Faaaaaaaaarscape

This is actually relatively easy to figure out:

"Farscape" had a lower rate of return than, god help us, "Crossing Over with John Edwards", or the upcoming, undoubtedly completely execrable "Scare Tactics" will. Reality is cheap, cheap, cheap, and you don't have to explain it to Trailer Park Ma.

So they are going to jettision anything like farscape in favor of idiotfood. there's more of 'em anyway.

Now, the "Dunes" are a bit different story - they can put two years of production money into a limited run series, knowing in advance that the total cost is capped, and that there's a certain reliable set of revenue streams to be found overseas and on home video because the series rebroadcasts on the home channel will be quite strictly controlled.

In essence, Sci Fi always had a split identity - are they the home of genre cheese, or the home of the intellectual geek?

In the end, genre cheese is less expensive to produce and has a larger audience. But it's hard not to feel insulted when you see the kind of crap they're going with, "Dune" notwithstanding.