So basically if SyFy can produce this show with a budget that they can afford it will most likely be televised but if they can't make the economics work then it will be relegated back to a web series,

http://airlockalpha.com/node/8875/blood-chrome-may-not-premiere-until-2013.html

Sounds basically DOA, SyFy wishes it could just flush it quietly but the fanbase won't allow it, so delay/doublespeak until no one cares anymore.

No, I'm sure they'd like to profit off it if they can. What they want is to make the show as dirt cheap as they can possibly manage so that even if it gets the abysmal audiences Caprica and SGU got they still make money. I think that's the holdup--"how do we get the show to be decent while cheap enough to make money with a lousy 1 million viewers?" I don't know if there's an answer to that, but they're still looking.



The Jedi Master

It pretty much sounds like to me that SyFy shouldn't even bother then. If they make it as cheap as they want it to be I think the show's quality will most likely suffer and if the show does indeed only get about 1 million viewers per week then it's not even worth keeping on the air.

The twin failures of 2 high profile series/franchises last year has to have shaken them.

B&C is suffering from that. I bet if it was totally new it might have had a better shot. Alternatively, the fact that it's "spaceships in space" could be the problem.



The Jedi Master

Right and when you look at the current-running scripted shows on SyFy that are doing well, it would indeed seem that the "spaceships in space" concept is out of favor right now.

BSG was at it's best when it focused on the combat, both terrestial and in Space. If they can leave out the religous stuff and focus on characters and action I think they would have another hit show.

They did that for the first 2 seasons pretty much. You may not recall, but at the end of that season many people, including the show runners but also people around the net and several here at SimHQ, felt the show was getting stale.

"Wander around, stumble into/get found by Cylons, fight, escape, rinse, repeat" was the mantra and people were tired of it. Then came New Caprica and things were shook up, but they really couldn't go right back to that formula afterwards. Instead they started focusing on the Cylons and how they differed from the colonists, and naturally the whole poly/monotheistic divide came to the forefront.

I don't doubt they could make another series focused on just combat good for 2 seasons. I do question it could last much beyond that if they don't change it up, though.



The Jedi Master

To each their own I guess but it was the mythology and mysticism that set apart the new BSG from most other scifi shows.

We've already had plenty of shows that were all about big exploshuns and things going boom. Ron Moore wanted something more than that and he succeeded IMHO.

I wish they would have continued focusing on the survival aspect and the tensions and political struggles within the fleet. The series peaked for me with the rescue of the colonists from New Caprica. I think they really screwed up with the Final Five story arc, especially with Tigh being a Cylon. It was just totally unbelievable. Also what happened with Starbuck in the end was very unsatisfying. I loved the show but the final season was a complete disappointment for me (I know I'm not the only one).

Well, I think those are 2 complementary but diverging viewpoints.

One: the series was good at the beginning, but things were getting stale and changes needed to occur to keep it compelling.

Two: the change in direction starting with New Caprica and going out to the Cylon POV and Earth and nonexplainable stuff took the series the wrong way.

You can agree with one and two, or you can agree with one and disagree with two, or you can disagree with both. Personally I liked the overall idea of what they were doing, although I think it fell short in execution towards the end. They'd written themselves into a proverbial hole. Lost had the same problem, but unlike BSG I'm not sure I really agreed with the overall plan once I knew it.



The Jedi Master

True, I know quite a few fans who didn't like season 4 so you're not the only one. All I can say to that is to each their own but how I see it is that I'm glad Ron Moore wasn't afraid to take chances with the show instead of just putting it on cruise control and letting it become stale. There's no doubt that season 4 changed a few things in a radical way,

1. Lee changing from military to civilian (politician)

2. Cylon civil war followed by Colonial mutiny. This changed the dynamic from a purely colonial vs. cylon one to a colonial vs. disgruntled colonials weary of war vs. rebel cylons vs. cylons with Cavil's camp.

3. Starbuck not being the same Starbuck that we knew before.

4. Less space combat, more character study/dialogue scenes.

5. Radical role change for Gaius Baltar. Going from scientist/Colonial president/cylon prisoner to leader of a new religous cult.


So when you have these many changes during the final season of a show, you're bound to make some fans unhappy. I was not one of the unhappy fans though.

Out of all of those, the only one that really affected my enjoyment of the show was #3, and not because it happened but because of how it happened and was explained. Well, wasn't explained.

I figured you guys would get a laugh out of this,

I concur.

Tyrol was bad enough but BSG jumped the shark with Tigh and Ellen, for me. Two of the elder members of the fleet, who within approximate working timelines were youngsters during the first Cylon war when Adama was doing the heroic business; Tigh being a longtime buddy of Adama; displaying variable human ageing characteristics with the other "finals"; flashbacks showing the alternative skinjob concept in its infancy among Cylons at that time; etc.

The justifications introduced for the contradictions and the messy back-story of those five became so convoluted I tired of this whole arc very quickly.

That Five / Temple / Prophecy thing was fundamentally surplus to requirements anyway; for me the whole skinjob thing would have worked so much better if it was just something Cylons did, in the quiet years, to pump out a few young hottie clones like 6 and 8 to infiltrate humanity.

Back when Cylons were sneaky, one step ahead, single minded and dangerous. Not the jarringly contradictory confused schizophrenics in need of some wuv and religious enlightenment of the later series.

I appreciate the need to branch out, but the universe was so rich there were many other avenues they could have branched out into without tearing into the core tenets.

IMHO

Cheers, Spinner

The original BSG portrayed the cylons as a monolithic group with no free will of their own and were literally robots in their unquestioning obedience to their masters and in their goal to wipe out the last remaining colonials. That may provide enough depth for a 2 hour film but not a long running tv series.

I completely agree with the approach of the new BSG making the cylons a seemingly monolithic and unquestioning entity in the miniseries and early stage of the show but then later on showing how the cylons themselves continue to evolve and ultimately question their own programming as Boomer and D'Anna did for example. That type of rubric allows for a show with a much deeper and varied philosophy and commentary on what it is to be human.

Of course, in the end human = Cylon + THEIR humans. Which pretty much blurs the whole thing up anyway.




The Jedi Master

I hear SyFy is working on a Gay Vampire wrestling in space reality show. Their execs think it's a winner.

Their execs think anything that's really low budget is a winner.



The Jedi Master

Unfortunately their SyFy Original B crap movies get decent enough ratings to warrant them making more. I think I read somewhere on IMDB that those original SyFy movies average about a 1 million dollar budget each.

Yeah, and they pull in like $2 million. WINNING!




The Jedi Master

So basically this is dead?!?!

Nah, I don't buy it.

Sure, it's dead for NOW. But give it five years, and someone, maybe a dot.com billionaire, will fund a new BSG series out of his own pocket. IMO.

Many of us said the same about Babylon 5. But after multiple fits and starts and nothing but a failed TV pilot and lone to-DVD release, we must accept that B5 is gone now.



The Jedi Master

JMS recently posted on FB that Warner Brothers did contact him a while ago about a possible B5 project. That's all we know right now.

Yea, nothing NOW...but looking at how tv and movie franchises are being gobbled up and redone, repackaged, retold, I'm confident that someone will put some money up for another kick at the B5 cat. Just as long as they don't go straight to DVD like they did. Actually that wasn't the problem, that one just kinda sucked, if it were good, the distribution wouldn't have mattered.

I assume you're referring to "Lost Tales". What hurt it was the laughably small budget Warner Brothers gave JMS to make it. Somewhere in the vicinity of 2 million.

Personally I think the Telepath Wars would make a great series, as well as the several-times-attempted-but-never-succeeded storyline of Shadows tech being used by others. They tried it for Crusade, Legend of the Rangers, and The Memory of Shadows. Triple fail. Still would like to see it though.



The Jedi Master