Now, for those anti-SciFi, i will acknowledge this doesn't outweigh the Science Fiction aspects to some degree, but I stand by my claim; if you give good Sci-Fi a chance it's actually quite a fun ride. Part of what makes two of my favorites what they are is exactly that- "Firefly" and "Battlestar" are about a pile of people struggling with the cards life's dealt them. Being in space, stuck on a ship while they try and relate to each other or get through the personal drama between them, well that feels like an afterthought most of the time.
And 'Caprica' is a prime example of this. Most of the reviews I've come across have had fair opinions on the matter; and mostly, the dissonance comes from the same point. Those who pan it don't like it because it doesn't fit their model of "science fiction" because there's no laser fights, there's no spaceships, there's no grand epic battles, there's no clear heroes. Those who like the show enjoy it for the EXACT SAME REASON. Caprica is about power struggles. It's about a man who lost his family, seeking revenge or some form of justice. About a businessman coping with tragedy and trying to use all the resources in his vast knowledge and wealth to gain back what he lost. About a child who has been reborn, and sees the world with a new set of eyes. About a daughter, trapped between worlds, trying to find her way.
I'm writing this after watching last week's episode because it finally hit upon one character I was dying to see more of. But we'll get to that. First, a quick summation of the story so far:
Caprica is the pinnacle of civilization, a New York / America of sorts, in a world where the Twelve Planets rule- one for each sign of the zodiac. Those who haven't been in BSG's world, it's like the 12 Signs represent a different ethnicity, each having its own quirks and traditions. A central part of this is that the world is polytheistic, and the idea of a sole god or sole power who created all is the outcast, the heretic. This leads to the terrorist-like group known as the Soldiers of the One, who firmly believe that the moral-but-loose ways of the gods is not only wrong, but will be the downfall of society.
The jumping point of the pilot is that these soldiers have struck a blow to Caprica's bustling world by bombing a subway train in broad daylight, killing thousands. The plot focuses on two families in the wake of this tragedy, the Adams and the Greystones.
the Adams are the more familiar of the two, to returning fans; We learn early on that Adams is an immigrant-adjusted Adama, much like Ellis island used to do, in order to begin life anew. (the Adama family is a key player in Battlestar Galactica, and to see old man Adama as a thirteen year old boy gives us our tie to the future.) Joseph Adams is a high-placed lawyer who comes from essentially the latin mafia, or Taurons in Caprica-verse. He's broken the mold and rarely connects with his brother, a hitman for the Taurons, trying to lead a clean life and make a name for himself. As the bombing took his wife and daughter, leaving him to raise Billy Adams without any way of knowing how. And as the emotional turbulence from this settles, he finds himself drawn back into that darker side of his past, and slipping into a path of revenge trying to find vengeance for his tragedy.
Daniel Graystone has had it all; he's a genius inventor, the Steve Jobs of his time. He's a technological genius, and his response to the bombing is to use the holoband, a virtual reality he created, to try and re-create his daughter, who died in the tragedy. The holoband has, like all technologies, become perverted with widespread popularity- teens and young adults have managed to create a section of the Virtual World that is full of sex, drugs, death, you name it the taboo is there. There are no consequences because dying in the virtual world simply deactivates your headset, leaving you back in reality, and yet the obvious pull is there. At this point in the series, Daniel has sacrificed much of his public credibility in order to try and make advances, save his daughter, and find a solution to the part of him that's empty inside now.
Zoe, his daughter, has come back to life thanks to Daniel's efforts- but he's not aware of how alive she is. He reconstructed her basic self digitally, but because she was something of a tech genius herself, a part of her brain she'd locked away in the Holoband gave that spark Daniel recreated a REAL part of Zoe. I see this as an aspect of the show questioning the existence/purpose of a soul in manmade technology.
the Soldiers of the One, that 'terror' group promoting the heretical One God, is an enigma still but has continued to develop as the show goes on.
but one of the more interesting recent developments of the show has been Tamara Adams; We saw her briefly after she died, when Joseph Adams came to Greystone and asked if he could bring his daugther back, too; But after Joe got to see Tamara, she seemed to disappear in that moment, because Greystone had no "active" part of her like Zoe had left behind. And yet, Tamara has continued to exist in some way (I'd explain but as it is I've gotten too long-winded so I won't bore you further. just watch!) on the Holoband, and now we see that because she has no body to transfer into, she's apparently immortalized in the virtual world. The spirit of a teenage girl discovering there's less pure about the holoband than she'd thought makes this particular character arc really enjoyable, and this week finally satiated me a little bit by returning to Tamara's quest to find a way home (not knowing she'd died because she was created from pre-Tragedy snippets of herself existing online).
I know this has been wordy, but that aside, I really recommend you give the show a try. It's a great focus on character drama, and the acting while not perfect is certainly moving as the Esai Morales and Eric Stoltz give solid performances as two fathers trying to come to grips with the tragedies they face.
~P
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