TVSquad

Weeks ago, we reported that Fox would air the two-hour pilot for Ron Moore's Virtuality on July 4 -- the day everyone in America will be eating barbecue, drinking beer and not watching TV. We obviously saw this as a bad sign for the Battlestar Galactia creator's new sci-fi series. Why would the network dump the premiere of a high-concept sci-fi show on a holiday? Probably because they don't believe in the project. Virtuality, the series, is not on Fox's schedule for the upcoming fall season, and rumors about its death have been swirling for weeks.

Our pals at Airlock Alpha recently gave us hope about the series getting be picked up. This weekend, they pointed us to a blog post by Doug Drexler, the CG supervisor for the Virtuality pilot. Here's what Drexler posted:

For one reason or another, people have been wanting to rename the Sci Fi network for a long time. About three years ago, someone shot a fake press release around the blogoshpere saying that the SciFi network was going to be renamed SurgeTV. Even as recently as last fall, surveys were going around suggesting that the name would change to Beyond. Now we finally have an official name change from the folks at NBC Universal and it's a big one: the Sci Fi network is becoming... the Syfy network.

Doesn't sound much different, does it? The shocking thing is that the network went through 300 (!) names before picking the phonetic version of their existing name. The name is supposed to be the "best of both worlds," network president Dave Howe tells TV Week; it sounds like the old name but it looks less geeky than the abbreviation for "Science Fiction." The new name and logo will start appearing on July 7, when the dramedy Warehouse 13 is launched.