Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome greenlit by Syfy
Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome takes place in the 10th year of the first Cylon war. As the battle between humans and their creation, a sentient robotic race, rages across the 12 colonial worlds, a brash rookie viper pilot enters the fray. Ensign William Adama, barely in his 20's and a recent Academy graduate, finds himself assigned to the newest battlestar in the Colonial fleet... the Galactica. The talented but hot-headed risk-taker soon finds himself leading a dangerous top secret mission that, if successful, will turn the tide of the decade long war in favor of the desperate fleet.
"The Galactica universe as re-imagined by Ronald D. Moore and David Eick is rich with possibilities and backstory," said Mark Stern. "We jumped at the chance to revisit the William Adama character and explore this exciting chapter in the BSG narrative which falls between the events of the original series and the prequel, Caprica, currently airing on Syfy."
"While maintaining the themes of politics, social propaganda, and the timeless question: what does it mean to be human? - Blood and Chrome will also 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," said David Eick.
Michael Taylor wrote the teleplay from a story by Eick, Taylor and Bradley Thompson & David Weddle.
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Lane
I believe "HOLY HELL!" was my knee-jerk reaction.
2 years agoby @lane1Flag
Dan
Just a bit.
2 years agoby @dan1Flag
Lane
@dan1: Yeah, it was pretty rediculous, wasn't it? :P
2 years agoby @lane1Flag
Dan
@WayneHurlburt Good grief, man. I just looked at that comment (I'd call it a freakin' novel) again.
2 years agoby @dan1Flag
WayneHurlburt
I used them as frequently as I did to express that SYFY used the same type of tactics, when deciding to give STU 20 more episodes with another season, when SGU's ratings kept dropping and ended up at 1.3 million on their season finale, stating that some other event that aired on the same day/time slot, effected SGU's ratings. Well they purposely positioned Caprica in the day/time slot on the days they knew these events would take place. These events are pre-scheduled well over a month in advance and with SYFY's sudden schedule change, in less than 1 months time, without proper advertisement and promoting that they were doing this, they knew Caprica's full fan base wouldn't know of the change. Also that with the shows they put it up against for those four days would definitely reduce the rating, hence, allowing them to pull the remaining five episodes.
If it wasn't a plan of something else, why not just play out the remaining five episodes and be done with it, unless a larger plan was involved, like increasing the want for the DVD's. They knew what they were doing as well as the shows and lack of viewers that would be watching these episodes, would do, that is why they did it. I may have expressed the Sports/TV Shows a few more times than necessary, but SYFY was putting off that Caprica failed on it's own behalf, when in fact it was set up to fail, for the same reason most networks allow a fall in the ratings. I wanted to express that Caprica had a double whammy for those 4 days of airing, not just a simple Sports Event happening on one of the episodes (it happened on all 4 episodes).
3 years agoby @WayneHurlburtFlag
Dan
What the f*ck....@WayneHurlBurt....
3 years agoby @dan1Flag
Lane
O...M...G @WayneHurlburt
I think I got about halfway through your post and stopped reading because it was SO repetitive its not even funny. How many times can you really say "Special Sports Events" and "Highest Rated Show" in one paragraph!?! Over and over again!!!
Jeezes, and I thought *my* editing was bad... This was ridiculous. Just when I was starting to agree with your theory, too.
3 years agoby @lane1Flag
WayneHurlburt
Blood and Chrome will bomb out (I definitely won't be watching it, unless they decide to at least address the remaining issues left on Caprica and Syfy will screw it up anyways, as they did with Caprica...lol) and won't be any comparison to what Caprica could have potentially become. They still have so many issues about what happened before and leading up to the Cylon War, that needs to be addressed. They let Caprica get to the point of basically mass producing and some secretive shipping off of the cylons to the STO. Syfy only aired 13 episodes of Caprica counting the pilot. By the time Syfy actually finishes off the first season it would have taken almost 2 full years to accomplish this, and the Whole Time Line (all 18 episodes) of Season One is only a 2 -3 months...lol. Round that out and it will have taken Syfy (at minimum) 4 times as longer to air the series than the actual time line of the series... geesh. They never gave it a chance. We wanted to see BSG history and background.
All they accomplished so far was to get the cylons built. They haven't even merged the avatar consciousnesses with the cylons yet, let alone show any social interactions of them with society except the unaired 5-8 minutes of it. That was mostly just a glimpse here and there, maybe in all 30 seconds of social interactions, on the part of the cylons. Also they still have a great number of loose ends to the characters and story lines, still to be resolved.
So what we end up with, is jumping straight into a battle that has been going on for 10 years already. No chance of filling in any of the five year gap (before the war) of story lines and cylons receiving these consciousnesses, let alone how it actually is accomplished and their initial reactions to this new way of life, so-to-speak. Let alone their interactions with society and what leads them to actually revolt against mankind to begin with. How about their starting up of the human experiments to gain skins?? Ten years into this battle they have already been doing this for some time, at this point, secretly. Just because 'The Husker" only saw this at the end of the war, doesn't, mean it didn't start long before that point. They already showed ZOE-A, as a fore front for season 2 (before it was cancelled, that is) of obtaining a skin body herself...lol. tell me they can keep that a secret for 10-15 years or so...lol. That is probably how the other cylons begin to want it themselves, but we will never know that.
They would have to establish a reason as to why they wanted these skin bodies, to begin with and also gaining facilities to do this, in secret. Experiments don't just happen overnight, also lots of prep work figuring out where and how to start etc., takes time.
All this doesn't even start to touch on the character aspect of loose ends. We also won't even know the real William Adama's (from the BSG series) actual background growing up. We got to see, what maybe 30 seconds of him when he was like 4-5 years old, then instantly jump to him being about 18 - 20 years old, Big gap there. We actually didn't get much of anything for background and what we did get was only half of it, as everything was just starting to come together, as a whole.
Syfy killed this show on purpose to make room for Blood and Chrome, not to replace a dyeing show with it. Blood and Chrome will never come close to what Caprica could have been in actual story and BSG background. It'll be basically a younger version of Adama, with the same basic BSG battling, without the sexy cylons. They'll be the ugly 0005's, which are actually worse looking than the U-87's, in my opinion. Anyways here's how Caprica's demise actually went down.
Syfys Plan Of Not Airing Two BSG Prequels, May Have Caused Caprica's Demise.
Syfy has already stated, in their only statement, since the word of Caprica's cancellation and removal of the last five episodes, that they never had planned to air two BSG sequels, at the same time. Now Syfy decides it has another prequel to BSG, that they wish to produce and air, but they already have Caprica. What do they do? Well, first they need to get rid of Caprica.
They also want to make as much money as possible, while doing so. Next they abruptly change Caprica's pre-scheduled air date from January 2011 to October 5, 2010, with less than a months notice and without proper promotion or advertising of this change.
Now, Syfy places Caprica in a spot that it would be almost impossible to gain any good ratings. Caprica only aired for 4 days, of it's Season 1.5 release and was put up against Special Sports (drawing millions of extra viewers away from regular series and shows) and the two highest rated shows of that date/time slot airing Special Longer Length Episodes (both of which timed it so that each of their special episodes,would not air against the others, airing in 3 out the 4 days that Caprica did).
Even Teen Mom (Is The Highest Rated Show for that date/time slot), fell over 1 million (on their average ratings)for its TWO HOUR SPECIAL, week October 19, 2010. Against the Special Sports Events!!!!!
Caprica wasn't able to stand alone properly without proper advertising notice of a schedule change under a month, in advance. In addition to many of Caprica's viewers were counting on a January 2011 airing, not a surprise October 5, 2010 airing!!!
Even looking around the internet at many postings, you'll see people that were watching Caprica in Season 1.0, DIDN'T even know they changed the schedule or that it was even CANCELLED, until reading it through some of the many SAVE CAPRICA POSTS or other posts stating its cancellation.
All this against pre-scheduled and properly advertised Special Sports Events (airing every Tuesday through Caprica's airing time) and Special Event Episodes of the two Highest Rated Shows in that time/day slot (each of those shows Special Episodes aired so that at least one of the specials were airing on Each Tuesday of the month).
Caprica had only aired 4 episodes and all those weeks had pre-scheduled Sports Events and/or the two Highest rated Shows (airing longer length Special Episodes) of that time slot (even before Caprica was Suddenly moved from its PRE-SCHEDULED AIRING DATE OF JANUARY 2011.
None of the other shows had any surprise schedule changes and had started airing their shows well before the month of October
Also when you add up all those additional MILLIONS of viewers (not counting the regular date/time slot series shows) that were watching these Special Sports Events, they had to come from somewhere. Take a total count of a normal Tuesday night ratings (without Special Sports Events).
For instance, last Tuesday night that time slot (including shows that overlapped it) totaled 13.236 million for the (7) shows that aired (without Special Sports Events or shows).
Week of October 19, 2010 (where even Teen Mom's 2 Hours Special dropped over 1 million viewers), had a total of 15.451 million for (10) shows(not even counting TBS ALCS Game 4 (8pm, 257 minutes) with 9.846 million viewers. That is only 2 million more than the week with (7) shows, which would average about 0.600/extra show (not great stats there). Total with TBS ALCS Game 4 (8pm, 257 minutes) with 9.846 million viewers, was 25.297 million viewers.
These extra Millions of people had to come from some where? Especially considering only just over 3% of the viewing population is used for the actual ratings, of these shows.
So don't give me this Caprica couldn't hold it's own, during these 4 days, SYFY. When you placed Caprica up against, Special Sports Events combined with the (2) Highest rated shows for the time/day slot airing Special Longer Length Episodes on (3) of the 4 days, is really a fair way to judge Caprica ratings ( with all the viewer confusing, of not even knowing Syfy started to air them).
COME ON!!!!
The same type of math, with the ratings, can be done with the other 3 weeks as well. I just used this particular week to show that even Teen Mom lost about 1 million viewers (from its normal) during this week, and even against its Two Hour Special.
Syfy even used this trick with justifying themselves for giving Stargate Universe an additional Season with 20 more episodes. Stargate Universest Season finale dropped from 1.8 to 1.3 million and Syfy said that it was because of some Special Event that aired at the same day/time slot.
Well, It definitely shows a double whammy for Caprica here on these 4 days of showing not only Special Sports events, but also the (2) highest rated shows of the day/time slot also showed Special Longer Episodes at the same time with the Special Sports Events...
Think About It!!!!
This even effected other shows that had already been airing steady episodes, for over a month before and ALL their viewers knew that they were being aired!!!
Some people might say that Special Events and Series Specials happen all the time and if a show cannot handle this then its not worth being on the air.
My answer to them woud be, true (to some extent) if the series has already been running steady and everyone knew that is was being aired. Not when it's starts the same day it premieres, with hardly any advertising or promotion that they have switched the already pre-scheduled air date, in less than a months time. And these events run straight through every single episode.
Then I would have to agree with them, but Season 1.0 was actually gaining little by little live viewers ( I'll admit, not much, but some). It was really increasing on the DVR ratings, about 12-15% in each area (18-49 & 25-54 age groups), with each new episode.
Then Season 1.5 airs and Caprica instantly drops 0.300 and more on the live ratings. Anyone would seem to think, that with the sudden schedule change and no real promoting that they were doing this, that maybe a good share of viewers didn't know about the change. Also that these Special Events are actually effecting them.
I believe Syfy actually knew all this and was actually part of the overall plan, in order to bring forth a new prequel to BSG, "Blood and Chrome" as well as making as much profit as possible, with DVD sales of Caprica's Season 1.5. I believe, Caprica's Season 1.5, never actually was going to air for any purpose of adding viewers to the show, as Syfy had already made its decision to do away with Caprica and start on the process of making "Blood and Chrome", but it still needed to get rid of Caprica, before it could gain more popularity (perhap by Season 1.5 being aired in a just and proper way, Caprica could have actually taken off and became a popular series.), but Syfy could take that chance.
So in actuality, Syfy based canceling Caprica on only 9 episodes (counting the pilot). They'll state differently, that their decision was based on the poor ratings of the first 4 episode of Season 1.5. They knew what they were doing and if that was the case, why not at least finish airing the remaining 5 episodes and be done with it, unless there was another plan involved.
They also wanted to make as much money as they could in the process, hence, moving up the Season 15. DVD sales to before Christmas 2010. Next, they had to attempt to air the episodes before the DVD release, to look like they are doing this for the fans (also it is highly irregular to release a DVD for TV shows before the actual episodes air). Syfy, knowing the ratings would be low, by abruptly changing Caprica's air date within less than a months time and no real advertising or promotion, stating that this is was going to be happening, along with the Special Sports Events/ Special TV Series Shows (highest rated of that day/time slot, airing extra long special episodes.), they knew Caprica wouldn't have its full viewer capacity knowing it would be airing as well as the shows (specials - sports/extended length etc.) it would be facing, would drastically reduce its ratings.
Then part 2 of the plan, make as much money as possible. Remove the last five episodes till after the Season 1.5 DVD sale, to increase the want of the DVD's, since it would contain these five episodes.
One thing that Syfy didn't count on, though was that NBC actually own's Caprica's contract and yes, Syfy can stop airing Caprica on its channel, but could not stop Space from airing Caprica there, since only NBC could do this, and NBC didn't want to stop the airing of Caprica and let Space continue it normal broadcasting schedule.
If Syfy had it their way, these last five episodes wouldn't have aired anywhere, to increase the profit potential of the DVD sales. It's all about the DVD sales and the upcoming "Blood and Chrome" series, behind Caprica's demise, planned and executed by Syfy themselves.
Pretty fair, considering they judged Caprica's performance based solely on 8 episodes, upon which only 6 of them were actually aired, without any breaks in its airing schedule.
That is hardly a fair judgment, considering, they even stated that Caprica was only an experiment. LOL...even an experiment would require more episodes to justly evaluate its performance. Something at least to the equivalence of say 10 full episodes, airing consecutively.
With no comment, whatsoever by Syfy or their Administration (since the initial October 27, 2010 statement), regarding these issues, related to all the fan uprising and publicity, behind Caprica's cancelation, leaves this commentator, with nothing else to believe, but his opinion and observations surrounding this article.
Dear Syfy Management,
I'm just a Syfy fan as well as BSG & Caprica, and I see Syfy going down the tubes, unless you can start gaining more popularity with your (Sci-Fi) genre. Canceling Caprica is definitely a step backwards. Caprica was an experiment, so I hear from people of your team, trying to defend low ratings etc. Well even an experiment deserves more than you have given Caprica.
Caprica needed to take more time than most series to gather a following. You tried too hard to set it apart from BSG. It is part of BSG. You were trying to reach another genre as well, that won't work when you are a Syfy channel. If you wanted to do it that way, you should have aired on NBC (your parent channel), they have a wider spread audience. Inadvertently, by trying to separate Caprica from BSG, you did just that and most of the BSG genre, bought into the hype and wouldn't sit long enough (or not at all) to give it a chance, because all they expected, was some half-baked show that didn't have much to do with BSG.
You should have started out just releasing the series, based on BSG and once it caught on, try to gain other genre's into the fold. If you look at the episodes from season 1.5, they have really gathered the BSG genre back into the fold. I am still clueless as to why you didn't play all your cards with Caprica, since you had made all the episodes up ahead of time, and let them unfold, then make your decision, after that.
If Season 1.5 was actually aired and implemented in the right way, you would, most likely already have the fan base you were looking for at the beginning, even with the sloppy airing of the first set of episodes. You really out did that with airing the Season 1.5 (tenfold), placing it in the schedule you did and you cannot tell me that you didn't know about the Sports Events/TV Specials(of the highest rated shows of that date/time slot) appearing along side of Caprica for those (4) days of airing. All the shows fell in the ratings for that month, even Teen Mom fell 1 million on its 2 hour special (from its norm).
You have a great show with as much potential as BSG (if not more), if you play it right. You still have time to save this gold mine. Look around at the free publicity Caprica has already gotten, since that, one and only statement on October 27, 2010. I'm not just talking International. I'm talking 'World Wide'. I'd like to think you have some smart people running Syfy, you must realize all the attention Caprica is gaining. Imagine what this could do for your company if in 2011, you make a statement of a second season for Caprica, can you imagine what the ratings would be like on the air date (if aired properly). Caprica is already all over the Internet, now.
Caprica is a new type of science fiction, that is compelling, in depth in the story line, great actor/character base and can be a much better prequel to BSG than Blood and Chrome will ever be (given the era of its setting). Time is something you should have realized as a component to introducing a show with this magnitude. It's what people are looking for, whether it takes them a while to realize it or not, and they have.
You also would have succeeded in gaining the other genre's into the fold as well. As another bonus, all the frustrated Syfy fans, your science fiction fans, may have some faith brought back to them, in your programming. Not many of them are happy with the schedule you seem to be acquiring lately, with wrestling, reality shows etc (also take that stupid wrestling out your best 2 hour time slot...geesh, and put it back on Tuesday's and let the kids watch it then. You're a science fiction channel, that is putting all your science fiction shows in your worst and secondary day/time slots. Grant it, you are trying to expand your audience, but in trying to expand other areas, you are losing a whole other genre.
Who am I to tell you how to run your business, I'm just a fan that knows what the people want and its mostly science fiction from their science fiction channel...lol.
P.S.
I apparently omitted another fact, SYFY. On your airing of Season 1.5, your abrupt schedule change, also added to the lack of viewers which most definitely effected the ratings, as well. You switched the already scheduled air date of January 2011, to October 5, 2010, with under a months notice and lack of proper promoting and advertising, that you were doing this. You must have known the effect this would have on the shows overall performance.
3 years agoby @WayneHurlburtFlag
Dan
@Lane1 Hmm.... I might have to start watching it again.
3 years agoby @dan1Flag
Lane
BTW, I read on IGN that there hasn't been any word on whether or not Caprica will be picked up for another season... that's really worrisome, considering how they're already half way through the second half of season 1. :[
I hope it's renewed because I'm really anxious to see how this season ends and where they go from there.
3 years agoby @lane1Flag
Lane
@REAL: Thanks, So do you! :D
@Todd: I agree, plus this latest episode explained a lot more about what was going on with Zoe and Tamra (or Tamara?)... Can't remember how its pronounced... And it even showed Zoe back before she created her avatar, which was really cool to see. But anyway, according to the preview for the next episode, this week, we FINALLY get to see the cylons in action again kickin' some frakkin ass! Bring it the frak on! :D
@Rufio: EPIC FAIL (at your comment, not the show's name).
3 years agoby @lane1Flag
Rufio
hahaha... "blood and chrome"... awful name. number one it sounds like a bad p*rn name. number two it is a rip off of an already existing p*rn show - Spartacus: Blood and Sand. third, it just sounds stupid. lol
even if the show is successful, the name fails big time
3 years agoby @rufioFlag
Mutant
Caprica is just awesome, I can't get bored from watching that. I guess I wasn't in the right mood for The Plan. BGBC is going to be great as well.
3 years agoby @zenderFlag
skywise
Now this has potential. I can get behind this concept!
3 years agoby @skywiseFlag
Dan
You frakkin' rock, @Lane1 :)
3 years agoby @dan1Flag
Lane
I am excited to see what happens next on Caprica. I'm tuning in just to see where it leads and how well it ties into the rest of the BSG series. Frak me for being such a nerd, lol.
An' I thought The Plan was a retread as well. All it is is Battlestar Galactica the series, just from the cylon's point of view (as if we didn't already know what that looked like!)
3 years agoby @lane1Flag
Dan
I also reviewed Battlestar Galactica itself, if anyone is interested.
3 years agoby @dan1Flag
Dan
Yes, I watched the Plan. I reviewed, even. I found it to be good, but just a retread of the series. Like a summary of what we already knew. But being a die hard BSG fan, I still enjoyed it.
3 years agoby @dan1Flag
Mutant
Oh so nice, three different ages for one character. Has anyone seen The Plan, I tried to watch it but I found it was boring as double hockey sticks.
3 years agoby @zenderFlag
RojoDiablo
Awesome news for sure. I was thinking Adama's age was around 10 years old on Caprica, so that means this would be about a decade later, give or take a year or two? So I guess the war would be starting in the next few years on Caprica.
3 years agoby @rojodiabloFlag
spynet315
This is great news, I just kinda wish it started with the beginning of the Cylon War rather than 10 years in. Wait, if Adama is in his early 20s in this new series which takes place 10 years into the war, and he has to be older than 10 in Caprica, then does that mean that the Cylon war is about to break out any minute on Caprica?
3 years agoby @spynet315Flag
Brian
Hell yes. This is awesome. Can't wait for this to happen!
3 years agoby @brianFlag
Dan
Besides The Hobbit being greenlit with Peter Jackson, this is the other news I have been waiting to hear. Can't wait for some more space battles n' sh*t.
3 years agoby @dan1Flag
Dan
Yes! So frakking cool! So say we all! Geeking the F*CK out!
3 years agoby @dan1Flag