Caprica

Writers: Ronald D. Moore and Remi Aubuchon

Director: Jeffrey Reiner

Grade: A-

This two-hour movie is nowhere near as exciting and compelling as the first BSG miniseries, but it’s setting up a different kind of show than BSG turned out to be, so I suppose that’s not a fair criticism.

However, there’s still plenty of fair game to criticize. For one thing, the story played out veeerrrry slooooowly, particularly in the middle.

There was also a bit of thematic muddiness going on. I never really understood what Zoe intended for virtual Zoe, for example. Maybe we’re not supposed to understand it yet, but why did she need to be “strong” and need to be able to handle watching virtual human sacrifice? Not to mention that Alessandra Torresani as Zoe was annoying (although she was annoying in the way that snotty, know-it-all teenagers are supposed to be, and she’s now a copy of herself in a robotic body, so it remains to be seen whether that’s a permanent issue).

I also don’t remember Bill ever mentioning losing his mother and sister on BSG, and considering his emotional ties to Lee, Kara, and Laura Roslin, it seems like that would have come up at some point. Smells like backstory retcon to me, though I can live with it.

Also not sure where they’re going with this “You can only know true right and wrong through the One True God” angle. I’m pretty sure they’re going with this being total BS, considering the headmistress’ role in the One True God cult (whose name I have forgotten). I certainly hope so.

On the plus side, the two male leads are well cast and have fabulous “frenemies” chemistry. Esai Morales is physically quite believable as Bill’s father, and young Bill also sufficiently resembles Olmos’s Bill (eye color nitpick aside). I do find it a bit unsettling how much Eric Stoltz resembles Jamie Bamber, though. Even the facial expressions and mannerisms are similar to Lee’s, and it kind of threw me off—I found myself absentmindedly thinking that Daniel is Lee’s grandfather rather than Joseph. I’m sure I’ll get over it in time.

Another plus: the writers included one of the core issues that I find most compelling in this type of sci-fi: “I’m not a person—I know that—but I feel like one.” That’s what it always comes down to for me.

And one of the more nebulous aspects of the plot that I thought was laid out well and subtly was the difference between virtual Zoe and virtual Tamara. They’re different because one was created by Zoe and one by Daniel, the key to that difference being that Zoe managed to transfer her memories, in some fashion, into her copy. Daniel couldn’t accomplish this with Tamara, and so she is horrifyingly broken. In her own words, “I can’t remember how I got here. And I can’t remember where I was before now.” Daniel managed to piece enough together for her to be able to recognize her father, but ultimately, the being that is virtual Tamara is completely adrift in time, in space, in personhood. She has woken up alone, in the dark, with no idea where she is, and she has an empty cavern in her soul in place of her memories and her knowledge of her self. Virtual Zoe, on the other hand, knows who she is, what she is, where she came from, and has at least an inkling of why she was created. She is self-aware in a way that virtual Tamara can probably never be.

Minor Funny Stuff

-The followers of Athena believe that you should “love your enemy.” Bwah!

-I can totally imagine this Thomas Burgess fellow who created the meta-cognitive processor having an angel on his shoulder…