guy44

OK, I just saw it too, and holy crap. I was dubious about this show initially, but my fears have been allayed in a big, big way. I mean, yes, you can have a great pilot and a terrible show (Studio 60...), but I doubt this is the case here. Lots and lots of spoilers ahead, do not read until you see the pilot.

Spoiler: First of all, the story was top notch. There's intrigue, corporate espionage, racism, civil wars; hell, even the mafia. On top of all that, the ep did a fantastic job of introducing the major characters. Stoltz immediately makes it clear that his character has far more brains than ethics or backbone or willpower, and after he discovers the digital version of his daughter, it becomes very easy to see how he could kind of lose his mind in grief and play god. His wife, daughter, and her friends are also fleshed out well enough that I can see them becoming more important characters in their own right.

Morales, though...yeah, he really was born to play a Tauron. He's perfect as the early-years Michael Corleone, torn between his mafia family and his deep moral foundation. I love how he is obviously the voice of reason regarding the "resurrection" of the two girls, and clearly a loving and dedicated father, but also so deeply corrupted. And I'm sure I'm not the only one to think of BSG's Bill Adama when Morales tells Caprica's version how when the your family is dead, they aren't coming back, and that now all you can do is live the best you can.

Really though, what I truly loved about Caprica was the sheer fuckeduppedness of the digital versions of Tamra and Zoe. It was easy, for a while, to kind of become okay with the concept along with Stoltz as he interacted with his fake daughter, but the scene with digital Tamra was incredibly disturbing. I can't even imagine losing a daughter, and then having the experience Adama goes through when he meets her deeply disturbed digital copy. It must be torture. This is science fiction at its best - and I even love how Graystone uses the same rationalizations for AI and its attendant ethical dilemmas that people utilize now (applying the Turing test and whatnot).

And somehow, the last thing I want to talk about from Caprica was how the Cylons were created!

A couple of random observations:

Hitmen from Tauron are waaaaaay cooler than hitmen on Earth.

Damn, that is a lot of nudity. Creepy fake digital daughter composed of doctor's records and Facebook accounts, I got no problem with. But I did NOT see that much nakedness coming...not that I'm complaining.

How fun was it to see C.G.B. Spender as the defense minister? I can't believe they didn't let his first scene end with him lighting up a smoke.

Every time I see little Bill Adama, all I can think is that puberty is really going to hit that face of his something awful in about 3 years.

Twice, they showed the outside of what is presumably the Graystone building in which the first Cylon is created. Both times, they show two rotating objects that appear to be futuristic windmills. These windmills are exactly the same windmills from one of the early establishing shots in Serenity. Serenity's CG was done by Zoic studios, which also did the CG work for BSG, and presumably for Caprica as well. So either Zoic got lazy, or they gave a little shout-out to my other favorite science fiction property. Yes, I am that much of a Whedon geek that I noticed this, and yes, I think it will be cool if I'm the first person to post this online. But someone else probably already has.

Anyway, I'm beyond excited. Here's keeping my fingers crossed that next fall my TV sci-fi fix is going to met every Friday by Dollhouse and Caprica.

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