Last night, I watched five straight hours of Caprica—the last five hours of Caprica, in fact. This show started off as a weak soap opera about Cylons as whiny teenage girls. It ended as one of the better political thrillers on television. Sadly, somewhere in the middle of that transition, Caprica got canceled. I figured I’d leave an open thread here today for BoingBoing’s Caprica/Battlestar fan base to chat about how the show ended and the plot threads that didn’t quite get tied up*—and to speculate a bit about how you think Point A (i.e. the end of Caprica) connects to Point B (Battlestar Galactica). Fanwank away, my friends. I’m right there with you.
If you didn’t watch the marathon last night, then there will probably be lots of spoilers in the comments. But I’ll start off with some non-spoilery thoughts. Here’s the thing: I’m not sure I’ve seen a TV show where the characters grew and developed as much, over the course of one season, as what happened with Caprica. The writers took a risk (a bad risk, as it turned out) by starting the show with some distinctly unlikeable central players. But the things that made Zoe, the Graystones, and Lacy Rand unlikeable at the start ended up being important to the layers those characters took on over the course of the show. I think the key problem is that the writers drew themselves into a corner where, in order to tell this story, they had to start it at a point that wasn’t particularly appealing to the audience. At least, that’s my take. What do you think?
And, “Maggie, that show sucked, let it go, no one cares,” is a perfectly acceptable answer.
The photo above is all over the Internet. I’m not sure who originally took it. If you know, drop me a line and I’ll add credit. UPDATE: Kropserkel.com are the makers of this costume. They say, “This photo is from the set of a SPACE commercial spoof by creative director Gord McWatters, heralding the return of the classic show to broadcast television for the fall of 2005, starring Scott Maple as the Cylon.” You can see the commercial on their site.
*Like Tamara. Seriously, Zoe (and the show) just left her wandering alone around that castle for all eternity. Harsh.