Wed Jul 21 18:47:41 EDT 1999

Fox Rumor Just Plain Wrong

Several days ago a rumor began to float around Usenet that the Sci Fi Channel had reported that Fox was interested in Crusade. As promised, I have endeavoured to discover the truth behind that rumor.

I spent several days calling the Sci Fi Channel (see news item: Recent Report of Sci Fi Channel's Interest in Crusade an Overstatement), and finally on the 20th (yesterday) at around 12:00 noon PST got a hold of someone in publicity. This person who has asked to be identified as "a representative of the Sci Fi Channel" (but asked that his/her name be withheld to avoid a backlash or barrage of phone calls to his/her office), said that Sci Fi did not know where that rumor got started. This representative of the Sci Fi Channel could not offer any information about Fox's reputed interest.

Unsatisfied, I decided to try another route. I sent word of the "Fox rumor" to J. Michael Straczynski (creator of Crusade, hereinafter JMS), hoping he would be able to set the record straight. At 12:43 am, July 21st, I received the following response from JMS:

The show was never even pitched to Fox, never brought to them, so who[e]ver had this info simply got it wrong.

There you have it: the Fox rumor is just plain wrong.

*This news should not be taken as a claim that the original poster of the rumor was lying, only that someone in the chain of transmission got this information wrong.