BattleStar Galactica: Caprica: Season 1.5

Incredible success can bring a downside to a creative person. After soaring to unimaginably great heights whatever you attempt next will be judged by standards that frequently is impossible to achieve. This may be at least in part responsible for the premature cancellation of the SyFy channel’s original series, Caprica’. Its progenitor, ‘Battlestar Galatica’ was an incredibly well received retooling of the eighties’ campy cult classic. Its creator, Ronald D. Moore, better known to fans simply as RDM, did the nearly unfeasible task of actually applying originality to an old TV classic turning it into one of the best series to hit the screen. The remade ‘Battlestar’ had drama, action and incorporated many contemporary hot issues into the stories that captivated audiences for four seasons. Caprica was to be the much requested prequel to the saga helping the many fan gain a clearer insight into how mankind was nearly made extinct by the Cylons, robotic creatures of our own design. Much of this back story was expanded on in the last seasons of ‘Battlestar’ but in typical fashion of stories such as this more questions were raised with each glimpse of an answer. With such as rabidly loyal fan base already in place this sequel should have achieved instant success but unfortunately it fell victim to inflated expectations on the part of the studio and they failure to provide sufficient time for the series to find its own, unique voice. There wasn’t enough time afforded to ‘Caprica’ to refer to it as ‘Brilliant but cancelled’ but it certainly qualifies for the list situated one notch lower, ‘Cancelled before its time’. One factor at work here that resulted in the show’s premature demise was the new trend readily embraced by the hosting SyFy channel, the spilt season. This breaks a standard television season into two halves with a break consisting of several moths in between. When applied to a firmly established series this technique can permit a mid season cliff hanger to generate greater attention and free a prized time slot to test a potential new series. Unfortunately, with this series the method had a detrimental effect.

‘Caprica’ did utilize earlier incarnations of characters present in ‘Battlestar’ as well as introducing a sizable number of new ones specific to plot lines only explored here. The problem arose with an unusual number of parallel threads that eventually would come together in a cohesive tapestry. The thing is it takes time to establish all this new background required to tie the past, present and future of the characters together. Adding a degree of difficulty is the ultimate conclusion is extremely well known and considered by fans immutable. The series was achieving this nicely but the mid season break disrupted the all import momentum of the story; a rupture that was impossible to recover from. This is a beautifully complex story that did require more in terms of attention and dedication that typically afforded by an audience. Like it processor several topical themes were employed coexisting with previously established motifs. Family is extremely important to the motivations driving this series. Several different definitions of family are explored here starting with the traditional structure seen with the rich, professional Graystones consisting father Daniel (Eric Stoltz), mother Amanda (Paula Malcomson) and daughter, the late Zoe (Alessandra Torresani). The contrast is made to the lower class family from Tauron, the Adamas. Unlike the upscale Capricans many look down upon the more agricultural Taurons frequently referring to them by the pejorative ‘dirt eaters’. Although Joseph (Esai Morales) is a successful lawyer he cannot escape this stereotype. A subtle variation of family is demonstrated here with his brother Sam (Sasha Roiz), a tough mob enforcer living as the spouse of another man. A major departure from the traditional definition is found with the monotheistic zealot, Clarice Willow (Polly Walker) who lives in a group marriage composed of several husbands, wives.

This did allow for an imaginative way to lay the foundation of ‘Battle star’s’ religious conflict between the established norm of polytheism and the dissenting position of monotheism eventually adopted by the humanoid Cylons. Clarice views the ability of download a person’s consciousness into an avatar in a virtual world as a means to achieve immortality, something offered but never provably achieved by any religion. Of course we know how this turns out. The mechanical variation of the Cylons naturally came about through a military project made necessary because the twelve colonies had not yet been unified under a federalized central government. The seeds of a society reaching its peak are evident by the prevalent use of legal drugs and the popularity of the holoband as an anarchistic outlet for the youth. That took the dangers inherent in our internet to a logical extreme. In the holoband world the story was building to a confrontation Zoe and the avatar of Adamas’ daughter Tamara (Genevieve Buechner). If the series had continued this could have provided a means to juxtapose the difference between the two primary families within an environment rich with possibilities.

After the mid-season break the studios interceded in an attempt to bolster ratings by going to episodes that were able to stand alone. This made the continuation of some of the central themes impossible to pull off. Among them is the necessary introduction the monotheistic terrorist cells. As is turned out such new characters were not drawn as well as they needed to be distracting from the advancement of the overall story. This had the effect of writing one of the more interesting characters, Zoe’s best friend, Lacy Rand (Magda Apanowicz), into an inescapable corner. All of these factors contributed in some degree or another to the untimely demise of a series that held amazing potential.

Posted 12/18/2010