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'Caprica' Season 1.5 Review: Is This 'Battlestar' Prequel Lost in Space?
by Maureen Ryan, posted Oct 4th 2010 4:15PM
Most ambitious cable dramas attempt to craft season-long narrative arcs in addition to telling more contained weekly stories. The unfortunate thing about 'Caprica' (10PM ET Tuesday, Syfy) is that the 'Battlestar Galactica' prequel still isn't demonstrating consistent focus on either of those fronts. 'Caprica's' first two fall episodes are frustrating, despite the obvious attempts to revive the sporadic momentum that the show's spring run had. The thing is, for the dramatic stakes to matter, the audience has to care about the characters, but it's often difficult to invest in their journeys for any number of reasons.
For one thing, they are a gabby bunch: They talk a lot about what they will do, what they have done and what they might do. There's an understandable need to unleash some exposition so that the audience isn't lost at this stage, but there are too many unmemorable characters and too many muddy motivations swirling around in this slightly futuristic world. The attempt to tell an epic story about humanity's downfall is laudable, but 'Caprica' frequently undercuts its own momentum with a diffident pace and the way it tries to tell that grand story through a dozen or more characters who are given equal importance.
And anyway, who should we care about? The grieving business titan, Daniel Graystone (Eric Stoltz), whose own wife thought he was a creep? The terrorists battling each other for supremacy? The teen would-be terrorist? Of course, there is no need to like these people or believe in their causes in order to enjoy the show, but self-contained, episodic stories that concretely demonstrate what matters to them and why would be most welcome at this stage. Ideas about man-made versions of heaven are bandied around in the show's returning episodes, but they're too vague to carry any thematic or dramatic weight. Clarity is not 'Caprica's' strong suit; the various threads draw somewhat closer in these episodes, but they still aren't woven together tightly enough. And the show's overall conflict basically boils down to a clash between monotheists and polytheists, but there's been little or no explanation of why there is so much animosity between the two factions.
Sure, 'Battlestar' examined the idea of the threatening Other in any number of ways, some of which invoked religion and faith, but at its best, that show told stories about people who were interesting even when they weren't talking about their beliefs. 'Caprica's' people tend to remain broadly drawn types, and even a subtler character like the lawyer Joseph Adama (Esai Morales) appears to have changed significantly since we last saw him, adding to the sense of general disarray.
There are a few intriguing characters on 'Caprica,' but the gangster Sam Adama (Sasha Roiz), Zoe Graystone (who has several lively incarnations courtesy of Alessandra Torresani) and Tamara Adama (Genevieve Buechner), the avatar of a dead girl, all get precious little to do in the first two episodes of the fall season. The most interesting place 'Caprica' visited last spring is a game within the show's virtual universe called New Cap City, and there is reason to hope that we will return there soon.
Let's hope so, because there's an unfortunate contrast to New Cap City's effective noir tone in Tuesday's episode, when religious zealot Clarice Willow (Polly Walker) heads to a colony called Gemenon. That planet, it emerges, is home of some of the most unfortunate, ersatz 'Lord of the Rings' costumes of all time. The last thing this show needed were more new characters, especially ones wearing sparkly robes. 'Caprica' has always had some thoughtful ideas about identity and memory, and its cast is generally quite strong, all of which make the show's shortcomings more frustrating. 'Caprica' needs to consistently assemble its building blocks into a coherent and compelling narrative if it is to retain the attention of discerning TV fans, the kind were devoted to 'Battlestar' and devour smart fare on networks like AMC, FX, HBO and Showtime.
Perhaps 'Caprica' should scale back the ambition, prune the character roster and focus on something that a century of speculative fiction has taught us: Robots fighting are always cool.
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