The short-lived spin-off series Caprica may not quite have won the hearts of Battlestar Galactica's fan army, but SyFy have high hopes for Blood And Chrome, a showreel for which debuted at WonderCon over the weekend{
Cut to the Trent Reznor/Karen O/Dragon Tattoo version of Immigrant Song, it's a breakneck glimpse of the battle-heavy pilot, but goes a long way towards showcasing the new system of virtual sets, which replaces the rebooted Battlestar Galactica's reliance on relatively limiting practical builds.
Blood And Chrome was originally mooted in 2010 as a series of webisodes a la The Resistance, The Face of the Enemy and the Razor Flashbacks, before SyFy opted to give it the full works. It's set between Caprica and BSG, in the tenth year of the first war with the Cylons, and focuses on a young William Adama (known to us currently as the craggy Edward James Olmos), just out of the Academy, getting his first commission in the Colonial fleet, aboard the brand new Galactica. The pilot sees him undertaking a top secret mission. The clip might suggest that it's on a Hoth-like ice planet...
Producer David Eick says that "Blood And Chrome will return us to the authentic, relentless depiction of combat and the agony and ecstasy of human-Cylon war, which was the hallmark of Battlestar Galactica's early seasons, while maintaining the themes of politics, social propaganda, and the timeless question: what does it mean to be human?"
BSG guru Ron Moore doesn't seem to be directly involved, but series regulars Eick, Michael Taylor, Bradley Thompson and David Weddle (who once wrote a very good book on Sam Peckinpah, don'tcha know) have all had a hand in the new story. Nico Cortez played Young Adama in the webisodes, but here the role has gone to Luke Pasqualino from The Borgias and Skins.
There doesn't seem to be a confirmed air-date yet, but if you ask us, it can't happen soon enough. As long as nobody turns out to be a frakking angel this time...
UPDATE: Sadly, calling Blood And Chrome a pilot isn't quite correct: SyFy will air the film as a one-off special, but will not be picking it up as a fully-fledged series. SyFy president Mark Stern says that the project has, in fact, come full circle, and is once again being developed for the web: "We are actively pursuing it as a groundbreaking digital series that will launch to audiences beyond the scope of the television screen. The 90-minute pilot movie will air on SyFy in its entirety at a later date. Our enthusiasm for this ambitious project has not waned..."