Rent Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome (2012)

Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome review by Mark McPherson - Cinema Paradiso

By far one of the biggest successes of the Sci-Fi Channel after the underdog series that was Farscape, was the reboot of Battlestar Galactica. As a product of the Star Wars TV era that received one of the most unfulfilling ending series (Galactica 1980), it was ripe material for a revision and the results were stellar. Armed with major special effects and a top-tier cast of notable actors, the show raged on for four gloriously intense seasons. Capitalizing on that success, however, was another story. There was the prequel series Caprica that failed to cultivate the same audience for being more of a low-key drama than space opera. The last straw for the franchise was Blood & Chrome and, well, there’s a reason it never went further than this miniseries.

On the surface, Blood & Chrome may seem like a return to form for Galactica fans. There’s less somber cyborg melodrama and more of a focus on giant space battles. Like, a lot of space battles. To a ridiculous degree. It’s as though some executive looked at the lackluster episodes of Caprica and decided to steer the franchise more towards mindless action. After all, everybody loved seeing the sight of Cylon fighters zooming across Galactica fleets, firing lasers, bullets, and missiles at each other.

Of course, that wasn’t the only appeal of the rebooted series. It could have both the breathtaking action as well as the cunning drama of trying to figure out who in the remaining fleet of Capricans is a Cylon spy, either intentionally or as a sleeper agent. Blood & Chrome, however, is all action. It’s for this reason why it makes sense this miniseries of sorts was slowly published online in tiny bite-sized chunks, ala Star Wars: The Clone Wars. There’s a building anticipation with each episode as we watch a fleet prepare to engage Cylons in a brutal battle of explosions, chaos, and surprising new forms of the robotic antagonists.

And it’s not like there’s room for a good story here. The show focuses on the early days of William Adama, when he was more of a pilot than a leader of a fleet. It could have been a solid series for existing between Caprica and Battlestar Galactica. The only problem is that this show is so compacted for a short attention span that there’s very little time to ever get to know the younger Adama in more than name and rank. With basic introductions out of the way, the series just becomes a mostly mindless exercise in the Colonial Fleet fighting off Cylon fighters. It’s cool to look at but there’s little else present that it’s understandable why Sci-Fi didn’t proceed with a full series order.

Considering that Blood & Chrome is as about as forgotten as its web series platform of Machinima, there’s not much to say that’s positive when looking back on the series, aside from being a showcase of stellar special effects. You need a whole lot more than a demo reel miniseries to make compelling science fiction and Blood & Chrome proved that by being the pint-sized nail in the coffin. At least there’s some solace that can be taken in the fact that we didn’t have to endure more prequel series as the years went on. The most we got was a forgettable strategy PC game and that’s enough.