couple of weeks away from a decision. [ITV Director] Peter Fincham wants to see what kind of business deals can be put together.

The UK SciFi Channel shares a parent company, NBC Universal, with the American SciFi/SyFy, which leads us to wonder whether a deal could be worked out allowing the US channel to own American rights and premiere the episodes simultaneously with ITV in the UK, similar to the co-funding of Battlestar Galactica between the US SciFi and UK Sky networks...

ITV could share cost of Primeval with rival digital channel [MediaGuardian.co.uk]

For each drinking game, we're just listing the absolute best rule of the bunch. For the whole set, click through on each link. (Unfortunately, there was no way I could test-drive all of these; I kind of wanted to keep my liver.)

General:

Drinking Game with the Sci-Fi Channels Original Movies (by Joanna Lopez, associatedcontent.com)
Best Rule: four sips if the movie looks like a poor person's version of the latest popular movie playing in theaters.
Likelihood of Intoxication: Relatively High

The Scifi/Action/Disaster Movie Drinking Game (posted by oblivion)
Best Rule: Evil clown/mime/street performer (Because, really, I had no idea that happened with any sort of regularity in sci-fi and action films.)
Second-Best Rule: Leading man named after verb or mineral (Because now I'm trying to think of an example and can't . . . You know, this game has some odd rules.)
Likelihood of Intoxication: Moderately High, especially if the plot involves a guy named Hunt Quartz preventing a syndicate of mimes from setting off their hurricane-causing doomsday machine

Spot the Scifi Cliché! A Drinking Game(by Charlie Jane Anders, here at io9)
Best Rule: The hero has a miraculous gadget (which may rhyme with ironic brew diver) allowing him to get out of literally any difficult situation with no hassle.
Score: Minus 10 points.
Drinking game: Make yourself a sonic screwdriver out of orange juice, vodka and ultrasonic vibrations. Drink the whole thing in one go.
Likelihood of Intoxication: Probably highest if you're watching a show that may rhyme with Proctor Glue (Speaking of which . . .)

Specific:

Doctor Who - The Drinking Game! (by Simon Oxwell)
Best Rule: If you see something of which 1970s anti-violence crusader Mary Whitehouse would disapprove (This is a drinking game designed for the classic series, by the way.)
Likelihood of Intoxication: Moderate, depending on which Doctor it is and how many Daleks are present.

The Batman Movie (1966) Drinking Game (Sky of Blue's Hoosier Journal of Inanity)
(Can I just say how pleased I am that someone's made a drinking game for this movie, considering how much it pretty much cries out for one?)
Best Rule: Now, here's the REAL kicker. At one point in the movie, Robin asks Batman, "You risked your life to save that riffraff in the bar?" Chug ONE ENTIRE BEVERAGE upon Batman's reply of, "They may be drinkers, Robin, but they're also human beings ..."
Second-Best Rule: "Under this garb we're perfectly ordinary Americans."
Likelihood of Intoxication: I'm going to say "Pretty High," because according to the creator of the game: "With what we were drinking, no one remained upright much past Rule 5." (Although now I just want to know what they were drinking . . .)

Drunkgate: Stargate Drinking Game (for Stargate: SG-1)
Best Rule: The team has to impersonate deities. (This includes if they are recognized as such but choose not to carry out the impersonation.)
Second-Best Rule: There are trees. (Basically, I think this rule should be added to any and all drinking games.)
Likelihood of Intoxication: Extremely High, from what I can tell (But only if you follow all the rules, of which there are about a million)

The (Original Series) Tomorrow People Drinking Game (by Beth Epstein, with submissions by Heidi Howard, Amy Houghton, and Maria Sloughter)
Best Rule: A trend in fashion or pop culture turns out to be an insidious alien plot.
Likelihood of Intoxication: Extremely Low if you follow the rule at the start of the game: "Tomorrow People don't ingest anything that will affect the functioning of their minds. Alcohol affects the mind. Therefore, Tomorrow People don't drink alcohol. This game is meant for root beer, juice, or other soft drinks, or you could use M&M's (1=sip, 2=gulp, use snack size/halloween size bags for whole drink— or two really big handfuls)." (I figure this is one of those instances in which rules were made to be broken, though.)

300 Drinking Game (SuperHeroHype Boards)
Best Rules (Aka, the only rules): Every time the word Sparta or Spartan is mentioned, you drink. Or if you want to get really plastered, you have to keep chugging during all the slow-mo.
Likelihood of Intoxication: For a game with only two rules, I feel the odds are pretty darned high.

The Battlestar Galactica Drinking Game (by Denise Martin, Los Angeles Times)
Best Rule: Sneak a swig... Every time you wonder why more people watch "Lost."
Likelihood of Intoxication: Moderate.

Supernatural Drinking Game (by Lsketch42, via YouTube)

Best Rule: I don't know that there's a best rule here, as I couldn't really get past the polka music and The Chicken Dance. That being said, I admire anyone who condenses an entire show down to the moments when you ought to be drinking.
Likelihood of Intoxication: If you watch the drinking game video, you're probably just going to have to chug for a couple minutes straight, so I figure your odds of being buzzed by the end are up there. (You will have also endured a few minutes of the aforementioned Chicken Dance music, so I think you've earned the buzz.) If actually watching the show, with all the extraneous plot and stuff, your chances of intoxication plummet pretty severely, I think.

KryptonSite's Smallville Drinking Game! (via KryptonSite)
Best Rule: You count more than a five second awkward silence between Clark and Lana.
Likelihood of Intoxication: Pretty Darned High
(Then again, here is another, which gives you new rules every time you refresh the page.)

The Star Trek Drinking Game
Best Rule: A newly discovered planet is "Much like Earth"
Second Best Rule: Kirk violates the prime directive (Mostly because I thought it said "detective" for a minute. Now that's an episode that should have happened.)
Likelihood of Intoxication: Pretty High (I'm interested to see how well it holds up in the movie coming out next week.)

Heroes: The Drinking Game (Miss Geeky)
(But you can find others here and here. As well as about a hundred other places.)
Best Rule: Mohinder saying "evolution", "mankind", or "cure". (I think you could pass out on this rule alone.)
Likelihood of Intoxication: Pick any one of the games and you can get really wasted. Combine all of them, and you're dead.

Lee Falk's newspaper strip hero, created in 1936, is known as a non-superpowered costumed hero fighting evil in the jungles of fictional country Bengali who uses his wits, natural strength and agility and two guns to get the job done. By contrast, SciFi's take on the character gives him a bulletproof suit that also acts as an exoskeleton to give him increased strength and speed. Oh, yeah, and a Matrix-esque trenchcoat. But he might need that, considering he's apparently going to be up against an "experimental mind-control program" in the network's backdoor pilot next year. Because, you know, a non-experimental mind-control program would just be taking things too far.
This isn't the first time that the Phantom has been given an update; Marvel Comics revamped the character in a similar fashion in the mid-90s, and there was a series about an animated futuristic Phantom called Phantom 2040 around the same period. Apparently, the best way to make the Phantom work for modern audiences is to come up with a different concept altogether and just keep the name and color scheme - a plan that, admittedly, gains credibility when you consider the fate of the faithful 1996 movie.

Get a sneak peek at the title character from SCI FI's The Phantom [SciFi Wire]

The channel added 7% to their adults aged 18-34, and 4% to their overall viewership, according to the press release, with the final episodes of Battlestar Galactica and the ever-present Ghost Hunters and Ghost Hunters International leading the way in viewers, making the network the fifth watched basic cable channel for the month (Last March, they were 8th). Considering that the network is already growing its female audience at such a rate, it'll be interesting to see if the channel's rebranding in June will change these numbers in any way whatsoever, really.

Sci-Fi Jumps to Number 5 in Adults 25-54 for March [The Futon Critic]

One of the channel's founders, Mitch Rubenstein, called the name change "just plain dumb" in a letter to hollywood.com. Rubenstein recounted how he, Laurie Silvers and Isaac Asimov strove to convince fans to accept the Sci Fi Channel - and how difficult it was when he was booed off stage for merely calling the new channel "Sci Fi," instead of "science fiction" or "SF". But it was Isaac Asimov who wooed the crowd:

Then Isaac started to speak and said that the name had to be Sci Fi Channel and not the SF Channel, in order to draw a wide, diverse audience and be successful. To be in a financial position to acquire and produce the best programming. That's really what counts, right? The writers came around and agreed. Heck, it was Isaac Asimov saying "Sci Fi Channel" was OK, and that was that.

What would Isaac have said if the name was instead SyFy Channel. He would have said (we believe): That's just plain dumb.

Yesterday we got a chance to speak with Sci Fi president David Howe - who said he loved our proposed "yo9" redesign, from Garrison Dean. We asked Howe if he thought Asimov would approve of the channel's name change. He replied:

I honestly suspect not. I wasn't around and I wasn't aware of the genesis of the network and the name. But I think when I read that piece... the thing that struck me most about it is, I suspect [that] if we took them through the rationale as to why we were changing, they would probably get it. If you read that piece, it kind of says that when it was launched, it was launched as the Science Fiction Channel, exclusively. And that it was primarily about space and technology, and the future, and essentially Star Trek. That is something we in no way shape or form want to get away from. But I think what we want to move to the position where we can move into the broad scifi fantasy landscape and include in there fantasy, paranormal, supernatural, super-hero and some of the speculative action-adventure. I think that's sort of the object of this exercise. So it's about: "How do we embrace the broader scifi-fantasy landscape," as opposed to, "How do we escape our past?"

Maybe Howe's right and he could have won Asimov over. It certainly sounds like Howe and staff are incredibly dedicated to the idea of selling this new branding to the world, and he seems pretty darn smooth. But is changing the name from Sci Fi to Syfy going to bring in more viewers, who were previously deterred by the "scifi" stigma? I'm not too sure. If they keep making things on a par with BSG then sure, but finding that kind of content is pretty impossible these days.

But what else could Syfy have been labeled? According to Howe they were also tossing around the names Beyond and SFC, but even the word Beyond was deemed by a test group as being over John Q. Public's head. That's incredibly depressing - maybe they should have called the channel Not Sci Fi - that way, no one would be challenged or scared by us geeks.

But Howe reassures us all that this isn't about shoving the channel's loyal viewers into a locker, so Syfy can hang with the cool kids. Howe is still dedicated to those not afraid to think for themselves, who won't run away from the words "science fiction."

This is not about alienating our existing core viewers because frankly we are still the scifi-fantasy channel and will continue to be so. This is absolutely about embracing our heritage, and embracing our future, and figuring out how we can bring even more people into the camp. The thing that I think disturbs us most was, people, as we expected, saying ‘Well this is just another opportunity to put more ECW on the air.' Or, ‘This is another opportunity to do even more reality.' That isn't true and recent announcements [prove otherwise]. We've picked up Caprica, it'll launch in the new year. We've picked up Stargate Universe, the next exciting chapter of the longest running space opera in TV history. This isn't about retrenching, this is about absolutely embracing the totality of not just our core audience but actually, a new audience in the future."

So there you have it, it could have been Beyond, so that makes Syfy look a lot better in my opinion. I know we fear change, but I'm curious as to what you guys think what kind of content Syfy will be hosting two years from now.

Honestly, my heart sank when I saw the announcement, because it foregrounds Syfy's planned Alice In Wonderland miniseries. Presumably it'll be "dark" and in the style of the channel's Wizard Of Oz reinvention, Tin Man. But some things just ought to be left alone, and the idea of a more "character-driven" Alice makes me feel slightly ill.

Oh, and here's Whoopi Goldberg as the Cheshire Cat, just to seal the deal:

Aren't you excited now?

There's also a four-hour miniseries based on The Phantom, which Syfy promises will be in the vein of the Batman Begins and Iron Man movies. (I'm guessing it'll be similar to the Flash Gordon series.)

But really, the only thing that gives me hope is the idea of a four-hour Riverworld miniseries, which could turn into an ongoing show. Of all the science fiction book series you could imagine turning into an open-ended TV show, Riverworld is probably the best idea. In Farmer's novels, everyone who's ever lived on Earth wakes up - naked - along the banks of an endless river, with no idea how they got there. Historical figures and random oddities rub shoulders as they try to figure out the mystery of the Riverworld.

Oh, and I just realized the Sci Fi Channel already did an adaptation of Riverworld some years ago - but it sounds like this new version is not a continuation. Rather, it's a reboot or a fresh remake, judging from VP Mark Stern's comments in the Hollywood Reporter interview. Explains Stern:

"Riverworld," about a photojournalist transported to a mysterious world occupied by everyone who has ever lived on Earth, could have the most series potential if producers pull off the novel's tricky combination mixing a modern protagonist with reborn historical figures.

Characters in the story's world will be portrayed by actors in their 20s, so somebody like Napoleon wouldn't be "a balding man with his hand in his coat."

"Part of the fun of this is the reveal of who each character is," Stern said.

All three four-hour events are being made by RHI Entertainment, which also worked on Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars and a billion made-for-TV movies. Let's just keep our fingers crossed they don't do a hatchet job on Farmer's awesome novels. [Yahoo News]

13enster: "The Further Proof of the Decline of Western Civilization Channel"

Final: "Every Cable Channel needs a Wrestling Show but we were too cheap to go after Kaiju Big Battel"

LarsThorwald: "We Are Not Above Marketing an Original Movie About a Giant Snake and Starring Chase Masterson as a Major Television Event in Every Single Commercial Break"

oboesqueaks: "Being A Broadcast Network That Specializes In Pictorial Representations Of A Technical and Supernatural Nature - The Only Place Where You Can Find Purple Nazi Monsters"

SuperTuna: "The Ooo - that looks/sounds interesting. Oops looks like it was another Animal turned into man's worst fears made for (turned off) TV movie channel"

Lassus: "The Everyone Hates The Genre That Cannot be Named Network"

AlyssaAnaxo: "The We Can't Tell The Difference Between Science Fiction and Horror Channel"

TarynO: "The If they shot it in Vancouver then it's on our channel channel"

BeccaSaurus: "The We've Lost Our Way, But What's It To You? Wanna Make Something Of It? Channel"

ElsaBabby: "The Acne Network Shut Your Fucking Yaws Shit, You Farscapers YELL! The We Really Wanted to Work For Lifetime Channel The What is Science? And What is Fiction? Station The Damn I Thought I was Working for the Other Michael Jackson When I Was Promoted Channel SyFlyByNight I Cant Spel But I Kin Txt Chanel The English Channel Why Won't This Network Die Already Place on The Cable Box KSFY: All The Crap NBC Doesn't Want Cap'n Syphilis Network I Thought "Demographics" Meant Demonstrating Onion Slicers and Oxy-Clean Our Viewers Really Don't Live With Their Parents? But the Dream Was So Real! Why You don't Hold Your Meeting on Branding at 4:20 KPox What Will We Do When Our Usual Actors Bail on Us They Shoot Networks, Don't They? Kick Me, I'm a Cable Channel It's SyFy, Not Sissy!" (But mostly because I like to pretend that that's all one name.)

QuantAnteater: "The Proof That All the Good Names Have Been Taken Channel"

Bloodboiler: "Scary Door" (I have to admit, I love the idea of a network called "Scary Door." I would totally tune in just to see what the hell was on.)

KoopaLee: "The 'Things We'll Never See In Our Lifetime, So Don't Get Too Excited' Channel"

IngramAmyntor: "The We Don't Care About Our Viewers And Never Did Which Is Why We're Doing Our Damndest To Alienate Them Channel"

ShinjiniPyrrha: "You won't find 'Sex and The City' rerun here Network."

Remember, SciFi/SyFy execs... We're available for all manner of consulting work. And we're very, very cheap.

(* - Yeah, I have no idea how I managed to repeat #15-17. That's what I get for rearranging them after I'd written the post first time out.)

ABC has grabbed the American rights for Impact, a four-hour mini from Germany's Tandem Communications, proud makers of such Sci-Fi Channel Original Mini-Series as Lost City Raiders and Ring of the Nibelung, with an eye to making it a summer event, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Don't feel too bad for the Sci Fi Channel, however; they managed to snag second-run rights to the series, something that makes Sci Fi Executive VP Thomas Vitale very happy indeed:

'Impact' is an ideal acquisition for Sci Fi's weekend-movie franchise... A high-caliber disaster-genre film with such a stellar cast is a recipe for success for Sci Fi.

Sadly, as soon as he said that, everyone else realized that this is probably just another Mansquito and lost interest.

ABC nabs rights to German mini 'Impact' [Hollywood Reporter]

First off - lookin' good, Stoltz. I'm still glad he's a part of this series and playing the slightly creepy genius who brings back Grandpa Adama's daughter from the dead... as a robot.

We've seen Caprica's trailer and how it just barely overlaps with the BSG characters, but I'm really interested to see how the story behind the final Cylon on BSG, will play out on Caprica. Because right now, I'm a bit confused by how Caprica's centurions overlap with the ones the Galactica crew found on Earth, and how the Final Five fit in, exactly.

[Yahoo]

At a press roundtable for the upcoming release of Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, McDonough told reporters that SciFi is planning to bring Tin Man back as a regular series after it became the channel's most watched show ever last year:

Last year, I had the great fortune to play Wyatt Cain in Tin Man, that could have been my favorite performance of anything I've done. That was a character that was really close to me... I do enjoy playing villains, and I had a great run the last year or so doing it. I certainly would love to go back and visit a guy like Wyatt Cain, whteher its Tin Man the series, which wenve talked about, or just to explore the character [in some way.]

When asked whether a Tin Man series was a possibility, McDonough replied,

It is, yeah. Sci Fi and [producer] Robert Halmi are talking about it. We were going to start up when I got back from Street Fighter, and then [Desperate] Housewives came along, and we weren't ready yet. So I said, let's do some Housewives and let's see if we can get Tin Man done when I come back. It's definitely a possibility, they just talked about it a few days ago. They would like to do it.

Does this mean weekly Alan Cumming and Zooey Deschanel may be in our future? If so, we can't wait.

Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li comes out February 27.

Start unpacking that backpack of homo sapiens privilege, and tune into these awesome posters by Milan ad firm Saatchi & Saatchi. They're designed to promote Sci Fi Channel but let's just ignore that and remember that there are two sides to every alien encounter story.

I'm not entirely joking.

See these posters in an even more giant size at Copyranter.

The show isn't scheduled to start airing on Sci Fi until 2010, but an unrated, uncut version will be out on DVD in April. And it sounds like you'll be able to influence the development of the show through your reactions. Says Sci Fi executive VP Mark Stern:

We wanted to give them a chance to see the pilot in its original form and experience the prequel to the BSG story while that series' finale was still ringing in their ears. It also affords the creative team an unprecedented chance to get viewers feedback before production on the Caprica series begins this summer.

The uncut version will be an hour and 33 minutes long, and the DVD will include the following special features:

Feature Commentary with Director Jeffrey Reiner and Executive Producer/Writer Ronald D. Moore and Executive Producer David Eick

Deleted Scenes

Video Blogs:

• What the Frak is Caprica?
• The Director's Process
• The V Club
• The Birth of a Cylon

[NBC/Universal]

The series is co-written by co-creator Andrew Cosby and Daily Show writer Brendan Hay, with art by Diego Barreto, and takes place between the first and second seasons of the Sci-Fi Channel series, which can only mean one thing: More Nathan Stark. Admit it. You're excited.

Eureka #1 is released tomorrow.

When reviewers (including yours truly at io9) received their screener DVDs of tonight's episode, they also got a note from SciFi Channel explaining "with all due respect" that a "sensitive reveal" had been excised from our review copies. We were asked to review the episode without seeing the entire finished product. While it's normal for studios to send out early screener copies that lack special effects or some sound editing, sending out an incomplete version of an episode to stop spoilers is extremely rare. (UPDATE: This isn't as rare as I originally believed - apparently several studios have sent out incomplete screeners to critics for key episodes in series such as Doctor Who, ER, and for shows winning contestants.)

Obviously the message was that SciFi couldn't trust reviewers to keep secrets to themselves. Or they were worried the excised scene was so lame that they didn't want to risk bad reviews. Either way, the official story was that this weird move was merely a pragmatic precaution. Reps explained that removing the "sensitive" scene was:

an extra precautionary measure to protect the content in the event that this package should become lost or unintentionally delivered to and viewed by someone other than the intended.

Um, what? Are we on orange alert?

A lot of critics noticed the weirdness, and commented. The Los Angeles Times' Mary McNamara mourned the omission of the scene, and the New York Times' Mike Hale grumbled about all the "things you can't know" about Battlestar. Even the Pioneer Press in Minnesota complained about not getting to see the crucial scene. And the Boston Herald's Mark Perigard tried to be nice about it by patiently explaining that as a reviewer he wouldn't want to spoil the ending - but that without seeing it, he basically can't review the whole episode with confidence.

I've been reviewing movies and television now for almost a decade, and I've never been asked to review an incomplete product. Sure, I've been told I can't view a flick until the night before the release, and sometimes studios decline to screen stuff for critics at all (usually a very bad sign). But when you get a review screener, or go to a critic's showing, the studio gives full, unedited access so you can make an honest evaluation of their creation.

I understand why SciFi is worried about spoilers. It sucks when people reveal your "sensitive reveal," but that's a risk whether or not you let critics do their jobs properly. Most leaks come from within studios themselves, not from outsiders who are accidentally delivered a screener DVD. And not from reviewers.

Which leads me back to a point I made earlier, which is that when studios don't want to screen something for critics, it usually doesn't bode well. I really liked what I got to see of tonight's episode, but it looks like we should brace ourselves for a disappointing final cylon.

The final episode of SGA managed to score 2 million viewers, capping off an incredibly successful season that had seen the show grow its audience by 5% compared with the year before. More impressively, its household rating increased by 14% when compared with last season. Sanctuary, meanwhile, also managed to grab 2 million viewers, giving the show its best ratings since the season premiere.

The one-two finale punch managed to make the channel the fourth most-watched cable network for the night, something that has to make the people in charge very happy... especially knowing that this Friday sees the start of the final episodes of Battlestar Galactica, replacing the departed shows.

'Stargate,' 'Sanctuary' Give Sci Fi Stellar Ratings [TV Week]