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.
