Ever since Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome was officially announced back in October of 2010, I’ve been awaiting its premiere with a great deal of anticipation. I was a big fan of Ron Moore’s remake; it actually had a great deal to do with my involvement with CliqueClack in the first place. But like many other BSG fans out there, I was very disappointed when SyFy announced that B&C wouldn’t be taken to series. After watching the movie/show/webisode that wrapped up this past week, I’m not really surprised that we won’t be seeing more of young Bill Adama’s exploits.

Don’t get me wrong, I actually enjoyed Blood and Chrome a great deal. I thought that the story made for a great reintroduction to the BSG mythos. I’ve always thought it pretty difficult to tell an interesting prequel-esque story, and B&C ‘s setting between BSG and Caprica would make that an even more difficult task. Plus, Luke Pasqualino did a serviceable job as Adama, especially considering the rather massive boots he was trying to fill. But creating a good movie set in the BSG universe is one thing; creating one that sets up a series is an entirely different thing.

In this regard, it’s difficult to separate Blood and Chrome from the BSG mini-series; they were both serving the same general purpose. It might not be a fair comparison, but that’s kinda the point, no? The mini-series did a wonderful job at recreating a world for die-hard fans of the original series, as well as introduce things to fans like me, who had either a passing familiarity with the original, or none whatsoever. The plot served a great deal of that but, as Ron Moore was always wont to say, it was “the characters, (stupid)” that drove BSG even from the earliest moments.

Even before the finale, it was apparent that Blood and Chrome largely ignored that tradition. The finale solidified that problem. The story, from start to finish, only focused on three central characters: Adama, his ECO Coker Fasjovik, and Dr. Beka Kelly. The Galactica itself is barely seen in the story, as were all of the characters on The Bucket (or whatever the ship’s nickname was during the first Cylon War). When the story comes to an end, one of those three characters was dead – and not who we thought she was anyways (and for a couple of moments we are lead to believe Adama would be the only thing we’d be taking from B&C into a hypothetical series).

Hell, with the exception of Adama and Coker … and the Galactica crew – more on them in a moment – pretty much every character we spent any meaningful time with was dead by the time the credits rolled. Marine Tech Sgt. Toth? Gone. Other recognizable faces like Commander Ozar and her XO (Jill Teed and Ty Olsson, who played Sgt. Hadrian and Lt. Kelly in BSG)? Also dead. Jim Kirby and his incredibly wasted cool connection to the also-a-pilot character Sebastian Spence played on BSG (Narcho)? Dead, dead dead.

If your intention is to set up a new series, don’t you think you should introduce some characters that might actually be a part of it? The other pilots on the Galactica are the obvious candidates; the actors are all recognizable enough that they were probably intended to be brought on board the series: Mike Dupod (BSG, Stargate: Universe), Karen LeBlanc (Defying Gravity), Terry Chen (Combat Hospital) and Carmen Moore (Caprica, Artic Air). Plus the guy playing the Commander, Brian Markinson also appeared in Caprica … and if his IMDb page is to believed, pretty much everything ever. B&C might have had a pretty good story, but I would much rather the show have focused on introducing these (hopefully compelling) characters such that fans are demanding more of the series for a reason other than the fact that it’s Battlestar Galactica.

The way things are now, things don’t look particularly good for more Blood and Chrome. It will air on SyFy as a two-hour movie early next year, with a Blu-ray and DVD release following not far behind. As a dutiful fan, I’ll probably consume all that I can, watching on SyFy and picking up the Blu-ray on release date. Sadly, though, I’ll always look at Blood and Chrome as a let down. A solid effort at telling a great story set in the Battlestar Galactica universe, but a failure at launching a series.

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After years — yes, years — of waiting, Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome is finally here. It may not be making a traditional debut on television, but that’s certainly not saying the quality of the videos are lacking in any way.

The gist of the story of Blood & Chrome is that this is essentially a prequel for Battlestar Galactica … and I guess you could call it a sequel to Caprica. It follows the first days of a young Bill “Husker” Adama out of the academy, embarking on his first official mission. Luke Pasqualino as Bill Adama works quite well, displaying a great mix of cockiness and humbleness when it matters. I especially like Ben Cotton‘s Coker Fasjovik, the second-tour co-pilot for Adama, though right now I can’t help but feel like he’s got a touch of red-shirt-itis coming his way before the series is through.

I was a big critic of the Battlestar Galactica series finale. In short, I pretty much thought the ending stunk. As I was reeling from that disappointment, along came Caprica, and I had a hard time caring enough about it when I knew it all just ended up with that crappy BSG finale. So, Caprica lost my interest before it was through. When I heard of Blood & Chrome a couple years ago, I was very “meh” about it — I wasn’t sure I was ready for more punishment. Being away from the BSG universe for years seems to have allowed me to let my disappointment go and simply enjoy Blood & Chrome on its own, not letting the knowledge of what was or what’s to come get in the way.

I loved the opening. I loved the dog fight scenes. I loved that familiar Bear McCreary sountrack. I really only have one gripe to make about the series so far, and that’s the profanity masking. Rather than bleep or silence profanities like “asshole,” they use the trick of inserting what sounds like a natural, louder background noise to cover it up. So you’ll get something like, “He’s an assh*WRENCH CLANG*.” This was clever at first, then noticeable the second time, then distracting the third time. Again, a very minor gripe, though silence or a loud bleep would be a lot worse.

After watching the first two webisodes, I have hope that the writers can continue to concentrate on the “now” and not dwell on what was and what’s to come. We all — or, at least, most of us — know what the future holds for Adama and what came before him; no need to make a big deal about that anymore. So let’s stick with the great visuals and the amazing dogfights and we’ll have a good time while we forget about the past … and the future.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdisGiivP9c

The ten webisodes will continue to debut on the Machinima Prime YouTube channel through next February. The entire two hours will air on Syfy at a later date — likely some time in January. The DVD and Blu-ray copies (linked below) will go on sale on February 19th.

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