Machinima Scores With Battlestar Prequel

SyFy broke the hearts of millions of Battlestar Gallactica fans when the network elected not to move forward with the prequel series Blood & Chrome. It may soon have to reconsider.

The movie-length Blood & Chrome pilot, which has been carved up into a Web series on Machinima, is off to a fast start. Episode one has already generated 1.7 million views in its first six days on Machinima’s hugely popular YouTube channel. The second episode was closing in on half a million views as of Thursday (Nov. 15) evening.

Machinima plans to post the third and fourth episodes on Friday, rolling out two per week until all 10 episodes hit the Web by mid-December. SyFy is planning to air the full Battlestar Gallactica: Blood & Chrome movie sometime in February.

Executives at SyFy and Universal Cable Productions, the NBC Universal unit responsible for producing Blood, declined to comment. But according to sources, it’s too soon to tell whether the fan reaction will spur a second season of the Web show—or even a full-fledged TV series down the road.

It appears that Battlestar's loyal fan base and Machinima's male-heavy gamer audience are a terrific fit. Plus, Battlestar has successfully experimented with webisodes in the past.

If the show does continue, SyFy and Machinima might want to consider a partnership with Gawker Media. According to YouTube's analytics, the first episode of Blood & Chrome really took off once it was posted on Gawker's sci-fi property io9.com.