Caprica takes place 58 years before "The Fall" that provided the catalyst for Galactica's story -- the day when the titular planet was nuked by vengeful Cylons (sentient robots once enslaved by mankind before rebelling.) Caprica intends to show us how those machines were created, why they turned against their creators, and dramatize how the first domino fell on the way to the Twelve Colonies' near-extinction.Daniel Graystone (Eric Stoltz) is a billionaire boffin with a luxurious lifestyle, lakeside mansion, a beautiful wife called Amanda (Paula Malcomson), and a prodigious teenage daughter called Zoe (Alessandra Toreson). He's also the creator of "cybernetic lifeform nodes" (a.k.a Cylons), humanoid automatons that aren't quite up to scratch when it comes to their intended roles as soldiers. What Daniel really needs is an artificial brain to give his machines an edge, but such a technical breakthrough is beyond his abilities.
Unbeknownst to Daniel, his daughter Zoe and her friends are hooked on illegal virtual reality trips to a hedonistic nightclub where patrons indulge sexual fantasies and satisfy violent urges -- in opening scenes where the nudity and bloodshed immediately sets Caprica apart from its esteemed predecessor. In a secret room at the club (marked with the symbol for eternity), Zoe has been working on a software avatar of herself; an exact copy of her personality and appearance, only distinguishable from her by its inability to leave this digital world.
The story properly gets underway when we realize Zoe's part of monotheist religious movement "The Soldiers Of The One". Indeed, she's a willing suicide bomber for their cause, and detonates a bomb board a monorail train during rush hour that kills herself and hundreds of passengers. The death toll includes the daughter of Tauran lawyer Joseph Adama (Esai Morales), whose life later becomes entwined with Daniel as both men grieve the loss of their kids. But when Daniel discovers his genius daughter's virtual avatar, he begins to realize it holds the key to "resurrecting" his offspring and giving his Cylons a "soul"...
Caprica is a handsome production; the aesthetic pure retro-futurism, with '50s fashions sitting alongside cutting-edge technology and sparkling cityscapes. It's a recognizable world that fuses a tapestry of styles together into a cohesive, eye-catching package. While naturally similar to the Caprica-based scenes from Galactica, everything is given far more depth and texture. I particularly liked the little touches -- like the headband method of connecting to virtual reality, foldable electronic paper you can write on to send e-mails, and a robot manservant that resembles a piece of modern sculpture gliding around the Graystone residence. Even the CGI Cylons are rendered to a higher standard than we saw on BSG, although I'm not sure if regular episodes will be able to maintain this quality. But maybe they will, as there's a distinct lack of spaceships devouring Caprica's budget elsewhere.Indeed, Caprica reveals itself to be more down-to-earth and intimate than Galactica, which conversely tackled huge themes while crossing the galaxy in a convoy of spaceships chased by thousands of genocidal robots. Caprica is a more character-based and we never even leave terra firma, although the possibility for occasional off-world trips is clearly there. I'm guessing only the military get to regularly fly around in space and regular folk are earthbound, which feels very plausible. Capricans probably go into space about as often as we go abroad on a cheap airline flight.
The acting is worthy of considerable praise, particularly from Stoltz as the brilliant but obsessive Daniel, whose refusal to accept his daughter's death pushes him to use his talents in a controversial, questionably-unethical way. Morales is also very good as the pragmatic counterbalance to the duo at the heart of this show, and there's mild fun in noting his similarities to BSG's Edward James Olmos -- whose character of Admiral William Adama appears here as Joseph's young son. That crossover lends Caprica added interest for BSG fans, as we'll no doubt learn about Adama's childhood and views on Cylons over the course of Caprica's run.
It would have been easy to make a BSG prequel with younger versions of characters we already know and love (perhaps set during the first war between the Cylons), so Caprica earned my respect by refusing to be so predictable and lazy. It feels like a totally different show, albeit with echoes of BSG in locations, names, phrases, and cultural details. Much has been said of how Caprica intends to be a sci-fi version of '80s soap Dallas, with its emphasis on two disparate families (the moneyed Graystone's and the proletarian Adama's struggling up into the middle-classes), and I can certainly understand these comparisons... but hopefully we'll be spared melodramatics and a "Who Shot Adama?" season 1 cliffhanger.My only real criticism of this opener was how it didn't feel like the launch of a continuing series. The premise behind Caprica feels insubstantial for an episodic sci-fi drama. Do we really need to know exactly how Cylons became mass-manufactured slaves, particularly as this opener gives us enough information to make accurate assumptions? A fundamental problem with prequels is that they exist to turn back-story into narrative, solely because the more interesting present-day story has been exhausted and someone wants to make money off the property. Is there a story here that deserves to be told? I'm not sure... yet. But I am willing to be convinced when the show begins its run on SyFy next year.
written by: Ronald D. Moore & Rene Echevarria directed by: Jeffrey Reiner starring: Eric Stoltz (Daniel Graystone), Esai Morales (Joseph Adama), Paula Malcomson (Amanda Graystone), Alessandra Torresani (Zoe Graystone), Magda Apanowicz (Lacy Rand), Avan Jogia (Ben Stark), Polly Walker (Sister Clarice Willow), Sasha Roiz (Sam Adama), Brian Markinson (Jordan Duram), William B. Davis (Minister Chambers), Sina Najafi (William Adama), Jorge Montesi (The Guatrau), Hiro Kanagawa (Cyrus Xander), Genevieve Buechner (Tamara Adama), Anna Galvin (Shannon Adama), Katie Keating (Prefect Caston), Veena Sood (Secretary of Defense Joan Leyte), Karen Austin (Ruth), Nancy Kerr (Prosecutor), Terence Kelly (Mayor), Angela Moore (Judge), Josh Byer (Defendant), Vicky Lambert (Hecate), Jim Thomson (Serge) & Jared Keeso (Rod Jenkins)
