Did anyone watch the first half of Caprica season 1? I can't recall any real convos here about it. I just finished watching the first half of the season all this week. I was really looking forward to watching each episode and usually watched two at a time. I was a bit apprehensive at the start but by episodes 7, 8 and 9 - especially episode 9... WOW!
This show really deserves an audience. It's SO well done.
Anyone got any thoughts on the series they'd like to discuss?
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
I shut it off about halfway through the first episode. I tried once or twice to finish it but I could never get through it; I thought it was pretty boring. Is it really worth watching?
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
It starts to pick up after they move away from the aftermath of the bombing and start getting into the 'New Cap City' storyline. The last episode of the current run is certainly worth watching. Not to spoil too much but several rather annoying and/or useless characters are seemingly killed off in one go.
I'd say it's certainly an interesting show but it has the same tendency as nuBSG to wallow a bit too long in certain elements and things start to feel a little aimless after a while.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Yes, the mourning and initial family drama was rather boring, but it picked up steam real quick. I'm really starting to hate the elder Graystones, but the conflicts are intense.
The episode where Daniel was trying to force Zoe to reveal herself was extraordinary. And I've got some suspicions about the bombing: specifically, that there's more to what happened than what we saw.
Then there's the Miseducation of Willie Adama. That's been amusing to watch. And yeah, New Cap City was a neat setting. The entire idea of the holoband got interesting once you see that it's basically what the Star Trek holodeck would probably turn out like in real life. (i.e. addictions, abuse, seamy underworlds...)
Give it another shot. It starts to get good in the fourth episode, "Gravedancing."
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
Yeah, the pacing is a bit slow, but the story is very gripping. And I have the acting is pretty good too.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
It's not big and BOLD like Battlestar. It's definitely more... mature? VERY intense, I agree. Me with the music again but - how amazing was the music in episode 9 when... well the everything was 'going down'? Was reading Bear McCreary's blog - that was Alessandro Juliani (Gaeta) singing in that too, along with the Soprano. Can't wait for the second half of season 1.
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
Besides the pacing, the "wtf" usage of prescient ghosts in Amanda's brother Darius, and shifting the blame for the coming Cylon War onto a single computer company, after having done an entire show with assumed Cylon guilt? Seriously, every Caprica scriptwriter seems to move towards "They actually had it coming", retroactively skewing the narrative of BSG. Then there's this little thing.
So Graystone just spontaneously invented the same basic layout and setup of the 4000-year old "Centurion" faceplate, and makes up the name Cylon via marketing bullshit ("Cybernetic Life-form Node"? Cylfn?), while the real Cylons have been hanging out on the Colony ship for two millennia prior, already referring to themselves as Cylons? I must assume they do, since there's no logical reason for the Final Five to rename their entire proud race after some industrial product a few snotnose Capricans invented last tuesday?
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Stuff like that happens in nature all the time. Convergent evolution,
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
Well wasn't a big theme in BSG the fact that humans and humanoid Cylons were doomed to repeat the same history over and over. So I'm guessing that when the humans of Kobol developed machines, they also came up with the term "Cybernetic Life-form Node". Though I don't recall what the Thirteenth Tribe Cylons referred to their creations as.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Yes, I also thought that was the point of it, the whole: "This has happened before and will happen again". Was even mentioned once in the first 9 episodes - I think by Lacey. There was a recent tweet by Bear McCreary (the composer) saying that the next half of the season has a real explosive turn around! Also seen a little snippet preview for the next half. Looks good. Although they angle of the preview implys that the cylons are rebelling... already? Wha? There's only one so far. Maybe it's to suck people in. Daniel Greystone does have that order to supply 100,000 of them (or some similar number).
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
I kinda got the impression that they were already building the Cylons, but they couldn't deliver them without software. But I wouldn't pay much attention to previews. They're always completely inaccurate and play up the wrong parts of the story. Not to mention give away plot twists at the most inconvenient times.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
I rather like to think that the look of the centurion faceplate is a pastiche on some ancient cultural armoured helmet that dates back to Kobol, hence both the colonies and the "First Earth" culture retaining it with an almost a subconscious association with power and strength. Indeed, I rather imagine the Lords of Kobol wore something similar...assuming they weren't indeed Cylons themselves of course.
quote: Seriously, every Caprica scriptwriter seems to move towards "They actually had it coming", retroactively skewing the narrative of BSG.
Hardly. I seem to recall Adama talking about mankind's responsibility for the first Cylon war way back in the mini-series. It's not that they had it coming so much as cause and effect; the cycle of history repeating over and over. I wouldn't be surprised if even Kobol wasn't where it even began.
Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :
quote:I shut it off about halfway through the first episode. I tried once or twice to finish it but I could never get through it; I thought it was pretty boring.
Word for word, that was exactly my experience with the pilot episode, plus the fact that I was simply never home when Skiffy showed the eps (I don't have recording devices).
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Just curious, are the ones who thought it boring, the same people who though Deep Space Nine was boring in the beginning?
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
DS9 wasn't boring in the beginning, it was just 'uncomfortable.' I thought it took awhile to find it's footing.
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
I know why, no Defiant.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Bah! There were some GREAT episodes in the first two seasons! I saw Duet again on TV just the other day. Great stuff.
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mars Needs Women: I know why, no Defiant.
Mayyybe. But a big part of it for me was the characters and the chemistry between them. Everybody seemed so damn awkward at first, like they hardly knew who they were or how they fit together. (Ben and Jake in particular struck me as having a fake relationship at first; it wasn't until much later that I could see them as father and son.) Which, granted, is natural at the beginning of a show.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
I think the stand outs from the get-go were definitely Kira, Quark and Odo. I Still love every season of DS9. Made be really nostalgic to see it on TV the otherday. DS9 started 17 years ago people! OMG!
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
Re-watching the early episodes recently, I thought Kira was annoying at first. I didn't like her character until they softened her up a bit and showed she wasn't just MAJOR GODDAMN KIRA WHO FOUGHT FOR BAJOR. Quark and Odo were always good, though.