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Caprica has been cancelled and the final five episodes delayed until 2011. It’s sad in one way but I do think it’s the kind of show that could work best as a single season story. Like Fawlty Towers or the original, Ricky Gervais version of the The Office. They were both comedies and Caprica really isn’t but something they do have in common (I think) is that the incentive to watch is not to find out what the characters do next or what happens to them. Which is not to say Basil Fawlty or David Brent or Daniel Graystone aren’t compelling but what’s compelling about them is who they are, not who they might become. If anything their inability to change or grow is precisely what makes them funny/tragic (and yes, Basil Fawlty is tragic). But they think they can, they think they are, none of these characters are passive victims of circumstances, they work at creating their own hells. Which is to say I liked this last episode of what is now the current run. It was one of those where all the threads finally came together.
By episode 13 Zoe and Tamra are banished in V-world and Lacy shipped off to Geminon leaving the adults free to make their own apocalypse. From the very beginning this has been a Cronus-like society, its present feeding off its future. Daniel and his obsessive relationship with Zoe’s avatar, Clarice’s seduction and subsequent slaughter of her students. Now even Sam has his contribution to make to the coming war to end all wars. Sam the thug, Sam the hitman, Sam the sole voice of conscience in this hollow world. When the rains came Sam welcomed them as a reminder of the old country and while Daniel and Clarice and Amanda were being broken down by the deluge, washed away like papier-mache fragments running down into the gutter, Sam was made of sterner stuff. Sam was a rock, Sam would endure. Sam is not afraid to die, will not be tempted by virtual apotheosis or software cures for grief. Sam had a real passion, a people to protect, not a cause. He does it by gun running but not for the money. When the guns aren’t enough he’ll run cylons and so it all begins.
Daniel admits that everything he has done since Zoe died has been to bring back to the man he was before (and everything he has done is why he never can). Joseph tells him it can’t be done alone, he needs someone who knew him to see the man he used to be and forgive him. But when Joseph says it he’s thinking of a real person not a software reacreation of a person the sole function of which is to reflect its maker. Daniel is absent for Amanda’s return to their house and never seems to wonder where she is, what she’s thinking about. It’s as if ,when he can’t see her she already ceases to exist. No matter. He will build her and then punish his creation for being what she is, not being real. The avatar fades but its pain and confusion seemed real enough.
Meanwhile real Amanda heals. In the early episodes following her fall she seemed to be written as not so much a character in her own right but the bruised and broken conscience of those around her, of Daniel in particular. She gains substance from the contrast with her shiny but unconvincing virtual self and from telling Marbeth what sounded like a hard truth about being unable to bond with Zoe. But she calls that confession a lie and her relationship with Clarice although tangible is a lie on both sides. Amanda is real in the sense of being flesh and bone and in being something other than what others project her to be but she’s hidden herself so well it’s no longer clear what she’s hiding any more. She stays to attend the birth and Clarice blesses the baby. It’s strangely chilling.
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By episode 13 Zoe and Tamra are banished in V-world and Lacy shipped off to Geminon leaving the adults free to make their own apocalypse. From the very beginning this has been a Cronus-like society, its present feeding off its future. Daniel and his obsessive relationship with Zoe’s avatar, Clarice’s seduction and subsequent slaughter of her students. Now even Sam has his contribution to make to the coming war to end all wars. Sam the thug, Sam the hitman, Sam the sole voice of conscience in this hollow world. When the rains came Sam welcomed them as a reminder of the old country and while Daniel and Clarice and Amanda were being broken down by the deluge, washed away like papier-mache fragments running down into the gutter, Sam was made of sterner stuff. Sam was a rock, Sam would endure. Sam is not afraid to die, will not be tempted by virtual apotheosis or software cures for grief. Sam had a real passion, a people to protect, not a cause. He does it by gun running but not for the money. When the guns aren’t enough he’ll run cylons and so it all begins.
Daniel admits that everything he has done since Zoe died has been to bring back to the man he was before (and everything he has done is why he never can). Joseph tells him it can’t be done alone, he needs someone who knew him to see the man he used to be and forgive him. But when Joseph says it he’s thinking of a real person not a software reacreation of a person the sole function of which is to reflect its maker. Daniel is absent for Amanda’s return to their house and never seems to wonder where she is, what she’s thinking about. It’s as if ,when he can’t see her she already ceases to exist. No matter. He will build her and then punish his creation for being what she is, not being real. The avatar fades but its pain and confusion seemed real enough.
Meanwhile real Amanda heals. In the early episodes following her fall she seemed to be written as not so much a character in her own right but the bruised and broken conscience of those around her, of Daniel in particular. She gains substance from the contrast with her shiny but unconvincing virtual self and from telling Marbeth what sounded like a hard truth about being unable to bond with Zoe. But she calls that confession a lie and her relationship with Clarice although tangible is a lie on both sides. Amanda is real in the sense of being flesh and bone and in being something other than what others project her to be but she’s hidden herself so well it’s no longer clear what she’s hiding any more. She stays to attend the birth and Clarice blesses the baby. It’s strangely chilling.
http://hazelk.dreamwidth.org/111746.html |
comments | Comment at Dreamwidth