Caprica - The Pilot - Review
Nov. 21st, 2009 11:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatI am going to try to keep this review free of spoilers. Just finished watching what may well be the best science-fiction series pilot that I have seen. (And considering how much sci-fi tv shows I've watched in my lifetime - including ones released in the 1970s, that no one remembers such as Space 1999, and a sci-fi show that starred Ike Eiseman and Roddy McDowell, this is saying something. Sure Lost had a good pilot, but I saw flaws. BSG's mini-series pilot drug in places. If you count 33 as the pilot - yes that ranks up there with this baby.)
Caprica - written by Ron Moore and Remi Aubuchon, directed by Friday Night Lights veteran Jeffrey Reiner, and starring Esai Morales as Joseph Addams (Adama) and Eric Stolz as Daniel Graystone...is the prequel series to BattleStar Galatica. It takes place 58 years prior to the fall of Caprica and the events of BSG.
The themes covered in the pilot reminded me in some respects of similar themes that Joss Whedon has attempted to cover in Dollhouse and the creators of V are trying to address - in fact Caprica is covering a combination of those themes, but in an innovative and far less didatic, clumsy and confusing manner. This movie had me riveted. And the twist, blew me away, even though I saw it coming - actually because I saw it coming. It is a frightening film. And it addresses the themes of ethnicity, racism, identity, religion, souls, worship, and arrogance or "god-syndrom" in a way that is rarely done, and hardly this well. The last show that came close was possibly Torchwood: Children of the Earth.
Much like BattleStar Galatica before it, the themes were addressed in a manner that left more questions than answers. The moral lines here are blurred.
After their daughters are killed in a terrorist act, a scientist, asks a defense attorney - what would you do to have the ability to hold, to see, to be with your daughter again?
Mary Shelley was asked a similar question ages ago and came up with the novel Frankenstein. What the scientist comes up with is far less black and white then what we often see in film versions of Shelley's novel, and far scarier than anything most film and television versionsMary Shelley of Frankenstein could have imagined.[ETC: I have not read Shelley's Frankenstein. Just seen the film versions.]
And that's just one layer. The other questions asked are about religion, to what degree are our actions justified by our beliefs? Is belief in an absolute philosophy, a right and a wrong, possible? And if so, are our means to ensure that type of order justified? Where are the lines drawn?
Unlike other sci-fi tv shows, Caprica has an interracial cast or a multi-ethnic one. It is not like V - where the vast majority of the extras and leads are "white", ethnicity is an issue here. Also gender inequality is to a degree addressed but again in a subtle non-dogmatic way.
Ron Moore has also built an intricate world. Transportation, politics, ethnicity, technology - like our own world, commenting on our world but different. Doing what sci-fi does best - commenting on difficult themes through the safety of another world, a makebelieve world not our own.
The filming is flawless, as are the performances - if you go by tv standards. The pacing - well there's never a dull moment, and yes, you get enough of the characters to know who they are and more importantly to care - not an easy trick to pull off.
I can't say much more without giving too much away and this is a story that you really should not be spoiled on. It would remove some of the delight of discovery.
The pilot is due to air in January on SyFy, but it may be cut, so if you can rent the DVD via netflix or you may be able to find it online. The series will be run by Jane Espenson, but according to ImBd - Ron Moore and Aubonouch wrote the first 3-4 episodes. I pretty much know from the pilot who Marsters is likely to play now - and it will be interesting. Caprica like BSG plays with the moralities of science, and the conflict between science and religion. Where do we draw the line? It also plays with the moralities of warfare, violence and defense. Racial conflict. Ethnicity. How we identify ourselves and much like Star Trek DS9, Babylon 5, Farscape, and Torchwood Children of Earth - does it in a manner that does not always provide clear answers so much as more questions.
If you love science-fiction, you owe it to yourself to give this one a shot.
Caprica - written by Ron Moore and Remi Aubuchon, directed by Friday Night Lights veteran Jeffrey Reiner, and starring Esai Morales as Joseph Addams (Adama) and Eric Stolz as Daniel Graystone...is the prequel series to BattleStar Galatica. It takes place 58 years prior to the fall of Caprica and the events of BSG.
The themes covered in the pilot reminded me in some respects of similar themes that Joss Whedon has attempted to cover in Dollhouse and the creators of V are trying to address - in fact Caprica is covering a combination of those themes, but in an innovative and far less didatic, clumsy and confusing manner. This movie had me riveted. And the twist, blew me away, even though I saw it coming - actually because I saw it coming. It is a frightening film. And it addresses the themes of ethnicity, racism, identity, religion, souls, worship, and arrogance or "god-syndrom" in a way that is rarely done, and hardly this well. The last show that came close was possibly Torchwood: Children of the Earth.
Much like BattleStar Galatica before it, the themes were addressed in a manner that left more questions than answers. The moral lines here are blurred.
After their daughters are killed in a terrorist act, a scientist, asks a defense attorney - what would you do to have the ability to hold, to see, to be with your daughter again?
Mary Shelley was asked a similar question ages ago and came up with the novel Frankenstein. What the scientist comes up with is far less black and white then what we often see in film versions of Shelley's novel, and far scarier than anything most film and television versions
And that's just one layer. The other questions asked are about religion, to what degree are our actions justified by our beliefs? Is belief in an absolute philosophy, a right and a wrong, possible? And if so, are our means to ensure that type of order justified? Where are the lines drawn?
Unlike other sci-fi tv shows, Caprica has an interracial cast or a multi-ethnic one. It is not like V - where the vast majority of the extras and leads are "white", ethnicity is an issue here. Also gender inequality is to a degree addressed but again in a subtle non-dogmatic way.
Ron Moore has also built an intricate world. Transportation, politics, ethnicity, technology - like our own world, commenting on our world but different. Doing what sci-fi does best - commenting on difficult themes through the safety of another world, a makebelieve world not our own.
The filming is flawless, as are the performances - if you go by tv standards. The pacing - well there's never a dull moment, and yes, you get enough of the characters to know who they are and more importantly to care - not an easy trick to pull off.
I can't say much more without giving too much away and this is a story that you really should not be spoiled on. It would remove some of the delight of discovery.
The pilot is due to air in January on SyFy, but it may be cut, so if you can rent the DVD via netflix or you may be able to find it online. The series will be run by Jane Espenson, but according to ImBd - Ron Moore and Aubonouch wrote the first 3-4 episodes. I pretty much know from the pilot who Marsters is likely to play now - and it will be interesting. Caprica like BSG plays with the moralities of science, and the conflict between science and religion. Where do we draw the line? It also plays with the moralities of warfare, violence and defense. Racial conflict. Ethnicity. How we identify ourselves and much like Star Trek DS9, Babylon 5, Farscape, and Torchwood Children of Earth - does it in a manner that does not always provide clear answers so much as more questions.
If you love science-fiction, you owe it to yourself to give this one a shot.
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Obscure vintage sci-fi shows
Date: 2009-11-23 04:06 pm (UTC)Hey, I watched Space 1999 (came closer to actually enjoying it now and then in the second season, when they tried to 'sex it up' a bit, but mainly watched it because there were no real alternatives, aside from reruns of the original Trek) and I watched all 3 or 4 episodes of Fantastic Journey that actually aired in my city, because I was a huge Roddy McDowell fan at first, but then because 'Varian' (the man from the future with the 'tuning fork' thingee, played by Jared Martin) was so very pretty to look at!
I even remember the brief proliferation of short-lived sci-fi shows in the 1977-78 season, with Man from Atlantis and Logan's Run, in addition to longer running but occasionally even cheesier shows like Wonder Woman and The Bionic Woman which had been picked up by new networks after ABC cancelled them the season before. Between those shows and the "Star Wars" phenomenon, Starlog actually had something other than old Twilight Zone and Outer Limits episode guides to talk about in their 1977 issues, I recall!
Re: Obscure vintage sci-fi shows
Date: 2009-11-23 05:39 pm (UTC)I rather liked Fantastic Journey - but didn't it have more than 4 episodes? It did have a four hour pilot, I seem to recall. I was watching because of Ike (because I had a crush on him back then due to the Escape from Witch Mountain films). Lost reminds me a great deal of Fantastic Journey.
I've seen so many cheesy sci-fi shows...I'm beginning to think I've seen all of them. Although there are a few, mostly from the UK that never really made it over here and I never saw. Europe and Japan have a better appreciation for Sci-Fi and comics than the US for some reason. Never really understood why sci-fi did better over there than here.
Re: Obscure vintage sci-fi shows
Date: 2009-11-23 06:26 pm (UTC)How about this one: did you ever catch an episode of The Phoenix in 1982? As I vaguely recall, Judson Scott was this pyramid-power, sun-worshiping, new-agey type dude named Bennu who'd been brought out of suspended animation or something and had to find his female counterpart Mira, who'd been awakened earlier, so that they could fulfill their 'save-the-earth' mission. Very Questor Tapes-meets-Starman. Wikipedia says that show WAS only on for about a month, but I remember drooling over Judson Scott.