Syfy… Or How To Kill A Buzz

No Syfy! (Photo credit: aharvey2k)

36 hours ago, a trailer for Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome  ”leaked” on the internet. I can’t show you that trailer, which I watched on io9, because Syfy and NBC Universal had the trailer which was shown at Wondercon removed from various websites as it was “unauthorized”.

 io9 seems to have removed their positive story. [Editor: No, it still can be found at the io9 link below. That's curious...] I do not intend to comment on Blood & Chrome is this post, but rather Syfy, and NBC‘s boneheaded decision to stomp down on what was looking to be much positive buzz about a project which more than a few BSG/Caprica fans were dubious about.

The best sort of advertising is positive word of mouth. You really can’t pay for that sort of thing. Sure, you can try to conjugal it, message it into being, but really, it’s usually the best when its organic. I do not see an upside in quashing positive buzz when incidents such as this transpire. Such reactions are really relics of pre-internet days, and best left in the past.

Rather than helping assure a good outcome for this new… likely web-based, or as Mark Stern put it “digital series” (that’s really an inaccurate term in this case. What TV show or movie is not digital these days?)  it puts halt to a building momentum which the suits at Syfy/NBC will never be able to capture in a bottle for when they go and release an “authorized” trailer.

Oh, everything I say above applies to my fellow authors. Don’t go killing your potential golden goose out of some misguided protectionism.

Related articles

• Totally Badass Trailer for Battlestar Galactica’s Cylon War Prequel, Blood and Chrome [Video] (io9.com)
• BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: BLOOD AND CHROME – Incredibly Badass Trailer! (geektyrant.com)
• WonderCon 2012: ‘Battlestar Galactica’ and the science of fiction (herocomplex.latimes.com)
• The Battlestar Galactica Prequel Looks Surprisingly Great [Video] (kotaku.com)