farewell, Caprica

Caprica will be canceled; there are five unaired episodes left, but they will be yanked from the Tuesday slot and rebroadcast next year sometime.

I’m disappointed, honestly. I was very skeptical of the premise when I heard about it as BSG drew to a close, but Caprica earned its own name and seemed to want to continue the traditioin of exploring the meaning of humanity. The latest episodes introduced another “angel” head-character that also lent a spiritual continuity. The subplot of Lacy joining the STO, the Church on Gemenon, and the war on Tauron all had echoes of modern issues but suitably and safely abstracted. It provided a broader vision of the Twelve Colonies than we ever had a chance to explore aboard Galactica.

However, I think Caprica spent too much time on its ensemble; I was excited that it seemed for a while that Daniel would be a widower, and disappointed that the thoroughly useless character returned. The plot was excruciatingly slow, driven by the cliffhanger formula rather than just resolving things. But still, it would have been nice to see where they went.

We pretty much know how it all turns out. Somehow, Zoe and Tamara are the seeds for true sentience among the Cylons. It would have been interesting to see how the STO and the Taurons factored into the inevitable rebellion of the war machines. And, how they tied it back to the concept of Everything that Has Happened Has Happened Before – after all, as Caprica unfolded, the Five were racing back from the radioactive ruins of Earth 1. Zoe’s angel was revealed to have given Zoe the basic design for Cylons which Daniel copied, and then she herself is destined to become the precursor to their soul. If done well, it could have added real depth to the Galactica mythos.

Unfortunately, since Moore and crew basically made stuff up as they went along and retconned the heck out of the plot with each season, I doubt that Caprica would have answered more questions than it raised. So maybe it’s a good thing Caprica has withered.

I still have SGU – and it’s the best thing on TV until the Doctor returns.

One thought on “farewell, Caprica”

  1. I did not know until this post and the linked article that the new episodes were still part of the first season. I though it was starting Season 2. In any event, I think the article, and many of the comments there, overstate the effect of the split season. That’s just how Syfy schedules many of its shows, and I think viewers have learned to deal with it. I think you identified Caprica’s big problem, which was the way BSG developed and the revelation that Moore and Co were making too much up as they went along, with the result that some plot payoffs were very weak.
    And personally, I’ve come to detest screenwriters who chant “character driven storytelling” as a defense against all criticism of the weakness of their plots. I like character driven storytelling, too, as long as it tied to a coherent plot.
    I kept Caprica on a short leash as a result. I made some facile jokes when it was revealed that the original Cylon personality was based on a teenage girl, but frankly that explained more than Moore and Co. wanted or realized and I think it was a mistake. Finally, I gave up with the resumption of the season. I didn’t even watch one episode, although I watched everything up until the hiatus and tentatively planned to resume. The last straw had nothing to do with the show itself, but with the promos. When they resurrected the “They have a plan” line, it felt like a finger poked in my eye. I had a visceral reaction of “That’s it. I’m done.” It might have been different, actually, if they hadn’t made the post-BSG movie “BSG: The Plan.” Despite my gripes, I mostly liked the conclusion of BSG, although it is aging less well in my head than I would have thought. But the “Plan” movie was a disastrous attempt to create a post-hoc justification for the They Have a Plan tag line, and I hated to be reminded of it. So anyway, I won’t miss it. Like you, I love SGU, and hope it lasts although I understand its ratings aren’t great either. It actually reminds me a lot of the best of BSG and why I did love that series so much.

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