Caprica
By Nick Manteris · 0 Comments · Leave a Comment
The commercial for Caprica didn’t really give the impression that it might be a show worth watching and if the link to Battlestar Galactica didn’t exist there would have been nothing to provide any interest at all. The most surprising thing is that, even though Caprica is a prequel, it doesn’t look or feel anything like Battlestar Galactica. Sure, several of the colonies are mentioned by name and there is an early-model cylon prototype, but these things could have been tacked on to a completely unrelated story without too much effort. And the truth is: that’s pretty much what happened. Remi Aubuchon shared his idea for a film about artificial intelligence with Universal Pictures and they proposed a meeting with Ronald Moore and David Eick…Caprica is the result of that meeting.
Is there enough here to satiate those accustomed to human and robots battling it out in space? Well…within the first five minutes they take us into a club that makes Eyes Wide Shut look like something for children. That’s something. They make it fairly obvious that this show is going to focus more on family drama than action, but that might not be such a bad thing. The Graystone family dynamic seems authentic enough and the little extra details like robot butlers and the computerized tennis courts are nice touches that add validity to the world that they’ve created. A minor quibble is that, much like the Star Wars prequels, some of the technology is way more advanced than what seems to be available fifty years into the future…didn’t anyone think to bring their holoband when they were evacuating?
As it turns out, this seems like an interesting story that would probably have worked just as well (or better) by itself, but the reason they decided to turn it into part of a franchise is understandable. There are probably a good number of people that would not have given Caprica a chance without the connection to the previous show and if they aren’t completely won over by the end of this episode then nothing will sway them…because the final reveal is probably the best moment that television has seen in a couple of years.
[edit: The SyFy Channel Season Premeire for the 2-hour pilot is on Friday, January 22, 2010 at 9/8c. The next new episode will air on Friday, January 29 in the series' regular timeslot at 10/9c.]
