BSG: Blood & Chrome - A Review

Two years in the making, Syfy's reimagined Battlestar Galactica prequel/web series Blood & Chrome is finally here!

Set ten years into the First Cylon War and 40 years prior to the 2003 series, Blood & Chrome follows a young William Adama on his early missions as a viper pilot for the newly-commissioned Battlestar Galactica.

In the first episode (which is broken into ten segments), Adama and two others are sent on what appears to be a simple milk run, but the mission ends up being far more than they bargained for when the trio finds themselves on a frozen world deep within Cylon-controlled space. Adama's command abilities are tested and his and preconceptions of the War challenged.

Blood & Chrome is an interesting addition to the BSG universe since it gives us some much-needed background on Commander Adama and the First Cylon War. Adama is portrayed as being a very cocky but highly-skilled pilot who sees the War as a chance for glory. We see a Galactica that's brand new and bristling with guns and heavy armor, Cylons who are still more machine then man (or woman, rather), and raiders that are right out of the 1978 series. For those of you who are fans of that classic show, the homages in this web series are pretty obvious, right down to the music used when we see the Cylon War-era Galactica for the first time.

Minimalistic physical sets representing Galactica's CIC...

...were combined with greenscreen effects to create the final shot.

Blood & Chrome's special effects are what one might expect from a web series. The CG is good enough, but looks a bit too 'video gamey' in places. Even the live-action shots have an almost animated look to them due to the extensive use of greenscreen effects (for example, the Galactica's CIC was created almost exclusively as a digital model). Even so, the visuals are more than adequate and really don't take away from the story once you get into it. Considering the large number of effects that had to be created, the VFX staff did quite an impressive job on what I'd guess to be a relatively low budget. 

I wasn't exactly a huge fan of the reimagined series when it first came out, but programs like this have made it grow on me in recent years. It's obvious Syfy is milking the franchise for all it's worth (since they really have no other new sci-fi programming...), but at least they managed to produce a quality show that actually lives up to the name. Overall, Blood & Chrome is a worthy addition to the BSG universe, and well worth watching. It's a fast-paced story with plenty of action, space battles, and an interesting look into a very young and different Adama.

Although the first episode has come to an end, all ten installments are available for viewing on the Machinima Youtube channel.

The complete episode will air as a movie on Syfy early next year, and a DVD release containing extra/unrated materials will come out around the same time.