Caprica is set 58 years ‘after the fall’, the fall being the apocalyptic destruction of the twelve colonies by the Cylons in the series Battlestar Galactica. This is a prequel to the four series space opera behemoth that was Ron Moore’s reimagining of Battlestar Galactica. That said I think to a new viewer or someone who did not like BSG, Caprica can stand up on its own. Ron Moore appears to have created a new series that is both part of the BSG world but knowledge of the series is not essential to enjoying Caprica. That said this 90 minute pilot is for a series not airing until 2010. Therefore if you haven’t seen BSG I urge you to dive into the box sets before Caprica hits our screens as it is a great series and will I’m sure add to the enjoyment of Caprica.
The colony Caprica that we are dropped into is definitely science fiction but is only really a world that could be 20 years in our future. Similar to the imagined world of Children of Men, this is future fiction not imagining a world beyond comprehension but one that represents the continuation of development of current technologies and of technologies currently being researched. That said in many ways Caprica feels like a period piece, with 50s styling and older seeming traditions. Characters wear Trilbies and smoke like the cast of Mad Men. This is represents an obvious aesthetic choice and one that works surprisingly well.
Caprica introduces us to the story of two families, the Graystones and the Adamas, and at the centre of these families’ two fathers who ultimately have to come to terms with great loss. Daniel Graystone loses his daughter, the gifted Zoe Graystone, in a train explosion which also kills Joseph Adamas wife and daughter. Daniel Graystone is a very talented cybernetic developer and Joseph Adama a lawyer with mob-esque links. Daniel Graystone is reminiscent of real life technological moguls/developers such as Bill Gates or Steve Jobs but a huge loss in his life leads him to push his research too far with serious consequences. Central to the plot of the pilot is the character of Zoe Graystone. We are first introduced Zoe in a club, known as a V club, accessible via a virtual reality headset designed by her father. In this club teenagers meet to indulge in various vices, there are areas for group sex, fighting, murder and a stage which has frequent ritual sacrifices. One of the great things about this pilot is the lack of exposition, we do not get an explanation of the V club, how it works, what the rules are etc but the reality is we do not really need them. The V club represents a step on from Social networking and MMORPGs, if this technology were to be developed it would quickly develop into an online outlet for desires, good or bad.
The V club also helps develop the contrasting religious attitudes in BSG/Caprica. The partying teens in the V club are polytheistic believers (similar to the Pagan traditions) and Zoe and her two friends are monotheistic believers (similar to Christian fundamentalists). At one point Zoe and her friends look out across the sea of bodies and the stage as someone is brutally ‘sacrificed’ and they despair at the debauched behaviour. This parallels the move in the west from polytheistic pagan beliefs full of debauchery to monotheistic reserved attitudes. The three move through the crowds and back into a room marked with an infinity symbol.
This room holds Zoe’s avatar, a replication of her. This is not a download of her brain but a collection of all the data that make up a person in a technologically advanced society, her driver’s license, her dental records her diaries etc, a collection of all the data that we now send out into the world. It is an interesting idea that I haven’t seen in science fiction before and is very astute in the way it draws on current trends in social networking, cloud computing and reliance on online databases for records, the way so much of our lives are now online. Could you use all this information to replicate a person’s mind? When Zoe is killed in the explosion Daniel finds out about the avatar and realises he can have his daughter back, or at least a very close approximation. He offers this option to Joseph Adama in exchange for help in some industrial espionage. As a result of all of this Daniel invents the Cylons, the cybernetic soldiers with consciousness. It is intriguing to think of what the main story of the series will probably be the rise of the Cylons, most likely used in a war between colonies (the colonies are divided by race and politics and there is no central president yet as there in BSG), the revolt of the Cylons, their defeat and banishment, and the formation of one political system governing all twelve colonies. As in BSG though this all seems to be set against a backdrop of a discussion of religious themes and a battle between monotheism and polytheism.BSG was always intriguing in it’s use of religious themes and the ideas it proposes regarding the religious beliefs that motivate actions. Ron Moore has talked at length for instance about the influence of the 9/11 attacks, the motivation of Al-Qadea and George Bush’s presidency on the formation of BSG and with the world still in the midst of religious conflict and so many people holding beliefs incompatible with the modern world and with eachother I am sure these will be a crucial themes throughout Caprica.
Caprica represents a new story and a new TV series and the direction reflects this. The camerawork is less frenetic than BSG with more use of tracking shots and stable camera set ups. The dramatic but sombre music also adds to this creating a much slower pace than BSG marking it out as even more of a character study than BSG. If BSG got people who didn’t like watching Sci-Fi watching Sci-Fi then Caprica I’m sure will win over even more fans. I look forward to the start of the Caprica series and the development of all the groundwork already laid out.
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