The first season of this complex, bizarre and ambitious show is back after a lengthy break. Will you be watching?
Caprica left our screens at the end of March 2010, entering the dreaded period known as hiatus, after only nine episodes. In the States when it returned to play out the remaining nine instalments of the first season after a piffling six-month break, it was tepidly greeted by around half the number of viewers who caught the opening pilot episode. News was already out that the show had been cancelled so there wasn't much motivation to stick with it. Better perhaps to wait for the DVD release, or just forget about it entirely as there were newer shows to be loyal to.
They even stopped the regular scheduling with five episodes to go, instead releasing them on DVD. As shoddy as that treatment was, at least they didn't have to wait over a year as we did. So why should anyone here care that it's back? Did anyone here care enough to rejoin it last night? Hello? Caprica fans, is there anyone there to watch the rest of this first season?
Caprica is a very dense show, stuffed with detail. As it was a prequel (or perhaps a side-quel) for Battlestar Galactica, many expected to be thrown into a world they already knew.
Instead Caprica took to worldbuilding with great gusto, filling each episode with obscure cultural and religious references that mixed, matched and expanded on elements from the real world. This was far more complex than Star Trek's Klingons = Russians or BSG's winning Space War on Terror shtick. There was plenty of odd behaviour that was justified, such as Joseph Adama's mother being totally fine about her grandson skipping school as he was now 13 and considered an adult in Tauron society. This was delivered in a way that drew no attention to itself ? you really had to lean towards the show to get the most out of it.
The show's central arc, about the virtual remnants of the dead Zoe Graystone achieving sentience in both a proto-Cylon battlebot shell and the larger VR world, was almost strangled by unrelated details, subplots and intrigue. The show came together in the couple of episodes before the break. It was tough waiting for events to progress, but when they did, with scenes of her having to pull her own (robotic) arm off or being set on fire by her dad to lure her presence out, it was worth the wait. But these great sequences were already playing to an empty house, like a robot falling down in the woods when no one is around; it didn't really matter whether it made a noise or not.
As well as looking good, the show has an impressive cast: Eric Stoltz, Polly Walker, Esai Morales, Paula Malcomson and the rest all do great work, selling the show's more outlandish concepts. But most of the characters have little, well, character. There isn't the time for them to be more than cyphers which has made it unengaging. There's also very little humour (shame as BSG triumphed in this area with the amazing performance from James Callis as Gaius Baltar, a role that was frequently hilarious in ways that didn't ever detract from the seriousness of the situation).
When we rejoined the show last night, most of the action took place on the Star Trekky "rocks, robes and religion" world of Gemenon, a place we've never before been (it's not just the casual viewer who is left floundering by Caprica). While it takes time to feed out what happened after Robo-Zoe's explosive escape attempt, Daniel's financial ruin and his wife's suicidal jump from a building (she seems to be fine, bit of a sore foot maybe and still quite cross at her husband, but physically fine). There was also that quite impressive fake start with the suicide bombers, it's not often such a thing is portrayed on TV so there was a lot of impact to it, even with the suspicion that it was all a holo-band dream. We also got to see the return to the screen of Meg Tilly as the Gemenon high priestess/chosen one (this is the show that lured her back to the screen after a 15-year self-imposed exile, again, we have to feel they are doing something right to attract such talent). Spike from Buffy was back with his junior terrorist cell but they didn't really do much last night.
While the airing of the episodes has had a break (to say the least) both halves of the season where filmed in a continuous run. This means what we saw last night wasn't the result of a mid-season panic to try and fix problems both real and imagined. Besides, it's hard to imagine even the stupidest TV executive saying "what this show needs is a lot of religious and political argument on a rocky planet we haven't seen before to help break up the action". By the end of the episode all the elements were back in place for things to progress and there was even time to slip in that quite bizarre virtual Zoe versus A Clockwork Orange's Droogs fight sequence. As long as they can keep chucking in little surprises like that, it'll be worth a watch.
I've seen a few more ahead and there is some really great TV coming up. In the last year I've watched FlashForward, V, The Event, Outcasts and other TV science fiction efforts and Caprica stands head and shoulders above them all. Will you be watching? Had you given up on the show long before the hiatus anyway? And with its own hiatus coming up soon, should Doctor Who be worried?
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2011/may/17/caprica-eric-stoltz
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