Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome

It is the tenth year of the Cylon War. The Colonial Fleet is gradually being worn down by their former slaves turned enemies, the Cylons. Bill Adama, a newly-graduated pilot assigned to the battlestar Galactica, takes part in what should be a simple escort mission but turns into a major operation which could have important ramifications for the entire war.

Blood and Chrome started life as a proposed full spin-off series of the new(er) Battlestar Galactica. The first spin-off, Caprica, had been a failure and was cancelled after one season. Popular opinion has it that the show was too talky, too cerebral and simply too dull, having moved away from the dogfights and political infighting that made the original series so compelling. For this second spin-off, the proposal was to make a balls-to-the-wall action show, a Top Gun in space with Vipers and Cylons. Setting the show during the First Cylon War would also allow the show to resolve some storylines from Caprica - which took place about sixteen years earlier - and foreshadow some of the events of BSG itself (which starts about forty-two years later).

In the event, it never happened. Blood and Chrome - the proposed pilot episode of the spin-off - was not picked up and, unless the imminent DVD/Blu-Ray release sells like gangbusters, will not be in the future. As it stands, it is left behind as a curiosity and, it has to be said, not a particularly compelling one.

Blood and Chrome was not filmed in the traditional manner. With the existing (massive and expensive-to-maintain) Galactica sets all destroyed at the end of filming, the producers were forced to rely on greenscreens and digital scans to reproduce the original sets. In fact, they were able to adjust the sets to reflect the fact that it's forty years earlier, with less-advanced technology available. The same 'bones' of the original structures are there, but the detailing is different. This works quite well, giving the sense that this is the same ship at a different point in its lifespan. The quality of the greenscreen sets is rather variable, with most of them falling into the 'somewhat fake but you don't notice after a while' category. Some of them are pretty good: the CIC set is surprisingly well-done, though the fact that it's quite a dark set helps. On the other hand, scenes on the ice planet and inside the abandoned facility there are blatantly fake. There's also rather too much lens flare going on in the CGI scenes, which gets distracting after a while.

Other CGI is reasonable, though the decision was made to use very fast cuts. This meant both an insane number of CGI shots (this 120-minute TV movie has more than 1,800 shots, compared to 1,488 for the three-and-a-half hour cinematic film The Return of the King) and almost no time to appreciate them. Whilst the original show was guilty of fast-paced cutting at times which made it difficult to follow what was going on, Blood and Chrome takes this to a new level. The confrontation between the Colonial heavy cruiser Osiris and a Cylon basestar should be a tense, epic moment, but instead turns into a confusing melee of badly-cut CGI shots and explosions. Given that Blood and Chrome has resources available to it that Ronald Moore and his team would have killed to have on the original BSG pilot a decade ago, it's a shame to see them wasted in such a fashion.

That leaves the writing and acting to back up the effects and, unfortunately, neither are very accomplished. There's some attempts at characterisation which should be a lot stronger than it is, since the show really only has to focus on Adama, his co-pilot Coker and their civilian passenger Becca for most of its length. Instead it's all a bit half-hearted and actors Luke Pasqualino, Ben Cotton and Lili Bordan seem uninspired by the material, which is cliched and trite. A few attempts to lampshade the macho pilot genre of action films and series fall flat (as the show immediately employs many of those tropes with no sense of irony or intelligence). Later in the movie there is an attempt to discuss the rights and wrongs of the war and its immense bodycount, but it's all rather tepid compared to the issues that the original BSG raised on a regular basis. There's also a cameo appearance by a BSG regular which helps place the TV movie a bit better in the timeline, but even this misfires as it causes confusion with the flashback scenes in the BSG TV movie Razor, which supposedly happens two years after Blood and Chrome.

What we are left with, then, is a confusing morass of explosions, a ton of CGI (some impressive, most not), some cliched writing and indifferent performances, with occasional bursts of effort. What Blood and Chrome does prove, conclusively, is that BSG is at its heart about compelling characters, ethical conflicts and difficult-to-answer questions. Removing the ambiguity in favour of explosions and space dogfights clearly does not work. However, given that in a few years (when technology has improved a bit more) a lot more shows may be made this way, it's certainly worth watching as a hint of the future of TV production.

Blood and Chrome (**½) will be available in the UK (DVD, Blu-Ray) and USA (DVD, Blu-Ray) on 19 February. Or you can watch the whole thing (split into 10 smaller chunks) - legally - on YouTube.

Episodes 5-6 of BSG: BLOOD AND CHROME

The fifth and sixth webisodes of the Battlestar Galactica spin-off pilot, Blood and Chrome:

Episodes 3-4 of BSG: BLOOD AND CHROME

The third and fourth episodes of the Blood and Chrome pilot have been officially released to YouTube:

Some interesting stuff, including our first proper look at a Colonial warship that isn't a battlestar. However, Blood and Chrome's insistence on reusing existing BSG actors is getting a little bit silly: the Osiris jump officer is played by Ty Olsson, who had a recurring role on BSG itself as Captain Kelly, the Galactica's third-in-command. And the commander he's reporting to was Gunnery Sergeant Hadrian in the first season of BSG. I know Vancouver doesn't have an infinite supply of actors to draw upon, but the constant re-use of the same actors in different roles supposedly showing up forty years part is not helping to suspend disbelief.

BSG: BLOOD AND CHROME released on the Internet

The fate of the Battlestar Galactica spin-off series Blood and Chrome has been up in the air for a while, with SyFy passing on the series option but sitting on the pilot episode for ages. The question of when they would air it has now been answered. You can watch it right now, on the Internet for free.

Or rather the first 12 minutes here:

And the next 11 minutes here:

Both vids are viewable in full HD as well.

Blood and Chrome's pilot has been split into ten parts which will be released over the next few weeks. SyFy will then air the whole episode in February. The DVD/Blu-Ray will be released on 19 February.

First trailer for BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: BLOOD & CHROME

The first trailer for Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome has been released. It features CGI, explosions and a dubious Led Zeppelin cover:

EDIT: The trailer was pulled from YouTube by NBC, who presumably don't like free advertising and getting people excited about their product.

Something tells me that SyFy is kicking back against the complaints that Caprica was too boring. Hopefully they're not going too far. Surprisingly, the virtual sets look a lot better than I was expecting.

SyFy has not yet confirmed a release date for the Blood and Chrome pilot, or even if it will air on TV or as a web series.

New BATTLESTAR GALACTICA pilot completed

The pilot episode for the new Battlestar Galactica spin-off show, Blood and Chrome, has been completed. Composer Bear McCreary made the announcement yesterday, revealing he'd just completed the soundtrack for the episode. SyFy will apparently be announcing shortly plans for transmitting the pilot.

Concept art for the pilot, released by SyFy.

Set in the tenth year of the First Cylon War (or 44 years before BSG begins), Blood and Chrome will follow the young pilot William 'Husker' Adama (Luke Pasqualino) as he is assigned as a Raptor pilot aboard the battlestar Galactica. Apparently the series will follow his reassignment as a Viper pilot and the ongoing war against the Cylons. This will necessitate some re-jigging of continuity, as the Razor TV movie previously suggested that Adama only saw action on the very last day of the war.

The new series was created and developed by David Eick and Michael Taylor, who both worked on BSG. BSG showrunner Ronald D. Moore has moved onto other projects and will not be involved on Blood and Chrome.

William Adama cast in new BSG spin-off

Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome has made its first casting announcements. Luke Pasqualino, best-known for his role on the UK Skins in its third and fourth seasons, will be playing the young William Adama, a role previously played by Lorne Greene (in the original 1970s TV series), Edward James Olmos (in the revamp) and Nico Cortez (in flashbacks in the revamped series).


Questions remain why Nico Cortez simply did not return for the new series: presumably SyFy decided they wanted a fresh start. In addition, Blood and Chrome sounds like it might violate continuity (establishing as it does Adama as a Viper pilot two years before the war's end, whilst previously he only flew his first mission on the very last day of the war) anyway, so this is less of an issue for them.

Another actor announced was Ben Cotton, who's playing Coker, Adama's war-weary superior officer. BSG stalwarts Michael Taylor, Bradley Thompson and David Weddle are on-board on the creative side of things, with David Eick producing, but Ronald D. Moore seems to have moved on to other projects.

More information on new BATTLESTAR GALACTICA series

Some new information has emerged about Blood and Chrome, the new Battlestar Galactica series on SyFy. Casting notes for auditions have been circulating, revealing that the pilot will revolve around three principal characters: Ensign William Adama, ECO Coker Fasjovik and an intelligence officer named Beka.


The pilot will be set during the tenth year of the twelve-year First Cylon War and will see Adama and Fasjovik as the pilot and co-pilot of an old, beat-up Raptor called 'the Weasel'. Adama wants to become a Viper combat pilot, but hasn't seen action outside of simulators before he is assigned to the Galactica, the newest battlestar in the Colonial Fleet.

The fact that casting notes have been sent out for Adama suggests that Nico Cortez, who played the role of 'Young Adama' in the Razor TV movie, is not locked into the role. Previous comments from SyFy said that Cortez would be invited to audition, but they also wanted to try out other actors as well.

The pilot is set to air in late 2011 or early 2012 before SyFy decide to proceed to series. If so, the series will make use of virtual sets of the same kind as used on Sanctuary rather than face the cost of rebuilding BSG's immense Galactica sets.

New BATTLESTAR GALACTICA spin-off commissioned

With Caprica continuing its disastrous ratings slide (the latest episode attracted a feeble 718,000 viewers), SyFy appears to be lining up a second Battlestar Galactica spin-off series.


They have commissioned a pilot episode for a potential new series with the (hopefully working) title Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome. The new series is set ten years into the First Cylon War, forty-two years before the events of BSG and sixteen after the beginning of Caprica. The main character will, once again, be William Adama, now a young pilot serving aboard the newly-commissioned battlestar Galactica.

The new series will recreate many of the sets from BSG (destroyed at the end of filming) digitally, using the high-resolution scans taken of the sets during the filming of the finale. Presumably this will mainly apply to the very large and elaborately expensive sets such as the hanger bay and (possibly) C&C.

The new series will take its cue from the Adama flashback scenes in the BSG TV movie Razor, but some retconning appears likely. In Razor we are told that Adama is flying his first combat mission as a Viper pilot (after previously flying Raptors) on the very last day of the war. The series will presumably feature him as a combat pilot much earlier than that. Nico Cortez, who played Adama in Razor, will apparently be considered for the role in the new series but recasting is also possible.

Michael Taylor, who wrote the pilot script, and BSG and Caprica helmer David Eick are executive-producing the new series, with BSG vets Bradley Thompson and David Weddle (responsible for many of BSG's finest episodes) also returning. BSG supremo Ronald D. Moore is developing other projects and is not officially attached to the project at this time. BSG composer Bear McCreary is also expected to return, although a deal hasn't been confirmed yet. As far as a timeline goes, the pilot will be filmed in early 2011, but may not air until 2012 if SyFy decide to press ahead with a full series.

Apparently Blood and Chrome's commissioning does not necessarily spell the end for Caprica, but with that series' ratings reaching embarrassingly low numbers, it seems unlikely that it will return. A decision on Caprica's future is expected by November 15th.