The Sci-Fi Channel has unveiled ambitious plans that involve spending $300-400 million on new programming through the 2005 season. Today's Variety includes the announcement of a new series based on the 1980s Marvel comic book Strikeforce: Morituri, which may debut as early as next fall. The new series will be retitled A Thousand Days, a reference to the length of life of the bio-engineered soldiers, who live only a thousand days after their commissioning in the elite strikeforce. Writers Matt Holloway and Art Marcum will both script and produce the series. Marvel's Avi Arad and Rick Ungar are also onboard as producers.
The reasons behind the announcement of this very considerable investment in original programming are twofold. On the one hand the response to the Sci-Fi Channel's 20-hour miniseries, Taken has been terrific, taking the SF Channel to the number one spot among cable networks in primetime for two consecutive weeks (see 'Viewers Taken With'Taken''). In fact during the two weeks that Taken ran on Sci-Fi, the network even beat out the WB and UPN broadcast networks in primetime ratings. The other factor propelling the Sci-Fi Channel's expensive foray into original programming is the threat of a competing science fiction cable network sponsored by Viacom and anchored by Viacom's vault of science fiction goodies that includes all the Star Trek series, the Twilight Zone, and numerous science fiction films produced by Paramount. Competing with the Sci-Fi Channel for supremacy in its niche could be a very expensive proposition if the network's original programming continues to perform as well as Taken. 
