One of the biggest hoo-has going on right now in the world of television is the sly rebranding of The Sci Fi Channel into SyFy — another made-up word like Hulu or Zune or Wiki that sounds a little bit futuristic and a little bit, well, Hawaiian.  Or maybe Welsh.

In the case of Sci Fi, it’s understandable that the network would want to get away from its image as a refuge for socially maladjusted mother’s basement dwellers. SyFy, as the suits would have you believe, is a hip place for imaginative television. Furthermore, its viewers are a mystical breed of plugged-in folk who believe that watching television shows about spaceships and having a sex life aren’t mutually exclusive.

It’s easy to make fun of the new Apple-inspired rebranding ( New York Post article) and I’m pretty sure they could have come up with something a little less ridiculous, but rebranding is exactly what the station needs.  If they’re going to keep coming up with quality material like Battlestar Galactica, they need to broaden their audience beyond a niche that is notoriously unhip.

On that note, here are two channels that could deserve a makeover themselves.

Oxygen

Back when I used to watch Oxygen it had a lovable mix of class and trash. It had Oprah’s After the Show, reruns of Roseanne, some forgettable original programming and an early incarnation of the Isaac Mizrahi Show. Now, the station’s flagship programs are The Bad Girls Club (I’ve been watching it — post TK), Pretty Wicked (another show about pretty evil girls) and Snapped (the true life show about women who lose it and kill everyone). While the station’s current tagline is Live Out Loud –that doesn’t quite cut it.  I think a more appropriate tagline would be “Can You Believe These Crazy Bitches?” Or “Don’t Make Me Take Off My Earrings So I Can Beat Your Ass!”

FX

FX doesn’t need a rebranding as much as it needs a branding. It’s basically FOX on basic cable, but it’s home to some great shows — namely Damages (which gets better and better every damn week) and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (which I never watch with any regularity, but always enjoy when I do). FOX would do well to raise the network’s profile, considering no one every has any idea what’s going on with that station.

I’m watching Carol Burnett on Law & Order (on mute) and she looks like a monster.

• Conspiracy theory alert! Have the American Idol top four already been chosen?
• Ron Moore makes TV critics promise to not spoil the end of Battlestar.
• Sharon Lawrence will play Izzie’s mom on Grey’s Anatomy.
• The guy who played Dick Casablancas on Veronica Mars tours the set of Rockville CA, a music-themed Web series.
• The critic for the Baltimore Sun craps all over one of my favorite past-times — guessing who’s going to die on various shows.
• Is Simon Baker TV’s sexiest man?  TV Guide thinks so, but I’d urge them to reconsider Jamie Bamber or Nestor Carbonell.
• An interview with the young Ben Linus.
• Jon Stewart’s brother .
• .  So is your mother, by the end of the week.