Wired has a great interview with Ron D. Moore, the showrunner for Battlestar Galactica, in which he spoils absolutely nothing, yet talks about all sorts of cool things, like his personal religious beliefs and how they relate to the show’s portrayal of religion, the way BSG differs from Star Trek (RDM was a writer/producer for Deep Space Nine), etc. Most salient in my mind, his little anecdote about what happened when NBC/Universal focus-grouped the original BSG miniseries:
They did one of the infamous controlled tests of the miniseries just before the mini went on the air — like four weeks before we aired or something, one of those marketing testing focus group things. They watched the series. It was one of the worst rated ever.
The company that did it sent back this cover page report that just said, nobody likes any of these characters, we see no reason this should ever become a series, there’s no identification with any of it, it’s too dark, it’s too scary. And the network, all the blood drained from their face when they heard that, because it was too late. Fortunately, it was too late. The show was done, locked, in the can.
Yet another example of how focus groups are good for exactly one thing: wasting your money. Anyway, enjoy the interview.
