Open thread in memory of "Caprica"

Last night, I watched five straight hours of Caprica—the last five hours of Caprica, in fact. This show started off as a weak soap opera about Cylons as whiny teenage girls. It ended as one of the better political thrillers on television. Sadly, somewhere in the middle of that transition, Caprica got canceled. I figured I'd leave an open thread here today for BoingBoing's Caprica/Battlestar fan base to chat about how the show ended and the plot threads that didn't quite get tied up*—and to speculate a bit about how you think Point A (i.e. the end of Caprica) connects to Point B (Battlestar Galactica). Fanwank away, my friends. I'm right there with you.

If you didn't watch the marathon last night, then there will probably be lots of spoilers in the comments. But I'll start off with some non-spoilery thoughts. Here's the thing: I'm not sure I've seen a TV show where the characters grew and developed as much, over the course of one season, as what happened with Caprica. The writers took a risk (a bad risk, as it turned out) by starting the show with some distinctly unlikeable central players. But the things that made Zoe, the Graystones, and Lacy Rand unlikeable at the start ended up being important to the layers those characters took on over the course of the show. I think the key problem is that the writers drew themselves into a corner where, in order to tell this story, they had to start it at a point that wasn't particularly appealing to the audience. At least, that's my take. What do you think?

And, "Maggie, that show sucked, let it go, no one cares," is a perfectly acceptable answer.

The photo above is all over the Internet. I'm not sure who originally took it. If you know, drop me a line and I'll add credit. UPDATE: Kropserkel.com are the makers of this costume. They say, "This photo is from the set of a SPACE commercial spoof by creative director Gord McWatters, heralding the return of the classic show to broadcast television for the fall of 2005, starring Scott Maple as the Cylon." You can see the commercial on their site.

*Like Tamara. Seriously, Zoe (and the show) just left her wandering alone around that castle for all eternity. Harsh.

Maggie Koerth-Baker is the science editor at BoingBoing.net. She writes a monthly column for The New York Times Magazine and is the author of Before the Lights Go Out, a book about electricity, infrastructure, and the future of energy. You can find Maggie on Twitter and Facebook.

Maggie goes places and talks to people. Find out where she'll be speaking next.

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bcsizemo

I’ll agree with CG.

I never really got into BSG. The few times I saw it I realized there was a lot of story, lots of relationships, and plotting, ect.. all going on. So seeing a few episodes here and there didn’t really pull me in.

But I am a huge Farscape fan…so I can relate to having your favorite show of all time shat on by SciFi (as it was called during that time, and I refuse to call it Syfy *shudder*).
Anonymous

I genuinely do not understand how this series was well-received. I loved BSG, I was excited for Caprica, and I tried really, really hard to like it. Maybe itâ€™s because I stopped watching three episodes after the mid-series finale when it became apparent there was no hope for improvement, and the last few episodes were mindbogglingly wonderfulâ€”but I doubt it.

The story was always slow, plodding, and floated between being wildly predictable and just plain absurd. I canâ€™t tell you how many times I managed to figure out what was going to happen in the episode after the first 5 minutesâ€”but of course, rather than have these things happen quickly, we were treated to 37 minutes of filler in the form of vapid, uninspired navel-gazing from one-dimensional, unimaginative characters. In 12 episodes, the only unexpected thing I can remember happening was Vergisâ€™s suicide. In TWELVE EPISODES, they couldnâ€™t come up with more than one twist without an entire episode of lead-up that beat you over the head.

The CG sequences were invariably wretched-looking. One of the reasons that BSG worked so well was because the CG was applied sparingly. Here, CG was constantly being smashed in the viewerâ€™s face, and the result was painful.

The cinematography was amateurish full of the same small bag of tricks repeated over and over and over again. (Hey, letâ€™s pan so that an object in the room obscures our view of Zoe, and then when she reappears sheâ€™ll be a CG robot! And then letâ€™s do it over and over again just in case the viewer forgets itâ€™s a human in a robot! Brilliant!)

These next bits are entirely nitpicking, butâ€¦ they used no fewer than four different unrelated typesets for titling at various points in the show for no reason, and they used CMOS cameras in moving car scenes and ended up with terrible rolling shutter wobble. For a highly anticipated, high-budget (relatively speaking) cable television series, these sorts of amateurish mistakes are sort of representative of the lack of attention to detail that plagued basically everything about Caprica.

TL;DR, bad pacing, vapid dialogue, garish CG, and poor production combined to make a series that should have succeeded but couldnâ€™t. There is so much opportunity in the BSG universe and they squandered it all on some whiny teenagers and their grieving parents. Maggie, that show sucked, let it go, some people care but weâ€™re almost certainly better off this way.
IronEdithKidd

I would have liked to see this series continue. I really wanted to know the BSG back story. Heck, I’d like to see a series featuring the skin-jobs from BSG on their pre-nuke home world. How about a better version (look up BSG 1980) of Cylons retuning to Earth after millions of years to kill us all.

It’s unfortunate that the network would rather air countless hours of faked ghost shows, cheezy (not in a good way) “original” movies and professional wrestling instead of compelling drama.

Much like The Nashville Network’s eventual morph to Spike before it, I see science fiction completely disapearing from Siffy’s lineup. Perhaps a GAC will come along to fill the void.
Anonymous

No, it didn’t suck. I am sad. I loved that show!
Hagrid

Maggie, that show sucked, let it go, no one cares.
efergus3

“The show sank, get over it.” Nice picture, tho’.
Anonymous

Maggie – very glad you posted this. I (unlike a lot of other people, I gather) enjoyed the show from Episode One. I was also a huge BSG fan. I appreciated how different the show was and that it revolved around these difficult, compromised, female characters. It felt daring and unusual and I sensed that like BSG it was going to build towards the evolution of the Cylon and the underpinnings of the Cylon religion. I was really disappointed when it was canceled. It’s a betrayal of the BSG creators to yank the final shows, as they did — to not just let the season play out. For all the success of BSG SyFy couldn’t just finish Caprica season? And to air it now (though glad they did) feels pretty cheap. So, again, thanks for calling attention to the show. I thought the finale was lands better than the BSG finale and feel the show got a raw deal.
cjeam

Does anyone know if Region 2 DVDs are available? Because I think I would like to watch it. And subsequently move on to BSG.
FLIMgeeks

This has happened before. Ended up sitting nicely in the BSG continuity: ie how the centurions discovered their religious fanatacism, and the degradation of Caprica by its own hubris. Beautifully done and will be sorely missed.

So Caprica joins the rest of my favourite TV shows, now officially earning the moniker of ‘TV too good for TV’. From Twin Peaks to Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles, from The Prisoner to Carnivale â€” Iâ€™m left with the most excruciatingly wonderful unanswered questions about future plot points and ultimate character developments.

Frak it. I’m watching BSG again.
lasttide

I didn’t watch Caprica based on initial “whiny teenage girl”-based reviews. I find this to be a bad trend in current media, best exemplified by the absolute failure of “Heroes” which I blame on the decision to make Claire the central character. Basically, I don’t understand why TV writers think any viewers want to watch an upper-middle class attractive blonde constantly whine about how her immortality is interfering in her boring life.

No teenager wants to “just be normal,” as pop culture seems to suggest endlessly. In fact, they want to be super awesome and escape from their boring lives. This is why I believe Harry Potter is so successful. There is never a scene when Harry is on the verge of tears, saying “I never chose to be a wizard, I just wanted a normal life of tedious classes, failed romances and too much TV.” Instead, he goes “I’m a wizard? AWESOME! Quick, teach me how to fly/levitate objects/make potions/fight evil!”

Luke Skywalker never complains about being a Jedi, because the abilities of clairvoyance, telekinesis and super-reflexes are really cool, not burdensome. Ender Wiggin doesn’t complain about being a super-genius, he embraces it and uses it to become a badass.

Take note all you screenwriters. Superpowers or whatever other thing that elevates select humans should be viewed as wondrous. This is the key to media win.
- James
  
  Maggie, that show was awesome, don’t let it go, and it’s wonderful to see that you care.
  
  And lasttide, great points. Once they have those powers, however, realizing/counting the costs of those gifts (e.g., Twilight) s where much of the drama happens — until they decide it is worth it and they should do their best.
  
  But, as you suggest, when they drag out the “oh what will I do with my superpowers bringing me down” too long (e.g., Spiderman movies) things get really draggy.
- Anonymous
  
  Love you for the Ender reference.
herbdool

Maybe this will help with the photo credit: the Bloor Meat Market is in Toronto – Bloor West and Runnymede. The iconic Toronto “post and ring” bike parking across the street is also a clue.
Anonymous

Shows such as Caprica and Dollhouse(@EeyoreX) need to follow the X-File method of drawing in and keeping viewers. Start the show with interesting one hour scenarios that don’t have to be followed from week to week to keep current. Once you’ve developed a decent viewer base then you start your show’s story arc.
DeepNorth

I know where the photo is from, but not who took it:

http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=bloor+meat+market&sll=43.704055,-79.394497&sspn=0.012162,0.016158&ie=UTF8&hq=bloor+meat+market&hnear=&ll=43.650615,-79.478737&spn=0.024345,0.032315&z=15&layer=c&cbll=43.650576,-79.478911&panoid=c6Vyhnnx6q9UqVArq5cyuA&cbp=12,158.12,,0,13.37
Loosey

Maggie, that show rocked, hold on to your memories, because SyFy doesn’t care :(
AbleBakerCharlie

Thus far I’ve read that Caprica either was wholly unnecessary because we knew where it all was going (ala the Star Wars prequels) or failed to adequately explain how the hordes of loyal robot servants ended up making two genocidal passes at the Colonies. Both, I think, miss the point of why it was so frakking spectacular.

The whole notion of having robotic opponents in the old ’70′s BSG was quite explicitly because no one would care if they got shot. We’ve seen wave after wave of stock movie villains come and go as they are humanized, or fade into history, but robots can always be counted on to remain safely on the side of cannon fodder- no more worthy or capable of compassion that, well, your toaster. BSG reboot, amongst a thousand brilliant things it did, tore that apart- if those robots are really beings, then there is no reason they would not be capable of both excesses and keenly felt loss, and thus, many conundrums are born.

Caprica’s job wasn’t necessarily to lay a trail of breadcrumbs from flipping the switch on Cylon #1 to dropping the nukes, a job at which it either was redundant or insufficient, apparently. The role of the show was to explain how it is that these synthetic beings feel so much so deeply, and are torn in so many directions, and they laid so many seeds in those veins that establishing which ones germinated seems of secondary importance (much as I would have liked to see it in later seasons, of course.)

All we need to know is that, one way or another, from digital Zoe or digital Tamara, all the Cylons inherited a kernel laden with all the contradictions of two very young, very smart, very wounded, grasping, seeking children, and that makes the entirety of the Cylon arc snap into focus beautifully. Zoe’s youthful, hopefully religious zeal shows up in our dear Sixes, her analytical powers in the pragmatism of the Cavils, her questioning in the Threes, and her conviction that she is a better creature in a sinning world she has the power to wipe clean, seen in her immortality-fueled scouring of New Cap City, is played out again in the coming conviction-laden apocalypse. She doubts the good intentions of her human parents- much as we see the Cylons do again and again, determined to wipe out the ragtag fleet lest they seek revenge- and answers one sin- her father lighting her on fire- with another- renouncing him and stabbing him in the chest, attempting to forever separate them, and then is driven to go home, reunite, and forgive just the same- sound familiar? This gentle young soul finds herself buried in violence, killing Philomon, in league with gangsters and terrorists- anyone else see our poor, naive Boomer, shooting the old man in the chest, brewing in there? The craving for flesh and all that it entails that we see in the love for Helo, and her satisfaction with the powers of the artificial, evidenced in the creation of the avatars themselves- it’s all there, in each and every Cylon brain.

It was that reframing that made Caprica terrific as it found its feet- the notion that all of the murk in the war between man and Cylon was really, truly, the confusion of battle within a family- Zoe and Daniel and Amanda, of course, but the family of man and the minds it birthed. The bouncing, skittering, flickering interactions of attraction by love, of repulsion by way of resentment for wrongs too old to redress and themselves inspired by misformed love, all winding around again and again and again- isn’t that a vastly more satisfying, and beautiful, and hurtful, way to set our killer robots in motion than “Skynet woke up?”
- Loosey
  
  @AbleBakerCharlie, your first post was outstandingly well written and well thought out. I thought maybe I was thinking too much about Caprica until that post. Thank you!
gecko85

A couple points:

#1: There is no inconsistency regarding Graystone creating a skinjob.

According to the BSG wiki: “The new humanoid Cylons were created by the five survivors of an earlier generation of humanoid Cylons from Earth in exchange for the Centurions ending the Cylon War. These five early generation Cylons (now known as the “Final Five”) are the descendants of Cylons created by humans on Kobol thousands of years ago. These humanoid Cylons were the Thirteenth Tribe that left Kobol and settled Earth.”

So, the Final Five were early skinjobs descended from the earliest Cylons created by humans (Daniel Graystone). The Final Five gave the technology/knowhow to the Centurions to end the Cylon War. They didn’t *invent* skinjobs, they perfected them and gave away the technology.

#2: Why did the Cylons attack humanity? Seems pretty obvious to me: it was a religious war. Cylons were monotheists and hated their slave-driving polytheist owners/creators. Their DNA contains plenty of STO thinking.
- Loosey
  
  @gecko85, As you quote, the Final Five “are the descendants of Cylons created by humans on Kobol thousands of years ago.” The earliest Cylons were created by humans on Kobol – definitely *not* Daniel Graystone on the planet Caprica. The Final Five were created on Earth (the one that was a radioactive waste hole in BSG). At the time of Caprica, they are in a slower-than-light ship crossing thousands of light years of space.
  
  And as far as the causes of the first Cylon war in the Colonies, I think “a religious war” is a little too simplistic. What Caprica (the show) showed us is that religious wars (or religious terrorism) take place in a broader context of individual power politics (Clarice/Blessed Mother/and the STO leader that Clarice killed) and wide geopolitical and cultural differences (Caprican business ethic vs. Tauron tradition/honor vs. Geminon religiosity). Caprica the show didn’t get a chance to show us how the culture of the other colonies played into it. The poverty of Aerilon and other colonies would have added an interesting additional conflict.
EeyoreX

“in order to tell this story, they had to start it at a point that wasn’t particularly appealing to the audience.”

Sounds exactly like the problem Joss Wheadon’s Dollhouse had. Lots of people switched on one of the earlier episodes, thought it was all about glorifying prostitution, and never returned to watch the end.

I think maybe longer story arches just arn’t really ever fit for syndicated television? If you want to tell that kind of story in a serial format you either have to draw wiewers in with various appealing sub-plots while planting the arch, or make it a “mini-series” from the start so that people know you’re going somewhere with it.
FLIMgeeks

re: The photo
“This photo is from the set of a SPACE commercial spoof by creative director Gord McWatters, heralding the return of the classic show to broadcast television for the fall of 2005, starring Scott Maple as the Cylon.”
http://kropserkel.com/cylon.htm
Prufrock451

Well, not exactly eternity, Maggie, since we know that Caprica’s computing grid has a well-defined end date… I watched the first half of Caprica but could not make myself care enough to watch the end, despite soldiering all the way through Galactica’s final shaggy-dog season.

The problem with the show is that all the big questions are answered. What happens to Joe Adama? He becomes a famous civil-rights lawyer. What happens to Bill Adama? He becomes Bill Adama. What happens to the Cylons, to Caprica, to humanity? We know, we know, WE KNOW.

So from the beginning, this show’s mainspring was already pretty loosely wound. With most of the space-opera elements deflated by the rigidly defined future, the writers by necessity had to focus this show around compelling, nuanced characters portrayed by skilled actors. And they definitely got skilled actors.

But I feel like the writers never succeeded in giving them what they needed. The show is grim and joyless, choking in cigarette smoke and ennui. We already know this society is doomed to war and annihilation. Maybe I’d care more if it seemed like a single person was enjoying their pre-nuked status.

The writing is ponderous, self-important navel-gazing. But where I finally gave up was the scene where Daniel Graystone lays out the dark secrets of his entire board of directors to regain control of his company. I’ve met corporate directors. I know “what comes out at corporate retreats.” These are careful, boring people. They’re accountants. If they have dark secrets, do you know who they confess to? Sure as shit not their boss, that’s who. The scene boiled down my big problem with Caprica; in order to write powerful, emotional, fiercely intelligent characters you must be more powerful, more emotional, and more fiercely intelligent.
- Anonymous
  
  We know, we know, WE KNOW.
  
  Well put and it it’s not just Caprica. That’s the problem with most prequels. It’s hard to care too much when you know how it’s all going to end up.
Kickstart

I started watching it and began to really love it.

Then they took the horrid, extensive, mis-season break (on Space Channel in Canada). You just can’t do that in a plot this complex and interesting. I couldn’t get back into it at all. If they hadn’t done that, maybe viewership would have stayed up and the show would have succeeded.
Anonymous

Caprica was every flavor of awesome! They should do a sequel series now, about a cylon uprising and a rag-tag fugitive fleet of humans trying to survive and search for Earth!

oh, wait….
Anonymous

I loved the show. Ron Moore drew a heck of a back story for the events of BSG. It’s just a real shame that he wasn’t able to finish the telling of it.
chaircrusher

The cancellation of Caprica had nothing to do with the show itself. It had everything to do with changes in management at SyFy. The first thing that happens when an executive leaves is that his or her replacement cancels any shows championed by his or her predecessor. They want to put on their own projects, because it’s how they justify their salary — putting on new shows.

Plus, TV executives HATE serial shows, because casual viewers rarely stick with a show they surf into randomly if backstory is needed to understand it. Even if a show is fucking awful (Ghost Hunters?) if it doesn’t require context and is just good enough to keep a modicum of eyeballs — and ESPECIALLY if it’s cheap to make — it will have more staying power than a quality series.

So if you wonder why Sy Fy in particular and Network Television in general is so shitty, it’s because it isn’t made for viewers. It’s made for executives who probably wouldn’t watch the channel themselves on a dare. They’re out to enhance shareholder value and preserve their jobs, not make great television.
Anonymous

First off, I loved the series! The writers/producers tried something a little different in developing a new show, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. Unfortunately what I think happened, my two cents worth, too many plot lines in developing the characters. Did we really need to see the plot of Joseph talking to the defense minister and then see Sam murder him in his bed to know that they were involved in a crime family and Sam was a hitman? Interesting but not necessary for the show and just slowed it down to a crawl. I don’t think we needed to know Amandas past with her brother to know that she was unstable or to develope a whole plot line with barnabus to know that the STO was a terrorist organization with it’s own political back stabbing. Again, just my two cents, but all in all, a great prequel with a great ending, they did a pretty good job of wrapping it up with a few twists and turns and a skin job no one knew about.
Anonymous

I’m with ya; I loved that show, toasters (or warts)
and all. Sure, maybe it was a case of transference
of my love for BSG but the essence of Caprica, that
it represents the story and character origins of BSG
before we first ‘met’ them was spectacular!
I watched every episode of Caprica, and I know it
was stumbling and bumbling in places; people AND
projects learn to crawl and take halting steps before
walking, right?
Open thread, great idea! Really enjoy the opportunity
to talk about something gone, but not forgotten!
lecti

Considering how suckily BSG ended, I don’t know why Caprica deserved to start in the first place. Yes, I’m that angry about the series.
Anonymous

Hasn’t Tarantino taught us, at least as it pertains to TV and film, that discontinuous narrative is the easiest technique to use to make the potentially boring zesty.

Can you imagine, if you will, Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction or Kill Bill 1&2 told in linear fashion. I think the outcome is that there’d have been a film no one but a few folks remember called “Reservoir Something” and a quirky former music/video director and former video store clerk bumming around Hollywood who never quite made it. And Travolta would have been flying for United.
virtual human

Shoot! I missed the news that it was canceled and the episodes last night?! I thought it was a great show. :( Here’s hoping Charter puts them up on demand…
Anonymous

I prefer to pronounce SyFy as “s-iffy”, with an emphasis on the “iffy” part… :)
Daemon

I’ll stick with the original series, thanks. I don’t like soap opera in my space opera.
taj

(Not reading, not reading. I had NO idea the second half had come out. Off now, to find it. Blinders on to avoid spoilers!)

PS: Love that photo!
Baldhead

i gave up on it while still in the weak soap opera phase I suppose. Could not even finish the first series.
January

Has everyone forgotten that in BSG the Final Five negotiated the end of the Cylon war by giving resurrection and skinjob technology to the centurions? Now we’re supposed to think it all happened in Daniel Graystone’s lab decades earlier?

Also, there was a seventh Cylon skinjob model named… Daniel.
- Loosey
  
  I forgot about the seventh skinjob: Daniel. But Ellen said Daniel was a sensitive artist I believe. But still, an interesting connection.
MasterCKO

The last season of BSG was terrible (Prufrock and anansi above me nailed it on why) and basically ruined the franchise for me. What was a huge epic awesome flight for survival with some juicy moral and epistemological dilemmas turned into an over-laborious religion v. science allegory that I ended up hating.

When I first heard about Caprica, I thought it would be good, but after I actually saw the end of BSG, I lost a lot of my faith. In order to be interesting, Caprica would need to be fantastically character-driven. In my head, there was no way that the people who produced that terrible final season of BSG would be able to pull that off very well. The first two eps confirmed my fears and I stopped watching after that.

I’m sorry that you lost a show that you liked, but I’m kinda glad to see it go. Hopefully the creative team can reset their thinking process and get a new grasp on what makes viewers want to tune into gripping character drama.
Loosey

What a great show! But soooo many plot holes:
Yes, what about Tamara?
What about Sam’s husband – when the Gautrau put out the hit Sam was just going to run away without his husband??
Where did they get Billy Adam II?
Daniel & Amanda came up with skin jobs??? No, the Final Five created the first skin jobs – that’s how they got the Centurions to end the first Cylon War.
The Cylons in the arena needed to communicate through hand signals?? Really??
Why is Clarice preaching to Cylons and not rotting in jail?
If Clarice isn’t in jail, how are the Cylons able to come to church? Presumably their owners aren’t going to give them days off?
How did Zoe get into the damaged U87 to save her ‘rents?
And these are just the ones off the top of my head.
But I can’t help myself, I loved the show.
- Anonymous
  
  If you were paying very close attention you would see that those last four minutes were previews of the cancelled coming season. Yes, it said so right before the closing credits. I assume that explains the “plot holes” you –and a lot of other commenters– are talking about.
- Anonymous
  
  The church is in v world. We saw the v-world transition effect right as we entered the church. It’s brilliant- the Cylons’ owners probably don’t even know that their robotic slaves are going to church in their heads!
- alisong76
  
  What about Sam’s husband – when the Gautrau put out the hit Sam was just going to run away without his husband??
  
  No – listen to the dialogue. There was a line about Larry meeting them at the airport.
  - Loosey
    
    @alisong76, thanks for pointing that out – I didn’t hear that. I would have liked to learn more about that relationship & have Larry been a bigger character.
Philipshade

I don’t know that the writers took much of a risk making all the characters unlikeable, I think it was a flat out stupid choice that helped kill the show off.

You need a character to hang on to. If so why bother watching? Just in hopes that their will EVENTUALLY be someone interesting?

SyFy seemed to run with this idea. SG:UY had a pretty hate-able cast, but as least people could identify with Eli.
anansi133

The creative talent for BSG had an opportunity to say something about the human condition and our relationship with machinery, and they wasted it: Why did the Cylons attack humanity? We never really find that out. Instead, we are strung on with a long, whiny rant about how corrupt humanity had become, and so we had it coming to us.

It was like Y2K and the millennium bug all over again.

Caprica was flawed in the same way that the last two seasons of BSG were flawed: there was no way the humans would be able to understand or avoid their destiny. The unwritten, unbreakable rule of the franchise was that the robots could not be defeated. The best outcome the humans can hope for is a stalemate.

To which I say, “really? is that all you’ve got?” If I’m going to give a storyteller my attention, it’s got to have something to do with my real life. The first two seasons of Galactica did that, and I’m grateful for that. But the rest of it was all nihilist melodrama, and I’m glad that’s finally over with.

Somebody should mash up Flight of the Conchords’ _The Humans are Dead_ with scenes from this series. It’s a better explanation than anything else we got to see.
- Anonymous
  
  The animated matrix films had the best explanation of why robots and humans start fighting: economics, competition for resources. I think humans uploading themselves to virtual existences will create inevitable conflict. Those living carbon based lives will never consider virtual people to be real or deserving of the first crack at scarce resources and virtual people will never be able to accept second class status. both sides will attempt to use their natural advantages against the other and only time will tell which will emerge victorious. likely neither side will and some third way will eventually be settled upon by the survivors of the conflict.
Anonymous

Maggie, here’s my bid for a No-Prize:

First off I enjoyed the show… I saw early pacing issues with things moving slowly…then all of sudden we get a Cliff Notes version of what could have been 2-3 seasons worth of plot in 5 episodes with no notice. Caprica started with the presumption that they would have support and have time to tell it’s multithreaded storyline, then when it became clear the ax was coming, R&D basically managed to give us a condensed version of the entire story… which sadly is just a taste of things to come, or could have been.

for the “not enough action/splosions” set… we were treated to an opening of a Ship to Ship boarding party… and later on in “Apotheosis” we get a platoon of Cylons doing an airborne insertion into a stadium and fighting suicide bombers(complete with OG Cylon insignia on the aircraft).
Kick Ass was always a potential with Caprica… some folks just weren’t patient enough.

Regarding what may at first appear to be plot holes… the answers are for the most part explainable, if not stated outright through exposition (god forbid people have to use their brains).

William/Willie vs William/ Bill Adama: A big complaint of BSG Fans over Caprica was “That’s NOTHING like the Adama Olmos portrayed”… well yeah, cuz turns out… that Willie was Bills older half brother. Bill is clearly the child of Joseph and Evelyn named for his older brother. The implication being that they would have married, reference the model ship building/failed bonding experience between Evelyn and Willie (nice nod to Adama and Starbuck in BSG…one assumes Evelyn would later have done the same thing with Bill…nice detail for us nerds).
It does beg the question as to why they bothered? But its not a plot hole.

As to the Skin Job controversy, here’s the deal, the Graystones made the first model for Avatar Zoe (as opposed to Dead Zoe, or Angel Zoe… who seems to have vanished once the the Avatar Zoe and Avatar Tamarra teamed up in NewCap City for some reason).
This proto-type skin job (if you will) was entirely mechanical with some form of artificial skin on, and there is no reason to believe they made more than one.
In Razor, Bill Adama stumbles upon the Cylon’s laboratory, where they were trying without much success to replicate the process and to improve upon it by making it less machine, more flesh…with horrific results.
The “Five” arrive and as part of the deal they cut with the Cylons they fix and perfect the bio-mechanical designs, and thus
creating a true cybernetic-ally mixed form of life.
Human enough to allow for for Helo and Athena to conceive Hera.
Cuz, enough assuming the Graystone’s went so far as to craft fully functional genitalia for the robot copy of their artificially sentient god child avatar of their dead daughter (and frankly… ewww), there is no WAY it could have resulted in a live birth being as it was all machine.

so… do I get my No Prize?

anyways… I liked the concepts in the show… and I wish it had been handled better on all sides, but am happy that I at least got a condensed version of the story.
Here’s hoping Blood & Chrome doesn’t suck…answers more questions.
Anonymous

I stopped grieving enough to put my thoughts into a tumblr post.

http://dcwilson303.tumblr.com/post/2611237011/caprica-nice-to-know-other-humans-were-watching?ref=nf
planettom

Plot and characters aside, one thing that I’ve found fascinating in both the noveau BSG and CAPRICA is the production design.

How they often just used regular cars and props, instead of wrapping everything in aluminum foil or trying to make them hovercars or whatever. Same with the clothing. Some attempt to look retro to make it a bit otherworldly, but overall, they wear what we wear.

Like in the new BSG, there were points where, planetside, they’d just use surplus (Canadian I suppose) army trucks.

For budget reasons of course, but also, I think the producers realized that to wrap everything in aluminum foil or add vacuform parts to make them look like hovertrucks or whatever would require just as much suspension of disbelief.

But there was still an attempt to make things otherworldly, but the production designers must have agonized over each detail — you know, ok, there are pianos in this world? Pooltables?

CAPRICA had to do more of this type of work, since so much was in urban cityscapes. Sure, there was a lot of CGI. And sometimes for a particular character’s car they tried to get something exotic so that it didn’t just look like 21st century Earth cars. But sometimes, they just seemed to say to the audience, you know what, here’s a bunch of cars, imagine them space-y if you want to…

Overall it worked. A few times it didn’t. There was one time when they filmed in what I’ll assume was Chinatown in Vancouver (or maybe Korean-town), where, there seemed to be a lot of signs in Asian languages untouched. Didn’t bother me, but I assume anyone who could read the signs would have been jarred by the very Earthly messages.

Also, every once in awhile there’d be some detail in the background that was strange; like, at one point in the Adama household I think, in the final 5 episodes, there was a mural on the wall that had gondolas, and at first I was thinking, well, ok, maybe the Taurons had gondolas… but then when you looked closely you could see the St. Mark’s belltower in Venice.

I do want to get the season 1.5 set from NetFlix and listen to the commentaries.
- Anonymous
  
  Jarred by the Chinese writing? Why would viewers be jarred by the Chinese writing and not the English writing that was absolutely everywhere?
  
  For the record, I thought Caprica was great. I liked that it was drama about ordinary people in a futuristic world, instead of being about a military expedition in space like a gazillion other shows. I felt like I was watching what Vancouver might be like in 100 years. “Caprica: Vancouver in Space”.
  
  Also, why does drama about ordinary people get dismissively called “soap opera”? Is there some rule that your drama show has to be about doctors, lawyers, or cops in order to get respect?
  
  I found the early episodes frustrating, but only because I couldn’t figure out what was up with the characters. (It wasn’t yet clear that Amanda was mentally unstable, or that Clarice was so evil.) I think I’d enjoy going back and watching them now.
  - planettom
    
    “Jarred by the Chinese writing? Why would viewers be jarred by the Chinese writing and not the English writing that was absolutely everywhere?”
    
    Sigh. Because the English writing was in there by intent.
    
    The Asian writing was just what happened to be in that section of Vancouver, and probably, if you could read it, referenced very Earthly matters.
- larrycl
  
  @planettom, I have a slightly contrary view about the similarity or dissimilarity of the props.
  
  One of the things I loved about the new BSG (at least the first few seasons) was that it was appearent that they were in a culture that was like ours, but not too like ours. Whether it was the cut-off corners of everything rectangular, or the cut of the clothing, or the fact that Bill Adama kept eating what appeared to be noodles with chopsticks, it always made you subtly aware that you were NOT looking in a straight mirror. Yes, in lesser hands they would have done this with lots of tin-foil props, but I felt in the early seasons BSG did this great. (However, I felt they got a bit lazier in the later seasons)
  
  As for Caprica, I felt the writers didn’t even try. Ok, they didn’t use tin foil, but they might as well have. Basically, Caprica looked like Earth, except the men wore fedoras and they drove retro cars. That’s about it. (And the Matrix did the retro-car thing much better). Come on: The Tauron mob was too much like the mafia. And ‘little tauron’ was right next to chinatown? give me a break.
  
  I’m not trying to nitpick like comic-book guy, but there was too little continuity from the BSG universe. I often felt like I was watching another “re-imagining” rather than prequel.
ecologist

Alas, I never watched Caprica because the end of BSG sucked so horribly that I just couldn’t bring myself to. And did the end of BSG suck? oh yeah … don’t get me started.

But, I wonder how much of the problem with Caprica on Syfy channel came from losing a part (a big part?) of the BSG fan base that would have been the strongest supporters of Caprica at the beginning. Just sayin.
- JimEJim
  
  That has to be at least part of it. Almost everyone I know has generally said the same thing: BSG ending was disappointing, so why bother with this one? I know that’s my reasons for avoiding it.
  
  It’s hard to trust writers that can flop an ending so badly and then expect you to follow them on another ride through the same universe.
Stranger

Caprica was cancelled because it was crap (“Crapica” hehehe). The series started off way too slow and didn’t have any character a viewer might have wanted to relate too. Virtually every character was either unlikable or fucking annoying. And what was the point of having that whiny teenage girl (-> WTG) anyway? She was the least plausible story device to go with and played by a talentless actress no less.
The different story arcs were boring and didn’t make sense. Why have Adama’s family background be a Tauron crime syndicate? Why not have them be a bunch of space truckers, getting embroiled in interplanetary conflict or something, cause we know lil Billy will be a space pilot one day. I realize the writers probably expected to expand on this, but this way it was just meaningless. Yeah, there’s these Tauron Mafia guys who’re really big on family and they stab and kill people a lot and then they have Bill Adama who’s named after his dead brother. Tadaa!

The writers apparently thought the show was gonna be on for 5 seasons and started off slow – veerrry slooow. I guess they wanted spread out their ideas or save them up. This is what ultimately killed it. By the time they realized their mistake it was too late. Then they had to wrap everything up quickly and ironically enough that’s when it got a little better.

Special Effects: the animations were atrocious. They could render buildings passably well, but every time there was CGI movement my eyeballs started to melt. Apparently these people haven’t heard about motion capturing yet. I could’ve forgiven this, if there had been a good story, but not this way.
Guysmiley

Man, those last 5 episodes were really, really good.

I think most of the “holes” were due to the fact that it was canceled and they just didn’t have time. Between Caprica getting better at the end of season 1 and then getting canned and SG:U getting better at the end of season 1 and then getting canned, I’m just done with the See Fee channel.
Anonymous

**Spoilers for season one** The only two episodes that I really didn’t like were the first two (after the pilot). Every other episode I found very intriguing. The pilot itself is one of my favorite pilots ever, and I probably watched it five or six times before it even aired on TV. (They released it on DVD nine months before). Even though the show had some plot/pacing issues early on, the concept was so intriguing that I found myself more engaged with it than I did with other shows that had much tighter plots. Every success the show had was amazing, and every failure was intriguing in its own way. I love how it depicted two different cultures, and how it showed us the lives of teenage characters living in this disturbingly life-like reflection of our own culture. Caprica seemed so much like a real place, and the entire concept of a virtual-reality internet (V-world) is so brilliant and the show explored that idea incredibly well. Caprica also had its own talk show, its own sports team, its own set of neighborhoods and districts and etc. etc…I just can’t believe how incredible the world-building was for this show.

The show had such original plot ideas. I particularly love the idea of not being able to let go of someone you love who passed away because you realize that they might still be alive, but lost in the virtual world/internet. I can only imagine what it would be like for my family if I died, but then my brother saw me in a video game months later, after the funeral. It sounds ridiculous, but imagine what that would be like. Those scenes where Zoe and Amanda finally make up and get to have a loving mother-daughter relationship are so touching, especially at the very end when Zoe is laying down in Amanda’s arms on the couch, while they are watching the interview of Daniel talking about how using technology to mimic human characteristics is an awful idea. So deliciously ironic, yet somehow very touching and sad. And beautiful, when mixed with that imagery. And furthermore, the idea of actually taking that consciousness and bringing it back to life in a body is so mind-blowing to me. That scene where Zoe bursts out of the resurrection tub affected me so much…major chills down my spine. That look on her face as she is taking her first breaths is brilliant. That’s the look that people would have on their faces if they were conscious and completely self-aware while they were being born. Utter amazement and disbelief.

I don’t share your complaints about Zoe; she may have disliked her own life, but she also had a plan on how to change it. She *certainly* did not want to be a normal child. She was a genius, and she knew it, and she was using it to great effect. She created a new life form that had a purpose, and she had a plan that ended up changing the worlds. (Preventing digital heaven from being created.) Every other character had a very intriguing story arc as well.

Also, the Caprica soundtrack…holy frak. Bear McCreary knocks it out of the park again. That final chord in the finale still gives me chills.

I love this show so much. Another tragic cancellation. Not a wonderful way to start off the new decade, SyFy. :(
WaylonWillie

At the start of the final season of BSG, I was prepared to continue watching Caprica. However, the incredibly weak ending to the great BSG left me unwilling to continue.

I gave away my TV, but am not suprised to hear about both whiny teenagers and greatness.
angstistential

I loved everything about this series. It filled in a lot of back-story in the BSG universe and gave us an interesting alternate view of our own world. All BSG fans know how it ended, but Caprica showed us the first part of how they got there. The writers took as many chances with the moral dilemmas and “dangers of religion” topic as they were allowed to, I suspect. It’s a pity they could not manage just a few more episodes to give a more complete ending, but I thought that the final episode wrap-up was a great way to “recap” the episodes that would never be. I was especially impressed by Zoe’s final comment that a religion based upon reward in an afterlife would totally destabilise the real world.

It does make one wonder how Zoe might have fitted into the Cylon religious canon…

That said, I do not feel cheated because, as far as I know, a follow-on series covering the First Cylon War is in the works. There will be plenty of opportunity there to fill in the missing bits. I hope. They can pad around the smart stuff with lots of space opera and shoot-em-up to keep The Great Unwashed amused and ratings a bit higher.
Loosey

And who shot Jordan? How could whoever shot him have missed the holoband?

But the finale did close one plot hole I wondered about since the beginning. Given Willy’s age at the start of Caprica, Commander William Adama would have been at least 70 at the start of BSG, and he clearly wasn’t *that* old.
maitrix

The show may not have been of BSG quality, but canceling it in favor of Merlin and other SyFy fantasy teen-wank was uncalled for.

Questions:

1) What happened to Zoe 2 by the time of the BSG’s 12 skinjobs? Did she self-annihilate by then or was she not close enough to a resurrection ship?

2) Wow, Lacy discovered the one true god and cojones!

3) Would the doctor who helped the Graystones be one Gaius Baltar? Remember that he may not have been a Cylon but Red Six and he are the last “entities” we see in the final frame of BSG. How long have those two been around?

4) So sad the end had to be slapped on like that.

5) Willy Adama – red herring. >:-(

RIP, Caprica.
- AbleBakerCharlie
  
  I think we’re supposed to believe, from early talks between Daniel and Joseph about androids in the pilot, and from the family talk in V-world, and the diagrams in the lab, and the shot when she emerges from the tank and we can see through her cheeks for a split second, that the Zoe in the epilogue is a humaniform-but-mechanical robot built by Daniel and Amanda (and maybe Zoe herself,) not the engineered-but-still-human-flesh of the 12 models, and so the whole identical-body resurrection ship business probably hasn’t happened yet and doesn’t apply.
  
  It makes sense, from what we know is coming- the experiments on humans we see in Razor and the final five ending the war by giving the Cylons human bodies, and the hybrids, and so forth- that Epilogue Zoe-bot is either an incremental step towards returning to the flesh that doesn’t satisfy the urges of whatever Cylon group rebels, or is a dead end never doled out to the rest of the robots at all- there were writing whispers that Zoe, disillusioned with her faith and returned to her family, would eventually oppose the uprising, and so she probably wouldn’t have shared.
- Loosey
  
  I don’t think the doctor who helped the Graystones was Baltar. The ages are all wrong – and remember that Baltar had a real father in BSG, a father who was a farmer on Aerilon. So the whole angel thing probably doesn’t apply.
  
  If I heard correctly, though, I think Amanda said that the doctor who was treating Jordam Duram for the gunshot wound was Cottle – some one she trusted. That couldn’t be the same Doc Cottle on Galactica but could be the father of same.
Loosey

“This has all happened before and it will all happen again.” Maybe I’ll live to see the re-imaging of the re-imaged version.
Anonymous

@AbleBakerCharlie, thanks for that superb little summary of the relation bt the two shows. I heartily agree!
Anonymous

Yes, this was a great show, but it seems to me that everybody has missed the point of it entirely! We are so close to having the technology to actually accomplish this! The parallels are so close we don’t see them. This is truly scary stuff here. This is a warning to us, this is a mirror held up to show us who we are and where we are going.
Anonymous

like many I was let down by BSG last season. I didn’t really get into Caprica but kept with it. The last few episodes got better and better. Both are better than the 70s original that I watched as a kid.

They are literally auctioning off the set on E-bay right now.

http://shop.ebay.com/propworx/m.html

http://caprica.propworx.com/2010/12/30/press-release-the-official-caprica%E2%84%A2-prop-and-costume-auctions/
CG

I may be in the large minority here, but I didn’t like BSG. As a result, I didn’t see any reason to watch Caprica.

I do have sympathy for the fans who lost their show. I have been enjoying SGU and it, too, was recently canceled by Syfy.
Anonymous

This was taken in Toronto. I grew up in that neighbourhood. West Side!
Christoph

So Sad We All.
Anonymous

Caprica took patience. I had it, many fans had it, but most people didn’t. I didn’t mind the lumbering pace or unlike-able characters. It all stewed into the BSG lore which I love.