Everything that didn't work in Battlestar Galactica at play in Caprica

Dimme

I was totally blown away by Battlestar Galactica. When the show premiered in 2003, I didn't see it. I thought I would hate it. Boy was I Wrong. The 2003 mini-series is absolutely brilliant. What followed a year later was totally mind blowing: a full season where every single episode was stunningly beautifully executed with a strong story line and an intriguing and mysterious story arch. I was hooked.

Sadly Battlestar stumbled in season two, and lost its way in season 3. Efforts to bring it back to what worked early on only half way succeeded, and with ample opportunity to end the series as a self contained story, the final chapter seemed hurried and slapped on, undermining and belittling the strong origins of the show. Battlestar was consistently more brilliant than not all the way to the end, but it became apparent that the show wasn't planned to go anywhere from the start, and that the need to spring surprises on the viewer was more adhered to that to tell an overall story. It de-evolved into episodic TV, and I thin we as an audience have tired of such an out dated concept. The Cylon plan proved to be anything but a plan.

Now comes the pilot of Caprica, a show that has been in the rumor mill for years, and been greatly anticipated by the fans of Battlestar. But the downer final act of Battlestar renders the storyline of Caprica moot from the start -- what happened some 50 odd years before Battlestar began doesn't really matter anymore, does it? And Caprica struggles form the start. These characters seem bored and uninteresting to us. They seem to be more maneuvered into action by their surrounding than by their own motivations or personalities. Nowhere to be seen is the urgency that pulled us in from the start in Battlestar. It's hard to get overly curious about the secret teenage virtual underground, and it's hard to understand where these teenagers conjure up the notion of a monotheistic God. It's even harder to understand Adama's rationale for letting himself be played by Greystone and the sudden realization of the error of his ways comes after a confrontation with a VR-representation of his recently deceased daughter that neither is convincing nor is in any way credible in relation to how Caprica technology is depicted.

The show definitely have the look and feel of Battlestar on a budget, with noticeably less impressive special effects and production values. And it doesn't help that Greystones villa looks suspiciously like Baltars, only filmed at slightly different angles.

score /10

Dimme 20 April 2009

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2055173/