Paeter February 13th 2013, 4:56 pm
Finally watched it all today, and agree with a lot of what Ben said here.
I don't think the quality was quite up to what I've expected from the show, but not much below it either. A few writing choices seemed there only to artificially create tension or friction. The co-ed showers made no sense to me. (Didn't in Starship Troopers, either.) Rebecca finding and saying the "don't kill us we're friendlies" password at the last minute made her look inept and unprepared and didn't make sense. It also made no sense for her to keep their mission a secret from Adama and his co-pilot for as long as she did. There was no danger in her telling them what she eventually did at gunpoint, and even with the further information revealed later (also at gunpoint) it didn't change the fact that keeping the mission objective a secret seemed more a device to keep viewers in the dark and had no logical motive in the story.
Despite Blood and Chrome resting a bit on fans' pre-existing love of Adama and interest in the BSG universe(rather than truly pushing itself creatively as the original show did), it was still a good experience and one I'd recommend, given that it's free online.
Also played with AI themes a bit again. The woman who helped create the brains of the Cylons observed, as they watched a "screaming" Cylon, that they can "feel pain". I assume she claimed to know this given her experience in helping to create the Cylons, but I don't see how she could have done more than create a very convincing simulation of a machine feeling pain.
It made more sense to me, as was suggested in the series, that "God" gave living souls to the Cyclons, and this resulted in the incoming data regarding damage to an individual cylon unit gaining a negative, emotional component and becoming what we know as "pain". Without this being the case, it seems to me that no matter how complex a simulation, Cylon systems damage would ultimately be described as Arnold's terminator described it in T2: Judgment Day, as simply being "data".
Anyway, this isn't a full blown review, just a collection of random thoughts. Definitely a good experience, though not a great one. I doubt I will buy the blu-ray (as I imagine the minor shortcomings of the visuals will only stand out more in HiDef) unless Blood And Chrome becomes the basis or "pilot" of an actual ongoing series.
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I guess that's what I get for getting a used copy, but hey, it was cheap. Anyway so far I'm liking it. The first episode was meh to me, but each following one got better and better IMO. I love the conversations Dr. Gaius has with the robot in his head.
