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http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2010/07/battlestar-galactica.html
Those who've been hoping for a new chapter of the "Battlestar Galactica" story may get their wish.
An online series called "Blood & Chrome" is in the works, one that would follow the experiences of a young William "Husker" Adama in the first Cylon War.
According to Mark Stern, Syfy's executive vice president of original programming and the co-head of original content for Universal Cable Productions, "Battlestar Galactica" and "Caprica" co-executive producer Michael Taylor will write the the script for the new venture.
"Blood & Chrome" is "about a young man's initiation into war: both the realities of war as fought by soldiers on the ground (and in Battlestars and Vipers), and the somewhat less real version portrayed in the media," according to Taylor.
"Blood & Chrome" would consist of nine or 10 episodes of nine or 10 minutes each, and it would make use of cutting-edge digital technology and special effects to depict the Cylon War. If it is greenlit to production, it will be filmed using green screens and virtual sets, not unlike Syfy's "Sanctuary" or James Cameron's "Avatar." Before "Battlestar Galactica" ended, high-tech scans were made of all the show's sets, so that the special-effects team will be able to re-create them (possibly even in 3D).
"I've seen the virtual, 3D version of CIC ['Battlestar's' Combat Information Center] and it's pretty damn cool," Taylor said. "And yet the movie isn't confined to Galactica. Far from it. It's a story that will take us to new corners of the 'Battlestar' world (or worlds), and yet it aims to be a very contemporary war movie in a lot of ways. I would say I'm thinking as much of Afghanistan and Iraq--the reality of 'Hurt Locker,' Sebastian Junger's 'Restrepo,' and similar movies--as I am about about the largely implied past of 'Battlestar.'"
Though Taylor said he'll strive for the kind of emotional engagement that was the hallmark of "Battlestar," which ended in 2009, expect lots of of cliffhangers and visceral suspense as well. "We're not going to be shying away from R-rated blood and guts and sex," Taylor noted. "Because this is initially meant to air online, we pretty much have no restrictions in that department."
It's not known yet if "Blood & Chrome" would star Nico Cortez, the actor cast as young Adama in "Razor," a previous "Battlestar Galactica" movie. There may be one other character from "Razor" in the new online series, but it would feature a mostly new cast.
If "Blood & Chrome" is successful, it could be the first a series of similar projects, and if it's judged very successful, it could even act as a backdoor pilot for a TV show set in that war-torn "BSG" era.
Speaking of the Cylon War, "Caprica," a Syfy drama that depicts events that lead up to that conflagration, visited Comic-Con over the weekend.
Judging by the Season 1.5 clip shown at the start of the show's panel, when "Caprica" returns in January, it will have a lot more action, narrative tension and drive. The show, which was disappointingly uneven in its first set of episodes despite its strong cast, certainly needed all those things.
Now that "Caprica's" world and characters have been established, the show's challenge is to "create situations and dramatic milieu as intense and riveting as what we did on 'Battlestar,'" executive producer David Eick said at the Comic-Con panel. That's the goal for the second half of the first season and for the second season, if the show gets one.
In Season 1.5, James Marsters will return as terrorist Barnabus Greeley, Scott Porter will be back as polygamist Nestor Willow and John Pyper-Ferguson will return as Tomas Vergis, a business rival of tech titan Daniel Graystone.
Barnabus is "looking out on a society that's eating itself alive as far as he's concerned. …. He's disgusted," said Marsters, who was on the panel (and who, by the way, confirmed that he'll reprise his role as Brainiac in the 200th episode of "Smallville").
"Caprica" will also return to New Cap City, a virtual game that was effectively showcased in Season 1's most compelling episode, "There Is Another Sky." That hour found Tamara, a character who was dead in the real world, trapped in a videogame in which she found she had special powers.
Virtual worlds like New Cap City will be important as the show moves forward, as will the robots that Daniel Graystone created in the wake of his family's personal trauma. Creating a slave class of robots will have serious consequences for Caprical going forward.
And in the second half of the season, viewers will see many more iterations of Zoe, the young woman who was instrumental in the creation of the Cylons. When it comes to what Zoe does in the second half of the season, "I don't think you're expecting what's going to happen," actress Alessandra Torresani said at the panel.
Will "Caprica" get a second season? Ronald D. Moore, "Caprica" co-creator and executive producer, said on the panel that he "firmly believes" it will. That decision will be made in coming weeks by Syfy executives.
One last tidbit related to the "Battlestar" world: Taylor is also developing a potential Syfy pilot for Scott Stuber's Stuber Productions. It's tentatively called "The Watchers," and it deals in the kind of contemporary social and political issues that "Battlestar" frequently explored.
It's set in the world of corporate espionage, and the characters at the center of the drama worry about the power they've been given to spy on the lives of ordinary citizens -- yet having such power also allows them to do good as well.
