contact your local newspapers

[skippercollecto]

I have a different, positive suggestion for all of you. Why don’t you write to the TV or entertainment or lifestyles editor/writer of your local daily paper about your love of Galactica?
This is what I am envisioning: All the local TV sections of the newspapers will probably be carrying articles or reviews of the new miniseries just before it airs. Some of them will have been able to review it in advance by being sent a video to watch; others will just publish canned reviews they receive from the newspaper wire services. If the writers do decide to write a story, you will be available to the newspaper as a local authority on the subject. You will be able to tell them things that the public doesn't really know.
I am concerned that the local writers will either be too young to remember the series when it first aired, or that if they do some generic research on it, this is what they will find:
1. News about the lawsuit brought by George Lucas against Glen Larson. Most news articles mention it; but few go into detail about how it was dropped.
2. That it was canceled after just one season. To the uninformed, this will make it sound like the show had low ratings. We all know that the series had average ratings--it was just that ABC couldn’t justify the cost of the series against the ratings it was getting.
3. All the criticism about the reused and “cheap” special effects (which were actually state-of-the-art for their time and, yes, they didn’t cost as much as they do now); the obsession with the actors’ hairstyles (which were in style for 1978 and who’s to say that the shaved heads popular for the past decade won’t be made fun of 20 years from now?); and the rushed story lines (so what TV series doesn’t suffer from this?)
Yet I would like the reporters to know what isn’t often publicized about the series; things that only diehard fans know, such as:
1. That the BG cast members have been far more accessible and open to their fans than any Star Trek actors ever have been.
2. The show’s costumes won an Emmy; the show’s theme music was nominated for an Emmy.
3. The series was ahead of its time in regards to topics such as the role of women in the military; theorizing about the origins of mankind; the use of religion in science fiction; and using a serialized story line with recurring characters. These concepts wouldn’t be used again in science fiction until Star Trek: The Next Generation in the 1980s and Babylon 5 in the 1990s.
4. The show included a number of famous guest stars: Fred Astaire, Lloyd Bridges, Ray Milland, Patrick MacNee and Jane Seymour. Several of the regulars, recurring actors and guest stars went on to other more well-known roles: Ana Alicia/Falcon Crest; Ed Begley Jr./St. Elsewhere; Dirk Benedict/The A-Team; Noah Hathaway/The Neverending Story; Leann Hunley/Days of Our Lives and Dynasty; Larry Manetti/Magnum P.I.; and Bruce Wright/Seven Days.
I would also like for the reporters to see that the majority of Galactica fans are “normal”--that is, that they have careers and families and other hobbies and aren’t the stereotypical obsessed nerdy social rejects. And by making yourself known to the reporters, they will have someone to contact if they want more information when they do write their stories.
If you want to borrow anything I’ve written here, feel free to do so. I’ve written about all these subjects countless times anyway both in fanzines and on the web, so it’s not like any of it’s secret.
Mary
P.S. If you contact your local paper, your intent shouldn’t be to badmouth the new series. Rather, your focus should be that there is still respect and love for the original show.

[jewels]

Excellent idea, Mary. Thanks for all the well-thought out advice.

[skippercollecto]

Julie,
Actually, you were one of the people I thought about as I was writing this. Would you be interested in contacting the Cincinnati or Middletown newspapers? I would myself, but actually, I've been written about before in the local papers and would like to see somebody else's comments. Back in 2000, the Cincinnati Enquirer did a section on people who had met their favorite celebrities, and I wrote in about being a fan of Richard and Galactica. You can find the article at
https://www.enquirer.com/editions/200...ghly_fond.html
And I've also been interviewed several times about my Barbie doll collecting, so I think it is only fair that someone else get a chance to speak publicly!
Mary

[jewels]

Go Mary!

I'll try to squish in a letter to the Enquirer & Middletown Journal, and maybe the Dayton Daily News. Maybe if the Dayton paper picks it up they'll pass it through all the Cox papers (the Alanta Journal-Constitution and the Akron Beacon Journal being biggies in that corp.) The Enquirer is part of Gannett (Gannett is USA Today); Cincinnati Post is part of Scripps.

If we can kill two birds with one stone by hitting the entertainment editors/critics of major papers that own community presses (like Cox does in Ohio) at least some parents may protect their kids from the sex and violence too (though we need to carefully word that part so we are just being factual, and not mad about it).

And the more we point to the old series, the more we suggest the sales figuires on the Box Set to be compared to the mini ratings..... Look how far Olmos' comments were taken. He's not done a major promotional interview since the TV critics junket press conference.

[skippercollecto]

I knew that as soon as I was finished publishing my commentary that I'd realize that I'd forgotten something.
In my list of then-unknown actors on Galactica who later went onto other programs, I forgot to mention Rick Springfield/General Hospital and several hit records.

Mary