Why is Law and Order: SVU on The Sci-Fi Channel?

Ya know if SciFi is running out of the umpteenth repeat of Stargate (the Law and Order of the SciFi universe) they could consider getting some new (to them) stuff to air. The new Dr Who is a decent sized success and it seems to me that classic eps would do well. So why not buy a few seasons of Tom Baker and run them instead of stretching it and running SVU.

Or along those lines--repeat Farscape or one of the other shows they've produced over the years. Of course, if they repeated Farscape, the fans would just get pissed again that quality sci-fi shows like it are cancelled while Stargate is still going.

Of course, that makes sense and is in keeping with what the network really is supposed to be about and we can't have that.

Jamie's right, Quantum Leap BARELY qualified as being Sci-Fi. It had a sc-fi setup but every episode was just an examination of the human condition from someone elses point of view. The jumping to different times and bodies was just a crutch to allow the writers to explore entirely different situations each week without needing to coherently tie them together. The plots could have been taken from Love Boat or BJ and the Bear.
A real Sci-Fi show has to be more than just a gimmick. You could call a show "Time Warriors from the Andriod Planet" and have the characters dressed up as aliens, but if they spend every week just talking about their relationship then it isn't Sci-Fi. It's got to be interwoven into the plotlines.

Perhaps its all one giant Outer Limits theme

Don't touch your dial. We control the T.V. set...

they're showing american pyscho at 10

yeah...weird

Perhaps if the Sci Fi Channel got the funds to actually bring to air all the shows it recently announced as being in development, they wouldn't need filler material like this.

Unlike many of the other nework's upfront, the Sci Fi Channel's announcements the other week merely highlighted their development slate and not shows committed to at least airing the pilot & a few episodes.

Or so I'm told anyway.

Well, Jamie, apparently all your reading hasn't helped you figure out that "marginally" means "barely," and that a show about time travel doesn't "barely" qualify as sci-fi. It's pretty square in the sci-fi camp. No matter what Donald Bellasario called it while he was trying to reel in viewers who get the heebie-jeebies from the "sci-fi" label, traveling through time and body-switching is fictional science; ergo, science fiction.

As far as I'm concerned, there are three major categories of sci-fi:

Other Worlds: space travel, future
Strange Beings: aliens, robots, psychics, ghosts
Time Travel: uh, self-explanatory

Time travel gets its own category from me mostly because it doesn't fit in with the others. But it IS sci-fi. Sci-fi uses fantastic elements to tell a story, not the other way around. Quantum Leap is not marginally sci-fi, it simply is sci-fi because it satisfies the storytelling aspect and adds some fantastic elements.

And before pedantics run in here, keep in mind I'm using "sci-fi" to mean "science fiction", even though some will not equate the two.

I ssee Stephen and Phantom have no clue what the word "marginally" means. Too much TV, too little reading. sad.

Thank you Stephen Prescott for being the voice of reason. I too am mystified how Quantem leap "marginally qualifies" as SciFi. In what way could we make it MORE Sci-Si?
Perhapse the main character could have a hologram friend? No no no...too obvious...
Or perhapse a portion of it could take place in the future....no no...too easy...
Maybe the main character could some how ...jump or "leap" into other peoples bodies, taking on their lives for a short while...no, that's just plain silly.
I guess well just have to keep it the serious character driven drama that it is...with absolutely NO science fiction in it at all.

Maybe not "trying to get away from" their core sci-fi base--maybe more like trying to air things that will give them the opportunity to advertise their expensive original programming. But SVU makes zero sense. It's not fantasy and it's not sci-fi. I mean, detective stories are a genre, too, but...does NBC need to squeeze Law & Order dry?