Caprica, a prequel to Battle Star Galactica, made it’s preview on Syfy Channel last night. It appeared on DVD a few months ago in an unrated version, with the cleaned up version showing on Cable to start season 1. And since I never watched BSG (well this version, I did watch the original 70s version), I was unsure how difficult it would be to jump in. The good news was that it wasn’t too difficult, but I’m sure I’m missing some information on how it ties in BSG.
The problem with prequels is that there are certain limitations that hurt the drama of a show. If you bring in a character who is in the original series, then you know they will survive. And if you mention the history of a character, then the prequel needs to incorporate that history or the fans will squawk. And not having watched BSG, I can’t comment on how well it integrated the BSG history into the new show.
Having said that, Caprica is a fine start to what promises to be an interesting series. The beginning starts off in one direction and then with a literal bang, the direction changes. Eric Stoltz plays Daniel Graystone, a genius computer inventor, who is working on a defense contract. A robot that can track and shoot moving objects. His latest version isn’t working as well as he hoped and he’s worried about losing the contract. After his daughter is killed in a terrorist explosion, Graystone discovers that his daughter was a genius who was able to upload her entire brain into an online avatar. He thinks that he can use this avatar to restore his daughter from death. But he needs some hardware that he doesn’t have control of.
Esai Morales is Joseph Adama a mob lawyer (basically) whose brother is a mob enforcer. Adama’s daughter is killed in the same explosion that killed Graystone’s daughter. They bond over the deaths and work together to get the hardware needed. When Graystone’s experiment doesn’t work as well as he hoped, other options open themselves up.
Mixed in with these families are an illegal monotheistic religion that is involved not only in the terrorists explosion, but in the families conflicts. Caprica looks to be an explicitly religious show with a science fiction backdrop. The show promises to show the start of the Cylons and the conflicts that central to the BSG mythos. And it does a reasonable job of introducing people to an existing universe without making them feel lost, while expanding the universe for long time viewers. As other science fiction shows are ending, a new one starting up is always welcome and I’ll be going along for the ride.