Pilot

Caprica Episode Review

In which killer robots are never a good idea. Especially ones piloted by angst-ridden teenagers. Dead angst-ridden teenagers.

What Happened

Scientist Daniel Greystone and attorney Joseph Adama meet after their daughters and Adama's wife are killed in a terrorist attack. Zoe's mother Amanda is horrified when investigators tell her that Zoe's boyfriend Ben was a follower of the "one true god," and a member of a terrorist organization.

Lacey, Zoe's best friend, is encouraged by Sister Clarice to make peace with what happened by continuing Zoe's work. Lacey knows that Zoe had programmed a virtual avatar of herself so life-like as to be an identical copy of her personality. Visiting "Zoe A," however, Lacey is followed by Daniel Greystone.

Meeting Zoe A, Greystone is initially skeptical, but she convinces him that she is - for all intents and purposes - his daughter. Wanting to download Zoe A into a robotic body he has been building for the government, Greystone asks Adama to use his criminal connections to steal a computer processor from his competitors.

Lured by the promise of resurrecting his own family, Adama asks a favor of the Tauron crime lord who fostered him and his brother. But when he meets the avatar of his daughter Tamara, she is so frightened and confused by what's happened that Adama concludes the entire experiment is a bad idea.

Greystone goes ahead with his plans for Zoe A, but the robot he places her in collapses under the strain and the data appears to be irreparably corrupted. Devastated, he locks Zoe A away and uses the stolen technology to perfect the next version of his mechanical soldiers.

Reviving, Zoe A calls Lacey for help.

The Good

Put it this way: the pilot is two hours long, but I didn't check the clock until an hour and half into it. That's how well this held my interest.

Enough time is spent both character- and world-building. There are some slow scenes as the beginning. Slow in the sense that not much is "happening," but the dialogue and acting are there to establish character. This is not going to be a show that shies away from characters talking in the false belief that the audience prefers big explosions.

The acting is solid. I am particularly surprised that while they played the poor little rich girl card with Zoe, I did not want to strangle her. Now, that's talented.

And the story does stand on its own. You don't have to have seen Battlestar Galactica in order to follow what's happening.

The Bad

The reason I quit BSG was the unrelenting bleakness. Caprica looks quit capable of following in the same vein. Dramatic is good. Melodramatic even, every once in a while. But leaven the dose with a bit of humor here and there, okay?

The Cliche

Dude.

Killer robots.

'Nuff said.

What Did I Think?

Interesting concepts. Well executed. We'll have to see what they do next.

V Episode Review

In which there are Visitors. And snakes.

What Happened

Everyone is stunned when giant ships appear in the skies above major cities all over the world. Anna, the leader of the "Visitors," assures the citizens of Earth that they come in peace.

Reporter Chad Decker is chosen to be the guy to do the first interview with Anna. He's a bit perturbed when she insist on softball questions, but is intrigued when he's offered a permanent gig as their spokesman.

Slightly less than enthralled by the Visitor arrival than her son Tyler, an FBI agent named Erica Evans gets drawn into an investigation of terrorist activity and begins uncovering explosives shipments and dead bodies.

Also not entirely comfortable with the Vs and their habit of knowing exactly how to give humanity what we want is a Catholic priest named Father Landry. Despite a packed church every Sunday (and then some), he warns against being too quick to buy everything we're offered.

When Father Landry finds a man bleeding to death in his church, the man gives him a package of photographs and asks Landry to deliver it to a meeting that night. When he gets there, he find a nascent Resistance movement. The Visitors didn't just get here, the leader Georgie announces. They've been here for decades.

Also attending in search of her terrorists, Erica demands proof, so Landry steps forward with the package. Inside is a picture of her main suspect. As they talk, a group of Visitor fighters - including Erica's partner Dale - run in and start killing people. Erica knocks Dale out, tearing some of the skin on his face to reveal lizard scales underneath.

Georgie, meanwhile, is saved by an old friend named Ryan - who reveals that he is also a Visitor. Ryan promises that there are other deserters out there who will help.

The Good

• Pretty cool ship, there.
• Anna's speech. Morena Baccarin is fantastic as Anna.
• Kind of interesting the use of religion - it will depend how far they go with it.
  Alan Tudyk. Automatically cool.
• I love the look of the inside of the ship. It's so Escher.
• Anna skewering Chad so prettily and forcing him to play by her rules. That perfect little smile.

The Bad

• If no one is getting past the barricade, then what were all the people doing who were inside the barricade?
• The universal health care moment is kind of clunky. And doesn't really add anything to the proceedings.
• The visitors are eeeevil speech from Georgie went on for a loooong time.

The Cliche

• Badge laying out by the bed so we know Erica's an FBI agent.
• Pushy Reporter Chad! Oh, so dramatic over how his journalistic spirit is being stifled by a high-profile television job.
• Outrunning a fireball - sorta - with Ryan running away from the crashing jet.
• Reflective surfaces giving glimpse of the ship - the windows on the skyscrapers. Pretty, but predictable.
• Motorcycle rider is a chick: Erica getting downtown. To be fair, it makes sense that she couldn't get there in a car.
• Typical cops in the drippy tunnels scenes - there is really no way to make those interesting.
• Pretty blonde Lisa: she's even carrying an apple for crying out loud.
• Absent Parent Syndrome: Tyler whining.
• The agent going out w/out backup: Erica at the meeting. At least she has reason (mole) and plan b (call backup in thirty minutes).
• They overused the contrasting action routine: Erica talking about recruitment as Tyler goes to join the Visitor Peace Ambassadors / Youth Corp.

Best Lines

Erica "How can you not find this guy? He's very creepy."
Dale: "If only creepy were a biometric parameter in our facial recognition software."

What Did I Think?

Pilots are hard because there is the need for so many short-cuts, you inevitably wind up with cliches just to get things out there. Everything will depend on what they do from here, but the cast alone has me interested.

I Predict

Whenever someone asks about Twilight, I say that I already went through my spiky-hair vampire phase. Obviously, this might refer to Buffy, but I must admit that my first introduction to fang-angst was The Vampire Diaries books by LJ Smith.

I read them over and over and over. (Reason number one I don't hold teenage melodrama against any of Meyer's fans.) So what do I remember about them after all this time?