This Addiction is Televised: An Ode to Battlestar Galactica

When I'm super busy, the one thing I still make time for is some escapism. Mostly in the form of must-see TV. I think it's because, no matter how busy I am and how crazy my life is, I need to unwind, and when you're exhausted, melting into the couch and tuning in doesn't involve much energy.


Of course, most of the shows I watch -- at least the ones I love -- aren't exactly shows designed to be escapist. Case in point: I've been re-watching the final season of Battlestar Galactica (BSG), which has been hailed by many (including Joss Whedon, ie: god) as the best show on television. Even though it's been almost a year since the series ended, if you've never seen it, now is as good a time as any to jump on board. The entire series is on DVD, and it's the kind of show you're going to want to watch obsessively from beginning to end.

BSG, like Lost (another fave of mine), takes place in a universe with a deep mythology and a rich history. It’s science fiction at its best: using a futuristic universe to tell stories that use metaphor to comment on our world.

When the series begins, the Twelve Colonies -- twelve worlds that are similar to earth, each inhabited by millions of people -- are destroyed by the Cylons: robot-like creatures who were created by humans and then rebelled against them. The Cylons had disappeared for decades, but reappeared to bomb the colonies with a new trick: a portion of them now look human.


With the entire human race almost extinct, the survivors (who happened to be in space during the attack) flee from the Cylons and set out to find a new planet where they can start again.


At its core, the show is really about the characters. There is the hard as nails commander who loves his crew, the female president who becomes president on the same day she finds out she's dying of cancer, the hot-head pilot who has a special destiny, and the exiled prodigal son who returns to his father's fleet. To name a few. Then there are all the Cylons, who may be closer to being human than they're made out to be.


Confused? Well, yes, it's hard to explain in a couple paragraphs. Read the Wikipedia article for some clarity or this blog post on why BSG is the best show ever. And trust me! Just watch it.


You don't have to commit right out of the gate. Battlestar Galactica started as a three-hour miniseries. Watch that first. You’ll know by the end of those three hours if you're going to like the series. You'll probably be completely addicted.

What's Japanese for oops?

So of course, Toyota has been in the news recently for all the wrong reasons.  This whole thing has made me a little sad, because I am a Toyota owner and I love my car.  I haven't been a fan of their crisis management however.  They've dropped the ball- keeping secrets, taking too long to respond, not seeming apologetic etc.

I remember in the first few days after the news hit, I saw an advertisement by a bunch of dealers in some American city.  It didn't acknowledge the problem and it flaunted Toyota's safety record as a selling point.  Not the correct strategy.  There was even a Toyota product placement in an episode of Bones that week.  It was a little desperate, and clearly slipped in at the last moment.

This week I finally saw something from Toyota that made me happy.  It was another ad, but this one acknowledged the problems, and acknowledged that the company is going to have to earn the trust of the public back. It was completely on-message in terms of crisis communications.



Toyota will bounce back from this.  It will probably take some time. Hopefully they've learned some lessons from the whole ordeal.  Transparency is the key to trust, and the three rules of crisis communication are: tell the truth, tell it first and tell it all.

Good vs. Evil and the Publicity Stunt

I was driving to school this morning and listening to CBC Radio One, which is my usual routine.  This morning Marcie Markusa was interviewing a man who is going to spend 36 hours on the street starting today to raise awareness about homelessness and the work of the Lighthouse Mission.

Near the end of the interview, she asked the man if he was worried his Outdoor Challenge would be perceived as a publicity stunt. The context was clear: publicity stunts are bad.

Publicity Stunt. What does that even mean? The definition of a publicity stunt, according to Wikipedia is "a planned event designed to attract the public's attention to the event's organizers or their cause."  How is that bad exactly?  It's a tool that PR people use all the time, and journalists cover them all the time.  The guy from Lighthouse Mission wouldn't have been on CBC talking about this event if it wasn't an interesting story from the perspective of the media. 

Whenever you hold an event of any kind, and the purpose is getting exposure, you need to add an element of uniqueness to fulfill your goals.  It's like icing on a cake, that extra something special that sets you apart.  If you don't have that factor, you're just another one of ten million people raising money for Haiti. For example.

Why are publicity stunts perceived as bad?  I'm not sure what Markusa was really going for.  After all, in the next five minutes after the interview, she promotes two other special events, including one that she is involved in.  As a local media celebrity, her presence at an event ensures that the CBC, at the very least, is going to cover it.  Throw in the fact that she is going to be performing a dance with four differently-abled girls and you've got something most news media will cover, ie: a publicity stunt.

Perhaps it's the word "stunt" that is the problem, giving the whole concept an iffy vibe.  Stunts are dangerous, so a true publicity stunt perhaps includes some aspect of unethical behavior or poor taste.   Maybe it's people doing something just for the sake of getting attention for themselves, not for a cause or an organization.  Something an ethical PR person would never be involved in.

I find it interesting when certain words or phrases get a negative connotation attached to them, for no apparent reason. When you dig a bit deeper, you often find that the popular perception isn't always the correct one.