How to do great geek TV
An article on NewTV called "Hey TV Networks! This is How You Go Geek" sums up the best practices in geek TV shows from the recent past -- how nerd-friendly tube-fodder attracted and retained their audience, and makes a bunch of great suggestions for things no one's tried yet.
Costume Patterns: Go ahead. Laugh. Then go to Comic Con. Nerds love to dress up and they love accuracy. So make it easy for them. Offer up downloadable costume patterns that they can print out and make their own costumes with (and get on TV at the next major Con).Link (via Wonderland)
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Posting costume patterns is a great idea except for one fact: Sometimes the fans are better costumers than the pros.
Example: The Stargate patches.
Stargate had a number of patches for different ranks. Fans, reproducing the costumes, also reproduced the patches, but got one detail wrong: they did them better. They made embroidered patches that were full military quality and looked good up close in an elevator, rather than the crap that had been thrown together for distance shots with a camera. The actors saw some of this at the conventions and asked the producers why the fans had better costumes than they did. The producers then went to the fans who'd made them and asked them to make the official patches for the show. Everyone is happy.
I also remember being at the San Francisco premiere of The Phantom Menace. One of the producers was there, as well as a fan who'd costumed himself as Darth Maul, reproducing the costume from what he'd seen from advance photos. Trouble was, he'd done a better and more convincing job on the make-up than they'd done for the actual production. The producer kept asking him how he'd got the various blending effects for the make-up. Answer: air brush. I think that fan also got a consulting job for the next two movies.
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Gene Autry figured this out around 1935. Or at least his character did in "The Phantom Empire" (singing cowboys vs sci-fi lost civilization!). Gene tells young listeners to his radio show that they can join his fan club, the Thunder Riders, and he'll send them a costume pattern their mothers can sew for them.