Caprica

[dub]

I've watched the first few episodes of Caprica on Netflix having now watched and re-watched nuBSG. Can someone explain this series to me? Who is the target audience, because I loved nuBSG but I don't feel I'm the correct audience for Caprica. Production-wise and acting-wise it feels like a long, drawn out episode of The Outer Limits to me. I keep waiting for something to happen and for that creepy voice to come on at the end and say

"The pursuit of technology exists to make human life easier and more pleasurable. But once such forces intrude upon the most intimate parts of our lives, will we then forfeit our very soul?"​

But I suppose that's really insulting to The Outer Limits, which I happen to enjoy. Can anyone tell me if Caprica gets any better? So far it's been really slow.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

I just finished nuBSG myself and was thinking about buying Caprica S1.

I have the Caprica miniseries, but I only watched it when it was on SyFy. It had a different feel for sure.

I too would like to know how good or bad the single season was.

 

[Alex1939]

The finale was good, worth going through the season. Had some interesting concepts but some dull acting and scenes in parts that brought the show down.

 

[DigificWriter]

If you can avoid criticizing it for not being the same, structurally, as BSG, Caprica is, IMO, a decent expansion of the nuBSG universe. It does start out slow and some things don't make much sense in the short-term, but the way things end is worth sticking around for.

One recommendation: watch the aired version of the pilot rather than the DVD version. It fixes some issues and discrepancies that exist in the DVD version as far as its links to BSG are concerned.

 

[Relayer1]

I thought it ranged from an interesting concept with dull execution to just plain poor.

It was also lazy - using recognisable (even iconic) European cars dragged me right out of the illusion.

 

[Ensign_Redshirt]

"Caprica" seemed to be a bit of a mess, which I attribute to the fact that this show managed to switch its showrunner three times during the course of only 18 episodes (Remi Aubuchon for the pilot, then Ronald D. Moore, then Jane Espenson, and then finally Kevin Murphy). Hence the lack of a coherent direction.

The show definitely ended on a high note though and Season 2 probably would have been a large improvement over Season 1. But the show as it exists now - or at least large parts of it - doesn't seem to know what it is and where it wants to go.

(Fun fact: Cast members Brian Markinson and Magda Apanowicz later re-united in "Continuum". Markinson in basically the same role he played on "Caprica" and Apanowicz as an at least somewhat similar character. :P )

 

[dub]

But the show as it exists now - or at least large parts of it - doesn't seem to know what it is and where it wants to go.

That's my biggest beef with it so far. Not that it's different, just that I don't understand what it's trying to be.

 

[Ensign_Redshirt]

But the show as it exists now - or at least large parts of it - doesn't seem to know what it is and where it wants to go.

That's my biggest beef with it so far. Not that it's different, just that I don't understand what it's trying to be.

Well, it gets better in the second half after Murphy took over.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Yeah, the second half of the season was much, much better. Things started coming together and the plot became much more coherent.

I would say the show owes a lot to Philip K. Dick and Blade Runner in particular.

 

[RoJoHen]

I could never get past the first 3 or 4 episodes. I fell asleep every time I tried.

 

[Professor Zoom]

I think it's a challenged series.

One, as it was originally conceived, it wasn't a spin off of BSG. It was just going to be about AI. It was it's own thing. Once it was decided it would be a prequel, all of this BSG stuff was put into it. The whole Adama stuff, cylon, etc. And I think mashing it didn't help. I think, honestly, if it had to be a spin off, I think a little less would've been better. The Adama family felt shoe horned in.

Two, tonally, I think it wanted to be a serious drama with sci fi trappings... but, I think the network wanted more action, etc.

It's an interesting failed show.

 

[bigdaddy]

I loved the pilot, hated the first several episodes and then went "This end scene fits perfect".

If they had an idea of what they wanted and made it a 22 part limited miniseries I think it would have been a lot better.

I see it as pretty pointless though if I misted 10ish episodes and the ending still feels fine to me.

 

[Marc]

(Fun fact: Cast members Brian Markinson and Magda Apanowicz later re-united in "Continuum". Markinson in basically the same role he played on "Caprica" and Apanowicz as an at least somewhat similar character. :P )

Markinson also got a return to the BSG universe in Blood & Chrome playing Commander Silas Nash (C.O of the Galactica during the Cylon war).

 

[MacLeod]

It's been a while since I watch Caprica but from what I remember it did have some interesting ideas but the execution was sorely lacking, it was a bit disjointed at times and didn't really start to come together until the back end of the season.

 

[Pauln6]

I really enjoyed it but it was painfully slow. Polly Walker is just fantastic.

 

[SPCTRE]

It was also lazy - using recognisable (even iconic) European cars dragged me right out of the illusion.

All this has happened before, and it will happen again - including, for some reason, car designs.

 

[Ensign_Redshirt]

It was also lazy - using recognisable (even iconic) European cars dragged me right out of the illusion.

All this has happened before, and it will happen again - including, for some reason, car designs.

150,000 years into the past, they also spoke present-day English and used present-day names like "Joseph" or "Daniel".

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Yeah, this is one of the things about nuBSG that bothered me: these people are just too much like us. Their civilization is a near-carbon copy of our own - they speak the same languages, have the same names, drive the same cars, even sing the same damn SONGS.

Heck, the fact that humans even exist at all on planets other than Earth is hard enough to swallow. At the very least, a civilization that existed 150,000 years in the past would be unrecognizable. I see it as an utterly improbable coincidence that we turned out so exactly like them.

And I have a hard time believing the explanation I once heard, that it's some kind of genetic "memory" inscribed into our DNA that caused us to copy them so closely...

Although here is a possible explanation for all this:

Spoiler: idea

It's an endless time loop. Meaning: Some time in our Earth's future, we'll establish a colony on another world, but (possibly unknown to them) our fleet will be swept back in time before it can set up the colony.

That colony will be Kobol.

So the reason these colonials are a copy of our civilization is because they're descended from us, not ancestors OF us.

 

[Agent Richard07]

I like the genetic memory/creative ether explanation quite a bit. It works for me and it's a flavor of scifi that I haven't seen before.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

And before anybody mentions Star Wars: I accept Alien Exodus as an explanation for that.