New 'Battlestar' spinoff planned

SyFy is reportedly planning a new spinoff from sci-drama Battlestar Galactica.

According to The Chicago Tribune, the new series - titled Blood & Chrome - will consist of around ten episodes of roughly ten minutes each, and will be released exclusively online.

Executive producer Michael Taylor explained: "It's a story that will take us to new corners of the Battlestar world... 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... the reality of The Hurt Locker, Sebastian Junger's Restrepo and similar movies, as I am about about the largely implied past of Battlestar."

The show will follow the story of a young William Adama, played in the original programme by Edward James Olmos. Actor Nico Cortez previously played a younger version of the character in Battlestar television movie Razor. However, it is currently unknown whether he will reprise the role for Blood & Chrome.

Taylor added that the show would be "about a young man's initiation into war - both the realities of war as fought by soldiers on the ground... and the somewhat less real version portrayed in the media".

He also promised that the series would not avoid depicting the grim and violent nature of war.

"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."

If the web series is successful, a television version of Blood & Chrome could follow.