One of the banes of television, in my humble estimation, is the Focus
Group. I hate 'em. Hate 'em, hate 'em, hate 'em. (Did I mention I hate
'em?) But all the studios insist on them, and each new season every show gets
tested and re-tested the following season. My personal estimation is that in
terms of accuracy they rank somewhere just below the reading of chicken
entrails.

This past week, the first two episodes of B5's second season were shown
to 40+ people here in LA, a group made up of those who had seen the show but
tuned out, those who'd watched it a few times, and those who were regular
viewers. I was very anxious about the whole thing, partly because the
episodes are still in *very* early stages...producer's cuts, transferred from
the Avid editing machines, no music, no sound EFX, many unfinished CGI
effects...but there you are. I was also concerned because they would be
seeing these *without* seeing "Chrysalis" (though they would be able to infer
certain things from seeing the repercussions), and I didn't know how or if any
of them would be thrown by not having seen that.

Well, though I put no more stock in focus groups now than I did before,
I'm pleased to state that the screening went over like gangbusters. People
got *very* caught up in it, they liked Bruce a LOT (even the regular viewers,
without exception, felt that way)...they had virtually no negative comments at
*all*. We got the highest ratings we've ever had. Specific things they
commented on were that the show *looked* much better in terms of sets and
costumes and lighting, theyh liked the characters a lot more, they got into
the story bigtime...it really worked for them on every level.

The good part about this is that a solid focus group report tends to
encourage networks and studios to push harder to do advertising and promotion.
And that has definitely happened here.

Once we've finished the episodes, added all the sound and music and CGI,
we should be pretty solid.

(Oh, and just last night watched the director's cut of D.C. Fontana's
script, "A Distant Star." Looks *very* good.)

jms