SyFy’s BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: BLOOD & CHROME begins shooting in Vancouver. 2-Hour Pilot Chronicles Young William Adama’s Adventures in First Cylon War.
Per the Press Release, Lili Bordan (SILENT WITNESS) joins Luke Pasqualino and Ben Cotton in the cast.
“Production has begun in Vancouver on Syfy’s highly anticipated 2-hour pilot, Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome, the all-new chapter in the Battlestar Galactica saga. Universal Cable Productions will produce the event 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, the sentient robotic Cylons, rages across the 12 colonial worlds, a young, talented fighter pilot, William Adama (Luke Pasqualino), finds himself assigned to one of the most powerful Battlestars in the Colonial fleet: the Galactica. Full of ambition and in pursuit of the intense action that the Cylon war promises, Adama quickly find himself at odds with Coker (Ben Cotton), the battle-weary officer to whom he reports. With 47 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.
Joining Pasqualino and Cotton in the cast is Lili Bordan, who will play Dr. Beka Kelly, a Ph.D. who worked for Graystone Industries that created the Cylon robots. Currently assigned to a secret military mission, Beka and Adama quickly establish a rapport. Click to Enlarge
From the award-winning producers of Battlestar Galactica, this new action-packed chapter of the BSG canon was written by Michael Taylor from a story by David Eick, Taylor and Bradley Thompson & David Weddle and directed by Jonas Pate. David Eick, Jonas Pate and Michael Taylor will serve as executive producers.”
Entertainment Weekly revealed that 21-year-old Luke Pasqualino (the UK version of SKINS) has been cast as the young William Adama in SyFy’s BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: BLOOD & CHROME.
Ben Cotton, (HELLCATS, the SyFy web series RIESE) will play Adama’s commanding officer. Looks like the whole show is skewing younger.
The BSG prequel, originally planned as just a web mini-series, got greenlighted as a full series, possibly as a response to the low ratings of previous prequel CAPRICA.
That series, much more “grounded” and concerened with slow moving personal tragedies and conspiracies generated some devoted fans, but insufficent overall viewers.
Young fighter pilot “Husker” Adama was previously played by Nico Cortez in RAZOR.
Official character descriptions:
“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. Cotton in HELLCATS
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.”
Ben Cotton also appeared as recurring character Dr. Peter Kavanagh on STARGATE: ATLANTIS, and guested twice on CAPRICA.
Star Eric Stolz with proto-Cylon This Tuesday, January 4th, SyFy burns off the final five original episodes of it’s cancelled series CAPRICA.
The show, a spin-off prequel to the successful dark BATTLESTAR GALACTICA revival, proved to be a be a bit too grim and drawn-out, with personal crisises & angst emphasized over action and plot momentum, to attract an audience in sufficent numbers. Also lacking really likable characters, it nevertheless was an interesting look at a science-fictional world.
The marathon begins at 6:00 PM Eastern Time withBlowback, followed by Dirteaters at 7:00 PM, The Heavens Will Rise at 8:00 PM Here Be Dragons at 9:00 and the final episode, Apotheosis
ay 10:00 PM.
Though not a personal favorite, I’m sorry to see the series go, and hope that Apotheosis, which means to “elevate to a divine level” or serve as “a perfect example” will be true to it’s definition for CAPRICA’s fans.
The Cast of CAPRICA
SyFy and Universal Cable Productions has BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: BLOOD AND CHROME coming up, which will be a sequel of sorts, featuring William Adama—seen as a child in CAPRICA—as a young adult fighting in the first Cylon War.
According to Deadline.com, Ira Steven Behr (STAR TREK: TNG, DEEP SPACE 9, THE 4400) will be the executive producer “showrunner” for SyFy’s “real-world superhero” show ALPHAS.
The show was recently greenlit for 11 episodes, after the 90-minute pilot clicked with the brass.
The series was created by Zak Penn (X-MEN: THE LAST STAND) and Michael Karnow. Penn will be a producer for Universal Cable Productions and the BermanBraun production company, with Gail Berman, Lloyd Braun and Gene Stein also on the producing roster.
CAPRICA, SyFy’s spin-off sequel to BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, will not be renewed for a second season, and in a surprising move, has also been removed from the schedule, with five more completed episodes yet to be broadcast.
From SyFy’s Release:
Please note the following change to Syfy’s broadcast schedule:
The remaining first run episodes of Caprica – airing Tuesdays at 10/9c – will be removed from the schedule as of next Tuesday, November 2. These final five episodes of the season will be re-scheduled to air at a to be announced time in the first quarter of 2011, and will conclude the run of the series.
“We appreciate all the support that fans have shown for ‘Caprica’ and are very proud of the producers, cast, writers and the rest of the amazing team that has been committed to this fine series,” said Mark Stern, Executive Vice President of Original Programming, Syfy and Co-Head of Content for Universal Cable Productions. “Unfortunately, despite its obvious quality, ‘Caprica’ has not been able to build the audience.”
Sadly, I’m not surprised at the BSG’s spin-off’s cancellation. It’s a good-looking, well-acted show, but it failed the number one requirement of a TV series: to create characters that the audience want to return to see episode to episode. Even if a show goes into dark and grim territory, viewers need to have some one to like or identify with, a reason to remain faithful through rough patches.
CAPRICA gave us complicated, intense characters that were very difficult to warm up to, and the often over-arcing sense of tragedy and despair tended to drain any excitement from the episodes. However, I must note that the production was enormously successful in creating a realistic and convincing science fiction milieu. The planet Caprica seemed like a real place, an alternate “Earth” turned just slightly askew, with the more Sci-Fi-ish elements like space-travel seeming perfectly mundane, no more exotic than say airplane travel in the 1960’s — though fraught with all the danger and security-based annoyances of the present.
A TV show about corporate criminals, mobsters, religious fanatics and terrorism is a hard sell to begin with, being stuck with out any clear heroes to root for is a near impossible situation.
