Métal Hurlant Chronicles

Did You Know?

• Notable actors who appeared include Scott Adkins, Michael Jai White, James Marsters, Michelle Ryan, and Rutger Hauer.
• Nolife was expected to rebroadcast season one in France sometime in 2013.

Plot

Each episode is a self-contained science-fiction story adapted from a tale previously published in Métal Hurlant magazine, set on a different world with a different cast. The stories are linked by an asteroid called the 'Métal Hurlant' that passes close to the planet where the episode takes place. The opening credits, narrated in French by Benoît Allemane, describe the asteroid as the last fragment of a living planet destroyed by its inhabitants' madness, condemned to travel through space and time.

Broadcast

The first season of Métal Hurlant Chronicles, consisting of six episodes, aired on France 4 in a late-night slot across two nights from October 27 to November 3, 2012. Viewers could choose between a default French dub or the original English audio with subtitles. Sony Pictures Television secured broadcast rights across several European nations, leading to airings on Animax in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. In the United States, Syfy Channel started showing the first season on April 14, 2014, with Monday slots at 8:00 and 8:30 p.m.

Reception

When it premiered on France 4 on October 27, 2012, Métal Hurlant Chronicles aired after three Doctor Who episodes that had drawn a 1.4% share. The show lifted the channel’s overall share, tying it with W9 and outperforming Gulli, NT1, and D8. The first episode pulled 347,000 viewers and a 2.2% share at 11 p.m., but the next two episodes that same night each lost about 100,000 viewers. Across the evening, the series captured 2.4% of viewers aged 15–34 and 3.5% of men aged 15–49. When it later debuted on SyFy in 2014, its pilot viewership was slightly below the slot’s norm and kept dropping. Critics have been lukewarm, praising decent visual effects but panning weak writing, inconsistent acting, and poor production.