And So It Begins...

Above is a photo posted to Twitter by SyFy exec Mark Stern of a Blood & Chrome production meeting. You can see David Eick to the immediate right of the frame. (click to embiggen.)

And here's the new rookie viper pilot William Adama, call sign "Husker" to be portrayed by Luke Pasqualino:


Entertainment Weekly broke the casting news:

Syfy has cast Luke Pasqualino (Skins — U.K.) as Adama. While Ben Cotton (Hellcats, Riese) is the other lead, playing Adama’s commanding officer.

First, here’s some official character descriptions that give you some new details about the show:
Pasqualino will star as the young, talented fighter pilot William Adama, a recent Academy graduate who finds himself assigned to the newest Battlestar in the Colonial fleet: the Galactica. Full of ambition and in pursuit of the intense action that the Cylon war promises, Adama quickly finds himself at odds with Coker (Cotton), the battle-weary officer to whom he reports. With 45 days left in his tour of duty, Coker desires an end to battle just as much as Adama craves the start of it. Though they clash at first, the two men forge an unlikely bond when a routine mission turns dangerous and becomes a pivotal one for the desperate fleet.

Blood & Chrome is set during the 10th year of the first Cylon war. The show will debut with a two-hour pilot on Syfy, executive produced by David Eick.

Several sites have read the script for Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome either in full or in part, and if you click on the following links you will find spoilers here at, io9, Trek Web, and Spinoff Online. Readers are reacting positively to the storyline as Charlie Jane Anders wrote:

The best thing I can say about Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome is that it feels like BSG. More than the BSG TV movies, more than Caprica, this feels like the gritty, intense show about real characters in impossible situations that we fell in love with. Of course, this time around, we’ll know how everything turns out in advance — but the journey may actually be pretty gods-damned compelling, judging from these pages.

In other news....

Check out this highly detailed map of the Twelve Colonies that you can order from Quantum Mechanix.

Ronald D. Moore's original Series Bible for Battlestar Galactica has been leaked online, and reveals the original shape of the show and the plans for the first season. (Or is this the real show Bible?)

CNN profiled Jane Espenson.



Katee Sackhoff and Tricia Helfer were recent guests at the Women of Sci-Fi Expo in Texas where they talked to fans and did an Acting Outlaws live stream.

And Jamie Bamber has a new BBC show, Outcasts which looks to have some BSG qualities. Watch the trailer here.

Final Thoughts on Caprica

Bear McCreary has posted another of his insightful and thorough articles that takes us behind the scenes on how he created the music for the final episodes of Caprica. Be sure to listen to the music samples and video of the scoring at his blog.

As an aside, I'm a hockey fan. (Go Kings!) So, I recognized the singer singing the Caprica anthem as the guy who sings O Canada at Canucks games, Mark Donnelly.



Back to Caprica.... Jerome Wetzel reviewed the finale for Blog Critics and highly praised the series, declaring: "Despite only one season, Caprica joins my list of Best Shows Ever, made even better by no cliffhangers."

Read the full review here.

Alessandra Torresani (Zoe Greystone) says farewell to Caprica and the fans on her Tumblr.

A while back on G4 she had some fun with Attack of the Show co-host Kevin Pereira:




And now for my final thought... Caprica's last two episodes, Here Be Dragons and Apotheosis were two of the best episodes of the series. Maybe if the entire first season had been aired without breaks like Lost did during the final few years of its run, and perhaps with consistent marketing, Caprica might have had a chance. Every new show needs a little shake down cruise and it seems just toward the end the writers had found the voice of the show.

Well, at least the one and only season will live on in DVD and hopefully Blu-ray. It's a worthy addition to the BSG canon. And from where Caprica left off, it could be a great spring board for Blood and Chrome to continue the Battlestar Galactica epic.

First Look: Blood and Chrome

Preliminary concept art for Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome has been revealed. Via, Blastr, HDR, io9, and Screenrant.

In a brief interview with the Galactica Sitrep, Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome writer and executive producer Michael Taylor says about the artwork:

Those pics were just the first of the many concept art sketches we've been creating. They don't necessarily reflect any particular incidents in the script; as "concept" drawings they're helping us flesh out the new world of Blood & Chrome. And it is a new world, one that owes much to the BSG series of the past but at the same time uses CGI to open up that world in ways that we hope fans will find fresh and exciting.

As for the show's status, SyFy has officially green-lit a two-hour pilot, and we have begun pre-production, with filming expected to begin at the end of January, or very shortly thereafter. This is the fun part for me: seeing the script take tangible shape (or "virtually tangible" shape, since practically all of the pilot will be shot on green screen) as our director (Jonas Pate), DP (Lukas Ettlin), VFX supervisor (Gary Hutzel) and a host of artists -- and of course the cast that we'll soon be gathering -- bring it to life.

For more background on Blood and Chrome see our previous coverage here.

Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome

Battlestar Galactica: Blood in Chrome is set to be made as a telefilm and potential backdoor pilot for SyFy. Originally planned as a series of webisodes, SyFy instead decided that Michael Taylor's script was of a larger scale and scope than webisodes could contain. Mo Ryan of the AOL TV has further details and she spoke to SyFy's Mark Stern about the project.

Here's the official press release about the project from Syfy:

New York, NY – October 22, 2010 – Syfy is readying an exciting all-new chapter in the Battlestar Galactica saga with a greenlight for Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome from Executive Producer David Eick, it was announced today by Mark Stern, Executive Vice President of Original Programming, Syfy and Co-Head of Content for Universal Cable Productions. Universal Cable Productions will produce the 2-hour pilot with Syfy utilizing cutting edge CGI and virtual technology.

Battlestar Galactica: Blood & 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 Ron 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 & 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.