Notes on Caprica

Early reviews of the BSG prequel, Caprica.

Salon doesn't like it:

Unfortunately, "Caprica" doesn't make for tremendously engaging melodrama either, largely because it doesn't have any characters as immediately riveting as Katee Sackhoff's Starbuck or Mary McDonnell's President Roslin. Eric Stoltz brings quiet soulfulness to his grieving father, but Esai Morales feels wooden and stilted as Adama, and the rest of the ensemble (especially, it has to be said, the child actors) aren't a particularly inspiring bunch. As for the show's visuals -- unlike "Battlestar," "Caprica" is filmed largely with fixed shots (no hand-held cameras), which robs it of much of its flair and immediacy. Its clean urban setting feels antiseptic and cold and a bit dull. Judging by the pilot, the planet Caprica is Vancouver with a fancier train system

io9 loves it:

Showrunner [Jane] Espenson has compared Caprica to the series Rome, which focuses on a decadent society right before its fall. Still, the Caprican civilization doesn't feel as if its about to become extinct. Our characters seem as if they're merely trapped in the kinds of compromises we all make in an imperfect world. What makes this series compelling is not a sense of impending doom. Instead it's the fact that the conspiracies and prejudices that hobble our characters are refreshingly unfamiliar, though vividly reflective of ones that we face every day too.

So there you go. I'm less interested in the show itself than in the folly of doing prequels in general. In both the Star Wars and Star Trek universes prequels were hobbled by numerous problems:

• We already know how the story ends so everything feels locked down and predestined. There's no room for real conflict or imaginative exploration.
• Overly cute introductions and origins. It's far too tempting to link together characters we already know in stupidly improbable ways.
• Better special effects lead to the impression that the past was more advanced than the "present" or the "future."

Finally, a lot of critics like to refer to BSG as the smartest or greatest science fiction show of all time. For my money, The Twilight Zone, the original Star Trek, and The Prisoner are still better, smarter, and more entertaining.

Also, given the world we live in, Vancouver with a fancier train system sounds ideal.