[AlotOfReading]

It's not the public awareness stuff that I'm concerned about. That's just a necessary fact of life that I've also been involved with on my own digs.

I'm personally simply skeptical that the research conditions necessary to make a Netflix special (premiering in May-June apparently) are also conducive to high quality academic work.

Publishing a preprint goes partway to addressing that by showing everyone where their results will fit into the existing literature and strengthen the published paper by hearing / addressing public criticisms before they actually publish.