Caprica: a review
Brief, spoiler-free ramblings...
After watching all six episodes of Caprica (I finished “Know Thy Enemy” last night), I’m still not sure if I like it. It certainly hasn’t hooked me like BSG did, or Dexter, or Angel, or any of the other TV shows I enjoy. I’m not saying the show itself is bad; in fact, I adore some of the obvious BSG throwbacks and am slowly warming to the characters of Lacy and Sam. But I think it’s missing a certain tension, that desperate urgency that extraordinary or surreal circumstances foster.
This has been commented on by other fans and actors in the show. James Masters, who plays Barnabas, remarked (here) that the show was “still in the time when we think, you know, that the fight with the girlfriend is the most important thing that week,” just as someone else on lj (I forget who) observed that the characters are complicated - but not frakked up. And I think that’s what I miss, ultimately. Everyone is so wrapped up in their own lives and fleeting desires that nothing much seems to happen. There’s no “big bad” for them to band together and fight, few linkages between the large cast, and their troubles seem smaller, almost petty, when you compare them with what the future holds.
I knew Caprica wouldn't be BSG from the very start, and I'll keep watching for now. But I want more exciting cylon sub-plots, not elegant melodrama. This was meant to be sci-fi, dammit!
After watching all six episodes of Caprica (I finished “Know Thy Enemy” last night), I’m still not sure if I like it. It certainly hasn’t hooked me like BSG did, or Dexter, or Angel, or any of the other TV shows I enjoy. I’m not saying the show itself is bad; in fact, I adore some of the obvious BSG throwbacks and am slowly warming to the characters of Lacy and Sam. But I think it’s missing a certain tension, that desperate urgency that extraordinary or surreal circumstances foster.
This has been commented on by other fans and actors in the show. James Masters, who plays Barnabas, remarked (here) that the show was “still in the time when we think, you know, that the fight with the girlfriend is the most important thing that week,” just as someone else on lj (I forget who) observed that the characters are complicated - but not frakked up. And I think that’s what I miss, ultimately. Everyone is so wrapped up in their own lives and fleeting desires that nothing much seems to happen. There’s no “big bad” for them to band together and fight, few linkages between the large cast, and their troubles seem smaller, almost petty, when you compare them with what the future holds.
I knew Caprica wouldn't be BSG from the very start, and I'll keep watching for now. But I want more exciting cylon sub-plots, not elegant melodrama. This was meant to be sci-fi, dammit!