Caprica [DVD Review]

Yeah, so... like over a year ago I promised to write a review of Caprica.
I've finally gotten around to watching the whole series and so here is the review.

Cylons make board meetings more efficient.

I never caught Caprica on TV, then again I never caught BSG on TV either. I despise commercials, and it cost me less than $15 to get both season of Caprica brand-new... so...

3.5 out of 5 stars

Introducing the Caprica edition  Kindle Paper-White.

Let me state clearly right here... if you read any further I will be spoiling massive massive things from the series. Some I will spoil in adulation, some in derision. 

Definitely closer to the old, less sleek, Cylons.

Also, let me emphasize, that despite its failings and triumphs, the stupidest line still comes from the 2 hour pilot. That line asserts that the human brain can hold about 300mb of memory. I've already covered this, but in reality the Human Brain actually holds between 1tb and 2.5pb (that's petabytes) with most estimates between 10tb and 1000tb. Even if we choose the smallest of the real numbers, that is an amazing amount, and much much more than a measly 300mb. Maybe they meant to say gigabytes? Still... this takes the cake as the series stupidest line. 

Ok. Lets get some basic plot out of the way.

58 years prior to BSG the Twelve colonies are at peace, but are not united under a central government. Daniel Graystone, owner of the Caprica City Buccaneers and Graystone Industries, is working with the Caprica Ministry of Defense in developing a military robot. At the same time his daughter Zoe has created a complex self-aware digital Avatar in the holoband's (a VR device) digital realm of V-World. Zoe also does not get along with her parents, and together with a few friends, has decided to leave Caprica for Gemenon. They are all followers of the One (the One True God), and monotheists. As she and her friends are riding the mag-lev to the space port her boyfriend(?) reveals that he is actually a member of the STO (Soldiers of The One) and does a little suicide bombing. This terrorist act becomes the backdrop that so much of the rest of Caprica plays off of. 

New Cap City, V-World. Yes, that is a rigid airship.

The 'katana' scenes were when Caprica Shark-Jumped.

The series builds from there. Zoe is dead, her Avatar (Zoe-A) lives on. Daniel Graystone can not get his robots to work, so he uses his legal contact, Joseph Adams (soon revealed that Adams is actually Adama, they just changed it to be more Caprican and Tauron), to get the Ha'la'tha to steal the MCP (meta-cognitive processor) from another company (one based on Tauron).

Viper Mk.I according to some modelers. They look cool.

So we've got the Graystones, the Adamas, and a few other families all connected. Yusef Adama (Joseph Adams) lost his wife and daughter in the same terrorist attack that took Zoe, but he still has a living son, William Adama. Don't worry we'll get back to that in a bit... when I'm ready to vent at the series.

First lets cover the things that Caprica did well.

It's a different feeling show than BSG, it's more social drama than military drama. So that's nice. It deals with the issue of racism quite a bit. Taurons are looked upon as primitive 'dirt eaters.' I like to see science fiction tackle the issues that exist in the real world. There are also issues with social rights, and of course terrorism.

One of the reasons I think Caprica got cancelled was the way it dealt with religion. It does not treat religion nicely. It asserts pretty strongly that monotheistic religions are essentially religions for teenagers. They are shown as restrictive, controlling, black and white morality religions. They are good vs bad, no shades of grey, no tolerance religions. The opposite of how polytheistic religions are portrayed - which are lenient and more human dependent. The polytheist allows for human error and flexibility. This is all set up for the way the Cylon's act in BSG, but I have this feeling that it may have stirred negative reactions. Also, the STO is a terrorist organization that really resembles... ehem... a certain western abrahamic religion popular in the USA.

I'm not going to say anything here about this scene...

This is really all set up for the Cylon's and their god in BSG. I'm not going into the details on that one, but do not worry, it's pretty blatant.

In many ways V-World is a prototype of the Cylon inner-space world. And / or Baltar's constant visions.

Other cool thing. The Cylons in Caprica resembled the early model Cylons, not the nice sleek ones from BSG. The Caprican Cylons are just unarmored.

Cylon Snipers. Nuff Said.

Where the series falters:
Too many characters enter, stay for a few episodes, and then die. It becomes kinda over done... it almost appears as if they are just trying to cycle cast to stay in their time slot. Lots of character roll-over.

Oh, wait. The Cylons are memorialized for heroism. Yep.

There are little niggling details, such as, why does the STO use the same phrase as the polytheists use of 'So say we all?' That seems odd.

But the real pisser is William Adama.
This is a BIG SPOILER.
They shoot and kill William Adama at the end of the show. Joseph Adama remarries and has another son, who, get this, is also named William Adama in memory of his deceased half-brother. WHY? This is so contrived its not even funny. The series would have just been better if they had not written in the original William Adama. Yes he was like 13, so Adama in BSG would have been 71, which is kinda a touch old for his character. So why write him in at all just to have to do that stupid contrived death / second child thing. That was just stupid! 

Honestly, if you just saw this on TV it probably lacked a lot. The five episodes on the DVDs that were not originally broadcast (they were shown on TV later) are a pretty solid wrap up (ignoring the contrived William Adama bit).

The show is inconsistent in its pacing, there are some early character problems (Graystone is a genius who has a real problem understanding something that should have been super simple), but as it goes along it irons out quite a few of the wrinkles. Is it great, no. Is it terrible, no. Is the ending a touch rushed, yes... and yet I think that it meshes with BSG without too many complex mental gymnastics. I'll probably watch it again the next time I want to watch BSG (which had it's own problems... but is pretty good).

Do I really need to explain this?