Just About Anybody Will Tell You How Great Ron Moore's Take On "Galactica" Was, As Long As You Pay Them Off Beforehand With a Big Fat Bribe

http://www.amazon.com/Universal-Studios-1978-Battlestar-Galactica/dp/1434895408/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1310832229&sr=1-2


Some of the reviews for Ronald D. Moore's "GINO" ("Galactica in Name Only") series were so warm, cozy, and glowing...butter could have melted in the midst of those reviews. The reviews also sounded...shall we say....minutely choreographed and orchestrated...in their unrealistic praise for the show.

When someone had the unmitigated gall to say that..."Ronald D. Moore's take on 'Galactica' was the greatest television show of all time".....you know damn well that someone was PAID OFF WITH A BRIBE.

Here's the problem the SyFy Channel had. Ronald D. Moore's "GINO" series was much, much lower in the ratings in its first season than the SyFy Channel had anticipated....They needed positive buzz in record time...on the order of speeding through a drive-thru window at Burger King....to try and pump up the ratings.
Behind closed doors, the SyFy Channel knew that "GINO" wasn't that good, and they also knew that they would never get, legitimate positive reviews for "GINO." So...the SyFy Channel hit upon the rather novel idea of  PAYING OFF TELEVISION CRITICS WITH BRIBES in order to get their positive reviews for "GINO."

SyFy Channel was determined that they were not going to give up on "GINO" despite the low ratings. To do so would have been an admission that Bonnie Hammer made a mistake in putting it on the air. So, they began ramming the series down the public's throat despite the SyFy Channel loving the series infinitely more than the public did. That's why we saw "GINO" on the cover of "Entertainment Weekly" magazine, the "GINO" cast members doing the Top 10 List on David Letterman (when the audience was laughing at them and not with them because Dave's audience didn't know who the hell they were), Harlan Ellison crawling out of his coffin in order to give "GINO" some fake award, and some weird ass publicity stunt involving "GINO" and the United Nations. A publicity stunt which to this day...has people still shaking their heads in utter disbelief at the ridiculousness and embarrassment of it all.

At the center of all of this of course....were the television critics being bribed by the SyFy Channel to say nice things about the show...the bribed television critics being the glue holding the entire sham enterprise together.

Yes...nice things were said about Ronald D. Moore's "GINO" series. But television critics had to compromise their ethics in order to say those nice things.