Pseudo Review: Caprica
Tonight I watched the pilot of the Battlestar Galactica “prequel” (what language sadist invented that word?) Caprica. It seemed to start a little slow but eventually got going and had some interesting features. In no particular order, here are my thoughts (note: there are spoilers)
The terrorists are teenagers. Historically, it takes a little longer to become radicalized to the point of blowing yourself up. In the real world terrorists are more likely to be college age or older. However, just as we’ve seen the average age of violent gang members decrease (and the sex of violent offenders widen to include a greater portion of females than used to be the case) in an advanced society where young people have access to sex and death clubs (albeit only as virtual reality) this is certainly possible. It is still different from reality at the current time.
The hedonistic virtual club shown a couple times in there, where bored teenagers (and presumably a lot of older people) went is not possible with current technology. In real life, clubs are not (to the best of my knowledge) this depraved. Close on the sex end maybe, but rarely if ever are there human sacrifices. But when technology makes this sort of thing possible, can anyone doubt they will come into existence? What kind of world will we have when teenager’s avatars lose their virginity before their physical selves do? This may not be more than a decade or two off.
Monotheists as terrorists. This could be taken by some as greatly insulting. Religious people who look for insults in popular media will certainly consider this to be one. I don’t think it’s meant that way, though, any more than the human sacrifice bit in the club was meant as an insult to polytheists. Really, this is almost required by the story this is supposed to precede. In BSG, the Cylons were monotheists (who, according to the series finale, may have had direct contact with their deity). They also annihilated billions of humans. The logic that one of the earliest cylons contained the personality of a teenage, psychopathic, monotheist, mass killer actually explains a lot. And really, is it even possible to have the same sort of terrorrism with polytheists?: “The many gods will drive out the One” just doesn’t sound quite as inspiring as what the kid actually shouted before blowing himself up. Maybe it’s just me?
Taurons approximate Sicilians (mafiosi). Or some other ethnic gang culture, taken to an extreme. Heavy handed but, again, it fits the story line. There were several references in BSG to the mixed legacy of Admiral Adama’s father. He was a brilliant lawyer but also a bad person (gee, who would ever have thought of that? A lawyer who’s not nice? Yeah. They’ll never see that coming.) Hey! Is that the future Admiral Adama at the game with his dad? He was kind of a snot, wasn’t he?
The sheer horror and also lure of having your kid recreated as an artificial life form is shown well both from the parent’s side and the ersatz kid’s.This was what had me thinking that, in some ways this show is much better science fiction than BSG was. I was surprised to enjoy it as much as I did. BSG made me mad at the lost opportunities or sheer stupidity even more often than it amazed me with its genius. I didn’t expect this much from Caprica. Interesting bit: “My baby! She couldn’t feel her heart!” My first thought was that they had made a robotic vampire but, no, it was actual drama. Close call there. (Warning to producers: This show could easily be reduced to self parody!)
But then there’s the silly theme. One of the characters (Adama?) made a comment about “the things that make you cry, make you feel. Those are the things that make you human.” This was always a big subtext in BSG. It was hard to avoid what with the Cylons being indistinguishable from humans and all. The truth is, though, that the human/machine duality question is too hackneyed for words. EVERY show, every book, every short story that deals with robots seems to feel obliged to consider “what makes us human.” If the people making Caprica think they’ve hit on a winning philosophical thing here, the show is doomed to have as hideously lame an ending as Galactica itself did. Please please please get beyond this and do something actually good!
Those are my initial impressions of the show. Because of the track record of BSG (and the lameness of “BSG: The Plan” which should have just been part spliced into the series. Both would have made lots more sense that way) I had and have serious doubts as to whether Caprica is worth the effort. So far, though, they’ve managed to keep my interest. There seems to be some serious exploration of the effect of technology on society. On the other hand, there’s an unfortunate tendency toward what Isaac Asimov called “The Frankenstein Complex.”
So I have concerns but I’m going to watch it again.
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