Caprica Pilot Grounds the Galactica Universe but Still Maintains Dark Themes
For those that are already going through withdrawal from the removal of Battlestar Galactica from their lives, the Sci-Fi Channel is offering fans the unique opportunity to pay $20.00 or more for the pleasure of watching something on DVD they could see for free next year: the pilot to Caprica, the prequel series to Galactica where the audience can experience the 58 years hence doomed human race plotting their own destruction retracing the steps of the creation of the Cylon race.
Actually, it was obvious in the first 5 minutes of Caprica that we won’t get to see this version as is on cable since it almost gleefully pulls out a multiple sets of floppy breasts and brutal acts of violence moments into the program. As a heterosexual adult male, I can tell you that this visual assault on my eyes offended me in ways I cannot describe with due justice: basically, not at all.
Caprica actually is fine drama, but in this early stage is not as instantly enthralling as Galactica. I do give it credit for giving us something that is substantially different from Galactica structurally and thematically. It still has a deliciously dark atmosphere, but it is quite slowly paced in this initial 90 minute introduction. The look is gray and muted and takes place in a world very reminiscent of our current society. The only real difference between the Caprica 58 years prior to the “The Fall” and Earth in 2009 is a highly advanced robotics industry along with some window dressings of a highly accelerated “virtual reality” industry which is the pivot point of the story.
There are a couple of things that rubbed me the wrong way about the direction of Caprica along with a couple of subversive themes that I absolutely loved. From the negative side, I am very apprehensive about the detailed representation of the direction of Cylon creation which is assaulting me in a way that makes me feel like it’s too much information. In other words, the base story of the creation of the Cylons seemed to work very well in the world of Galactica. The imminent dangers and fears we currently have about what is these days called “The Singularity” are in several ways polluted in the manner in which they are presented in Caprica.
Bill Adama’s stirring and preachy speech in the original Galactica mini-series was perhaps the most pro-Cylon attitude he had during the entire Galactica run even well into his acceptance of the Human-Cylon alliance. The coming anticipated “Singularity” as the current crop of alarmist writers and scientists call it, is a warning against taking lightly the possible unavoidable growth of artificial intelligence technology into seemless integration with biological life and the emergence of sentient life from sufficiently complex machines. Adama in the original mini-series places the Cylon revolt squarely on the arrogance of the human race from handling this transition carelessly.
In Caprica, the seeds are firmly planted that there is more to the creation of the Cylons than just the natural emergence of sentient intelligence from sufficiently complex machines, but the deliberate pushing of this envelope by a desperate person for his own personal emotional gain. In my eyes, this slightly cheapens the warnings that Bill Adama and the writers of Galactica had for us. It possibly says that “The Fall” isn’t an ever present warning about the carelessness of our own human arrogance, but there were misguided human motives at play in this process as well. In a sense, it confuses the oft-repeated theme of Galactica that “all this has happened before and all this will happen again” because in Caprica, there is an unstable variable: Daniel Greystone, portrayed in a wonderfully muted and underplayed dark performance by Eric Stoltz.
Let’s flip Caprica over to see what’s on the cooler side of the pillow. The first and most intriguing theme in Caprica is the immediate exploration of the monotheistic vs polytheistic religious views of Caprican society. Despite showing us a very familiar modern culture in Caprica, from very early in the Galactica saga we have a society who’s religious views are a 180 degrees from the path they have taken in the real world. The dominant religious sentiment of those with faith are rooted in a multi-deity belief system.
There’s nothing stunning or astounding about this portrayal of a different society than our own. The subversive element added into Caprica is not only that mono-theistic belief is a minority view, but many of the mono-theists are considered religious “extremists” and the narrative hook of the tale that is told in Caprica is an act of terrorism pulled off by a teenage monotheist bombing a train full of bystanders in the name of the “one true God.” This little turn of viewpoints on the audience is welcome and forcibly thought provoking with no apologies to allusions of September 11th. It’s a much needed slap in the face to make the statement that perhaps the problem we should be looking at in terms of religious extremism has nothing to do with Christian vs. Muslim vs. Jew vs [instert religion of the week here] but simply religious ferver in any form that we should beware of.
From this perspective I got a much needed feeling that Caprica was a slap in the face to the series finale of Galactica which could be seen as advocating a religious monotheistic spiritual resolution as a positive theme. This is a welcome change of attitude in Caprica from the Galactica finale. At the very least it can be viewed as reinforcement of the theme that road to destruction perhaps is not paved with technology but with dogma.
Daniel Greystone’s high school aged daughter Zoe, played by Alessandra Toreson is secretly a monotheist and has stumbled upon a rather alarming but intriguing technological discovery. The “World of Warcraft” style addiction in the world of Caprica are the frequenting of “virtual reality” night clubs that the kids plug into together. Rather than just being present for these rather depraved virtual places, Zoe has created a virtual copy of herself in these virtual environments and found that this technological copy of her personality and memories seems to have taken on a self awareness.
Before the full implications of the extent of this virtual copy of herself can be adequately explored, Zoe is tragically killed leaving her father to inadvertently stumble into this virtual secret life of his daughter inside the cyber environment, fully aware that she is simply a technological construct, but identical in every other way to his daughter. Greystone sees this as a method to desperately reunite himself with his daughter.
During the course of this story, we are also introduced to Joseph Adama, played by Esai Morales, the same attorney Adama invoked multiple times in Galactica by Romo Lampkin and Lee Adama during the defense of Baltar in season 3. Along for the ride is an extremely young grade-school aged William Adama, who seems almost thrown into the mix as a bone for Galactica fans, but with very little pertinent impact on the story.
The world of Caprica is a bleak view. With proper care and treatment, there could be something there. There are a couple of moments in the pilot that are psychologically chilling. The most effective moment for me was the “technological” resurrection of a dead character in this “virtual” form that unlike Zoe Greystone’s electronic copy doesn’t understand the nature of their non-tangible existence and is driven mad. The final moments of the pilot are equal parts of discomfort, fright and awkwardness left completely unresolved screaming at the purchaser of the DVD that THIS IS A PILOT FOR A SERIES. Yes, there is no resolution as it is left on a cliffhanger.
I believe that there is a substantial part of the fanbase that is probably going to lose Caprica in the first season because it is by no means an extension of Battlestar Galactica. I applaud the direction of the pilot in being a stark contrast to the space-based Battlestar series. There are seeds of potential greatness within the pilot, but that’s not without the warning that it is a very low-key and slow-paced story that never fully successfully makes its grab for the audience. At least that’s my viewpoint.
There’s no question that I’m going to give Caprica a free ride for the first season next year and I’m looking forward to seeing how point A, the end of the pilot, translates to getting to points B and C ending at what we now call “The Fall.” All the pieces are there, but I’m interested to see how it ends up making sense within the groundwork laid in Caprica.
Hardcore Galactica fans probably already own their copy of Caprica. If you don’t yet, I would probably recommend this as a rental rather than a purchase. This is mainly because it’s a foregone conclusion that it will be part of a the season one box set making up for the fact that there was no Blu-ray release this week. Caprica is not going to be a shoe-in favorite of Galactica fans, but it’s probably a positive development in the sense that it certainly doesn’t seem to be a retread of the ground that Battlestar so brilliantly covered over the last several years. However, it still is a cut above your run-of-the-mill hourlong TV drama these days.
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One Response to “Caprica Pilot Grounds the Galactica Universe but Still Maintains Dark Themes”
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April 24th, 2009 at 9:23 am
I’m defintely going to have to pick this up though I have to admit I should probably hand in my “fan card” because I didn’t even realize it was available. One thing I really want to know is how the Cylons (robot forms) came to be. The robot forms are just so intimidating that it’s hard to think they all looked like that unless those are just “military spec” ones.