The battle for humanity has a beginning

Lissa’s Rating: By… your… command….

Lissa’s Review: Once upon a time, I was a Harry Potter geek. And when I say geek, I mean it. I could kick anyone’s butt at trivia. I knew what a kappa was and how it was different from a grindylow, the name of Fleur Delacoeur’s little sister, and Harry’s full course schedule for each semester. I was in the fandom, and I read the books the second they were in my hands and I saw the movies the week they came out. The only things I never did were attend a midnight release party or go to a convention. And don’t get me wrong when I use the past tense – I still love Harry and his friends. But the story came to an end, and I no longer need to know what happened next. Sure, I had issues with aspects of Deathly Hallows – that’s part of being a fan, you get to blow stuff out of proportion. But the story definitely ended, and I truly felt like it had done so. And given that I was still at home and still had my mind wandering into fantasy realms, I got turned on to Battlestar Galactica.

It’s not a secret, I think, that I love Battlestar Galactica as much as I loved Harry Potter. It’s a great series with a lot of room for speculation. And it had that lethal combination of characterization and mystery – I got invested in the characters and I HAD to know what happened next. It was one of those series where so much depended on this huge, intriguing backstory that strongly influenced the present day. During Season 4.5, you just did not call this house at 10:00 on a Friday night.

However, also like Harry Potter, Battlestar Galactica has come to an end. And yes, I had Issues with the finale (how much more literal of a deus ex machina can we get?) and with the whole last season (Deadlocked, would it have killed someone to pin a few pictures on the Wall?). But at the same time, I was satisfied that the story of Adama, Roslin, and their ragtag Fleet had ended, and although I might not love how everything was handled, I didn’t need to know what happened next. As far as I was concerned, this show was done.

Reopening canon because a sticky prospect after you’ve wrapped. Aside from obnoxious fans like myself that will complain if you contradict yourself, you have to deal with the audience’s sense of closure. Going back and revisiting stories doesn’t often work. As much as fans might want more, sometimes it’s best to let things lie. But if you must play in your same universe, it’s best to remove yourself from the story you were telling.

Enter the pilot for Caprica, Ron Moore’s new show.

Instead of focusing on the story of the Battlestar Galactica, Moore steps back in time forty years, back before the first Cylon war to the creation of the Cylons. Instead of the military, the pilot focuses on a computer mogul Daniel Greystone (Eric Stoltz) and his wife and daughter. However, to tie it in to the Battlestar Galactica world we all know and love, we also meet Joseph Adama (Esai Morales), a lawyer being dragged into the world of organized crime and raising his pre-teen son Bill. The two families are brought together by a terrorist attack that takes place on a train, costing both fathers their daughters. Along they way, they invent Cylons and probably sell their souls.

I have to admit, I was kind of dubious. The last half season of Battlestar Galactica had some awesome moments, but it had some episodes I despised. (Did I mention Deadlocked yet?) And like I said, I wasn’t thrilled with the finale, especially on reflection. Did I want to go back to the world of RDM, or had he lost all his fire? Had he used up all his ideas? I kind of got that feeling at times.

Well, I think he did lose his fire for Battlestar Galactica, but not for Caprica. If this series actually makes it on the stupidly renamed SyFy (really? They were worried about appearing geeky? On a SCI FI channel?), I’ll be watching.

As a stand-alone movie, Caprica doesn’t particularly satisfy. I don’t mean that in terms of having watched Battlestar Galactica, but it’s most definitely a pilot. The ending leaves you wanting more. Which, since this IS a pilot for a TV series, is a good thing. And right now, I’m pleased with how the two series are tying together. It’s interesting to see some of the politics and infighting, not to mention the culture that we really haven’t seen because it was lost in the miniseries. There are very few spaceships, and even as the budget increases I don’t anticipate there being many more, but if you liked the Laura Roslin side of things, that shouldn’t bother you too much. Plus, this being RDM, I’m sure he’ll find a way to cram in plenty of sex and violence, even without space porn. Just say V-Club.

That said, although I appreciate the bits and pieces that make this the same universe, I have to say, don’t fall into George Lucas’s trap, Ron. Which one specifically? The one where the eight most important people in the first movies all turn out to have known each other or be related to each other previously. Seeing a young William Adama in Caprica is fine, especially as Joseph Adama was a part of the BSG canon. And I don’t mind a reference to the Lampkin family, as again, it’s canon that Romo Lampkin knew Joseph Adama. But that’s it. I don’t want to see Bill Adama exchange portentous glimpses with a young Laura Roslin or declare to his father “I’ll never like her.” I don’t want to see the Thrace family brought in, I don’t want to see an Agathon as one of Greystone’s employees, I don’t want to see a Gaeta family member clerking for Adama. Given how huge the Colonies were and how many billions of people were killed and how many thousands of people survived, just no. Hopefully, Ron Moore is smart enough to realize this.

However, there were some things that tied into events on BSG, and I really appreciated those. For example, the whole monotheistic cult? Yeah, that was actually already going on Caprica. I liked that, because during the show, it basically looked like the people believing in the one true God were adapting the Cylon religion. Crazier things have happened, I’m sure, and given that the Cylons were winning, I could see the appeal of worshiping their God. But it made more sense to me that it was a movement that had started on the Colonies and extended to the survivors. Little things like that… they might be retcons, but when they work, they’re good.

Anyway, the storyline was intriguing and the characters were the shades of gray that Ron Moore likes so much, and overall, I was impressed enough that I’ll watch. Granted, it helps that BSG is off the air, Heroes has been mostly sucking, and LOST utterly confusing. Right now, the only sci-fi show I’ve found worth watching his been Fringe. (Well, once we’re past the summer, anyway.) But Ron Moore’s got to be extremely careful. Not only does he have extremely rabid fans and a big task ahead of him, it doesn’t take a genius to start calling Caprica “Craprica”. When you’ve got a built-in insult like that, your show had better not suck.

It’s not enough for a TV show to be watched; it must be worthy of being watched. So say we all.