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shadowkatWatched Caprica yesterday, along with Grey's Anatomy and Project Runway.
I'd state that Project Runway is definitely losing it's umph. I think Models of the Runway may be part of the problem or just that the concept is starting to wear thin? That said, I rather liked Seth's design and agreed with the winner. I didn't agree with last week's selections or the week before. But this week - I did. On Grey's? It's a lot better this season than it was during the last two - they've gone back to the original concept - work-place drama, not relationship soap opera in a hospital setting. Less sex, more medical drama. Because the sex gets boring after a while and unless you want to keep breaking everyone up and putting them with new people? It's better to focus on other bits. Plus J. August Young (formerly Gunn on Angel) guest-starred, playing a young Chief Webber.
Caprica - Dancing on their Graves
[Ahhh, Caprica, I missed you. You are rapidly becoming my new favorite tv series.]
This series just keeps getting better. I've got Momster hooked on it now. If you were turned off by BSG's dark gritty-ness - you should give Caprica a try, it really isn't like BSG. And you don't need to know anything about BSG to understand or enjoy it. Momster never saw an episode of BSG and rather likes Caprica.
Also, I'm rather enamored of the actor playing Sam Adama, as well as the character - who is edgy and complicated. He's homosexual, a killer, a mobster, devoted to his neice and nephew, and his own code of honor. Actually all the acting in this series is stellar in my opinion.
The actress playing Amanda Graystone - is impressive as well - she gets across both strength and fragility. The by-play between her and Eric Stolz's Danial Graystone is rather touching, and believable. Caprica much like it's predecessor has a film quality to it. It is more layered than most tv series, and with a far higher production value.
In this episode, they did explain why the children are joining a Genomnese monothesistic cult.
Their depiction of the reasons is a direct critique and examination of our own culture.
Much like BSG - this show is examining moral ambiguities in our own culture. In Caprica - the kids are reacting to the Sodom and Gomorah atmosphere created in the holo-vids or virtual reality they are watching. Vids that are not all that different than many of the Wii or video role playing games currently on the market. Except in Caprica - these vids are more readily available and often hacked into - to create increasingly violent and aggressive scenarios.
The Graystones state that the vids are what turned their daughter's stomach, the STO provided her with a way out of that world, a meaning. It did not help that the vids were created by her father's company. So she was violently angry at her parents and the fact that the money she received came from those vids. She objected to their use. The irony is - that Late Night Talk Show host and other adults believe the vids are what is motivating the violence - the kids are learning these things in the vids, they like the vids. When actually what is motivating the kids to join this cult, to fight against the current culture - is the content in the vids. They hate the content. It turns their stomach. They see it as a reflection of the adult world that they will soon inhabit. A world they want no part of. So the violence, is a reaction to the content in the vids not something the vids taught them.
The Graystones state that they did not make the vids to contain this content. Others inserted the content into the vids. But if they can make them legal - provide free space for the kids to do whatever they want, and any fees or profits made off of the vids and holo-units in the future would be given to a foundation to help troubled youth in the victims names. Sort of similar to legalizing drugs - they tell us. In Caprica - drugs have been legalized. The Graystones state and the talk show host agrees that drug legalization, while hotly debated at the time, did stop a lot of the violence associated with drug use - it removed the criminal element and the obsessive need for drugs, people wanted them less and were less interested once they were legalized. Their view is if they provide that same freedom with vids - it will remove the desire or need for them.
As they are discussing this, we see from multiple pov's that it is more complicated than that.
Their fairly simplistic solution to the problem won't resolve it, any more than legalizing drugs stopped people from using drugs and becoming addicted to drugs - all it did was remove the stigma and the criminal element, not the other problems associated with it. Currently addiction to video games in our own society is rapidly becoming an issue. People are spending more and more time with gadgets, and less and less outside, with other people.
Josef and Sam and Mrs. Adama. The more I get of these characters, the more I understand and appreciate the character of Admiral Bill Adama in BSG, as portrayed by Edward James Olmos.
There's a rather excellent and pithy scene between Willy (Bill Adama) and his grandmother - where she states that sometimes an enemy can get you more than a friend. Being close to one's enemies can be productive. It's a creepy scene. In fact the scenes with the Adama's flip what we thought we knew in the pilot. Later, the grandmother tells her son, Josef, that he should want Amanda Graystone dead - that her death balances things. Vengeance would free the spirits of her daughter and grand-daughter, without the balance of vengeance they are stuck.
Josef does not react the way she thinks he will, he rebels, and leaves over sixteen text messages on his brother's cell phone requesting Sam not kill Amanda. Sam doesn't kill her, although we like Josef are lead to believe that he has. He states that he has other people who call him besides Josef, so cannot afford to turn off his phone and yes he got all sixteen messages. Sam states he just scared her. Then almost as an after-thought, although I think she probably was already scared and has been getting that a lot. He also states that he knew Josef couldn't follow through - you are a Caprican in a Tauron skin.
The ethnicity is expanded to include cultural values. We are told the Tauron's believe in justice as a balancing act. And the tattoos on Sam's body tell a story, they are not just decorative art - they have meaning. In a way they remind me a bit of the tatoos in the Viggo Mortgensen film by David Cronenberg - Eastern Promises? He plays an undercover cop in the Russian Mob, whose body is covered with tatoos - each tatoo telling a story.
This series works because it is so compact, we are focusing of three main characters - Graystone's family, Adama's, and Lacey. Each character is fully formed and detailed.
And each episode reveals another layer.
Lacey and Zoe.
Zoe is relating to the boy who is working on robotic form. He sees her as a she. And teaches her to dance, not quite seeing the real Zoe beneath. As he dances with the robot, he closes his eyes, as does she - and we see two teens dancing, Zoe fairly sexually, then the camera backs up and we see the robot, which is barely dancing unable to do copy the human body's moves.
I know the Avatar that I created of Zoe, isn't real, Graystone states, but he is lying, for he does see it as real. As does his wife - who says - we both know what Avatars are. Why did you create her? Another lie, for he didn't, Zoe did. But he does tell a bit of the truth here - because I miss her. Both scenes are about lies - the boy lying to himself that the robot can dance, he doesn't of course know that inside the robot is a teenage girl who does dance if only in her head and if only in the world of the holo-vid. The lie is that it is just a robot.
But in the boy's head the lie is that isn't just a robot. Same with the parents - the lie is that it was just an Avatar, but in the parents heads the lie is that it isn't just an Avatar.
Lacey - meanwhile demonstrates that she is capable of things that we usually don't associate with girls her age - fixing a bike or mechanical work. More capable than the boy doing it.
And the boy, who appears clean-cut, well-adjusted, straight-arrow, is actually high enough up in the monothesistic organization that he can arrange a meeting with their leader, Barnabas.
He has connections. But on the surface - he doesn't appear to have them. And the Guidance Counselor - does as well, she knows more about the bombing than she is letting on.
In some respects, I find myself enjoying Caprica more than BSG, the metaphors and layers feel less heavy-handed at times, and more applicable to our current world - they are examining difficult issues here.
Episode - A
I'd state that Project Runway is definitely losing it's umph. I think Models of the Runway may be part of the problem or just that the concept is starting to wear thin? That said, I rather liked Seth's design and agreed with the winner. I didn't agree with last week's selections or the week before. But this week - I did. On Grey's? It's a lot better this season than it was during the last two - they've gone back to the original concept - work-place drama, not relationship soap opera in a hospital setting. Less sex, more medical drama. Because the sex gets boring after a while and unless you want to keep breaking everyone up and putting them with new people? It's better to focus on other bits. Plus J. August Young (formerly Gunn on Angel) guest-starred, playing a young Chief Webber.
Caprica - Dancing on their Graves
[Ahhh, Caprica, I missed you. You are rapidly becoming my new favorite tv series.]
This series just keeps getting better. I've got Momster hooked on it now. If you were turned off by BSG's dark gritty-ness - you should give Caprica a try, it really isn't like BSG. And you don't need to know anything about BSG to understand or enjoy it. Momster never saw an episode of BSG and rather likes Caprica.
Also, I'm rather enamored of the actor playing Sam Adama, as well as the character - who is edgy and complicated. He's homosexual, a killer, a mobster, devoted to his neice and nephew, and his own code of honor. Actually all the acting in this series is stellar in my opinion.
The actress playing Amanda Graystone - is impressive as well - she gets across both strength and fragility. The by-play between her and Eric Stolz's Danial Graystone is rather touching, and believable. Caprica much like it's predecessor has a film quality to it. It is more layered than most tv series, and with a far higher production value.
In this episode, they did explain why the children are joining a Genomnese monothesistic cult.
Their depiction of the reasons is a direct critique and examination of our own culture.
Much like BSG - this show is examining moral ambiguities in our own culture. In Caprica - the kids are reacting to the Sodom and Gomorah atmosphere created in the holo-vids or virtual reality they are watching. Vids that are not all that different than many of the Wii or video role playing games currently on the market. Except in Caprica - these vids are more readily available and often hacked into - to create increasingly violent and aggressive scenarios.
The Graystones state that the vids are what turned their daughter's stomach, the STO provided her with a way out of that world, a meaning. It did not help that the vids were created by her father's company. So she was violently angry at her parents and the fact that the money she received came from those vids. She objected to their use. The irony is - that Late Night Talk Show host and other adults believe the vids are what is motivating the violence - the kids are learning these things in the vids, they like the vids. When actually what is motivating the kids to join this cult, to fight against the current culture - is the content in the vids. They hate the content. It turns their stomach. They see it as a reflection of the adult world that they will soon inhabit. A world they want no part of. So the violence, is a reaction to the content in the vids not something the vids taught them.
The Graystones state that they did not make the vids to contain this content. Others inserted the content into the vids. But if they can make them legal - provide free space for the kids to do whatever they want, and any fees or profits made off of the vids and holo-units in the future would be given to a foundation to help troubled youth in the victims names. Sort of similar to legalizing drugs - they tell us. In Caprica - drugs have been legalized. The Graystones state and the talk show host agrees that drug legalization, while hotly debated at the time, did stop a lot of the violence associated with drug use - it removed the criminal element and the obsessive need for drugs, people wanted them less and were less interested once they were legalized. Their view is if they provide that same freedom with vids - it will remove the desire or need for them.
As they are discussing this, we see from multiple pov's that it is more complicated than that.
Their fairly simplistic solution to the problem won't resolve it, any more than legalizing drugs stopped people from using drugs and becoming addicted to drugs - all it did was remove the stigma and the criminal element, not the other problems associated with it. Currently addiction to video games in our own society is rapidly becoming an issue. People are spending more and more time with gadgets, and less and less outside, with other people.
Josef and Sam and Mrs. Adama. The more I get of these characters, the more I understand and appreciate the character of Admiral Bill Adama in BSG, as portrayed by Edward James Olmos.
There's a rather excellent and pithy scene between Willy (Bill Adama) and his grandmother - where she states that sometimes an enemy can get you more than a friend. Being close to one's enemies can be productive. It's a creepy scene. In fact the scenes with the Adama's flip what we thought we knew in the pilot. Later, the grandmother tells her son, Josef, that he should want Amanda Graystone dead - that her death balances things. Vengeance would free the spirits of her daughter and grand-daughter, without the balance of vengeance they are stuck.
Josef does not react the way she thinks he will, he rebels, and leaves over sixteen text messages on his brother's cell phone requesting Sam not kill Amanda. Sam doesn't kill her, although we like Josef are lead to believe that he has. He states that he has other people who call him besides Josef, so cannot afford to turn off his phone and yes he got all sixteen messages. Sam states he just scared her. Then almost as an after-thought, although I think she probably was already scared and has been getting that a lot. He also states that he knew Josef couldn't follow through - you are a Caprican in a Tauron skin.
The ethnicity is expanded to include cultural values. We are told the Tauron's believe in justice as a balancing act. And the tattoos on Sam's body tell a story, they are not just decorative art - they have meaning. In a way they remind me a bit of the tatoos in the Viggo Mortgensen film by David Cronenberg - Eastern Promises? He plays an undercover cop in the Russian Mob, whose body is covered with tatoos - each tatoo telling a story.
This series works because it is so compact, we are focusing of three main characters - Graystone's family, Adama's, and Lacey. Each character is fully formed and detailed.
And each episode reveals another layer.
Lacey and Zoe.
Zoe is relating to the boy who is working on robotic form. He sees her as a she. And teaches her to dance, not quite seeing the real Zoe beneath. As he dances with the robot, he closes his eyes, as does she - and we see two teens dancing, Zoe fairly sexually, then the camera backs up and we see the robot, which is barely dancing unable to do copy the human body's moves.
I know the Avatar that I created of Zoe, isn't real, Graystone states, but he is lying, for he does see it as real. As does his wife - who says - we both know what Avatars are. Why did you create her? Another lie, for he didn't, Zoe did. But he does tell a bit of the truth here - because I miss her. Both scenes are about lies - the boy lying to himself that the robot can dance, he doesn't of course know that inside the robot is a teenage girl who does dance if only in her head and if only in the world of the holo-vid. The lie is that it is just a robot.
But in the boy's head the lie is that isn't just a robot. Same with the parents - the lie is that it was just an Avatar, but in the parents heads the lie is that it isn't just an Avatar.
Lacey - meanwhile demonstrates that she is capable of things that we usually don't associate with girls her age - fixing a bike or mechanical work. More capable than the boy doing it.
And the boy, who appears clean-cut, well-adjusted, straight-arrow, is actually high enough up in the monothesistic organization that he can arrange a meeting with their leader, Barnabas.
He has connections. But on the surface - he doesn't appear to have them. And the Guidance Counselor - does as well, she knows more about the bombing than she is letting on.
In some respects, I find myself enjoying Caprica more than BSG, the metaphors and layers feel less heavy-handed at times, and more applicable to our current world - they are examining difficult issues here.
Episode - A
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Date: 2010-02-21 08:03 pm (UTC)I like Sam's character more and more. Did you see the link where Jane explains all the meanings of his different tatoos? I love it that they have so much love for detail to do that.
I'm also very intrigued with the characterization of the teenagers. They just completely threw all teenage stereotypes out of the window and made them complete complicated 3D-personalities. Lacy is quickly becoming one of my favorites too and I'm looking forward a lot to her scenes with JM.
I also thought that the Adama family explains a lot about the way Bill does politics, especially in the beginning of BSG when he and Laura have ther struggle for power.