Now that Battlestar Galactica and Stargate Atlantis have ended, it feels like there isn't as much of a reason to watch SciFi channel anymore…but there will be a reason to watch the SYFY channel when it makes the rebranding jump because of new shows like Caprica.
There were a lot of questions about this new series that would take place 50+ years before the Battlestar Galactica saga that we witnessed for four amazing seasons. Everyone was worried that it wouldn't hold up to the high expectations that came with a prequel series being announced so soon after the current series ended. Thanks to NBC Universal, ComicsOnline has seen the pilot of Caprica and we can say with great assurance (and relief) that the pilot does hold up, and then some.
THERE WILL BE SPOILERS. This is your warning.
It is important to point out that this show is very different from Battlestar in many ways. Although it is a drama series as Battlestar was, it is all planet based. No spaceships. There are robots…but no spaceships. Just pointing it out now so you don't go in with false expectations. There are a lot of similar elements throughout the backbone of this show that made Battlestar as great as it was…and I hope that it continues to be as evident throughout the series as it progresses.
Imagine the 1950's. Now imagine it with robots!
What does every good story need to start off with? BOOBIES! LOTS OF BOOBIES! There is a surprising amount of nudity in the opening sequences of the pilot (which I'm sure will be edited out for TV), as the characters are using a virtual reality world in which sex, drugs, and violence run uncontrolled. Here we are introduced to Zoe Greystone and her friends, who are watching Zoe's newest creation at work: an artificial intelligence created in her own image!
We are then snapped back to the real world and learn that Zoe is a typical teenager, fighting with her parents Dr. Daniel Greystone (Eric Stoltz) and Amanda Greystone (Paula Malcomson) rebelling in anyway she can. We get to see that Daniel is in th business of creating high end robots for military purposes and those robots just happen to look like a striped down CLASSIC CENTURION! Things aren't going so well for Daniel as the AI that he is using isn't able to even hit a target…
Meanwhile we briefly get to meet the Adama family, comprised of Joeseph Adama (Esai Morales), his wife Shannon (Anna Gavlin), daughter Tamara (Genevieve Buechner), and little Billy (William) Adama who grows up to be Admiral Adama. We see that Joseph's wife and daughter are boarding a train on their way home to meet the rest of their family. Zoe and her two friends decide to run away to a different colony and start again. While one of her friends bails on them and chickens out, the other friend…well…has other plans and blows up the train that they are on…which also happens to be the same train that the Adama's are on…Uh-oh…. BOOM!
From the ashes of destruction a new friendship forms when Joesph and Daniel meet and talk about their lost family members. Daniel discovers Zoe's creation in the VR world and attempts to bring the program to the real world…but to do that he needs help. Adama has some connections with some shady people and Greystone explains that he can bring their fallen family back to life if he can secure this chip. Adama makes somethings happen and gets it, but then realizes that what the men were doing was an abomination. He believed that they should be trying to bring back the dead. Greystone disagrees and continues his work. Daniel uploads Zoe's program into the robot and, by your command, the first test of the cybernetic life-form node aka the Cylon is a success!
The final scene is something right out of a horror movie as the Cylon turns itself on and awakens on a table…slowly looks around and then moves to see its own reflection. We cut to Zoe's friend answering a phone only to hear Zoe's voice saying that she's in trouble…that voice is coming from the CYLON!
The DVD has a few special features. There are several deleted scenes and a commentary track with Director Ron Moore.
Overall
The Pilot episode of Caprica is solid. There were plenty of twists and turns just as we had seen on BSG. Eric Stoltz and Esai Morales have an amazing presence on screen and really help to sell this new show. I had known enough about this show to be interested in the pilot, but getting to actually see the development of Cylon's was very impressive indeed. Ron Moore has done it again and continues to entertain. ComicsOnline is proud to give the DVD release of the Capricapilot 5 out of 5 amazing Frakking Episodes. SO SAY WE ALL!
