Caprica: It Ain't Galactica, But It'll Do

The following contains MAJOR SPOILERS for the extended, unrated pilot episode of the Battlestar Galactica prequel series, Caprica.

Caprica doesn't know what it wants to be just yet; there is a mishmash of mystical elements on display: religion, transhumanism, politics, corruption, teenage angst... the list is long, the experience tedious at time, and due to its pedigree, Caprica suffers in the inevitable comparison to Battlestar Galactica. All in all, a tough row to hoe. But if ever there's been a creative team that excels in exceeding expectations, it's this one. And hey, listen, I'm hungry to be astounded.

But I'm also hedging my bets -- not in the sense that I'm worried about being right or wrong about this show, because who needs that sort of responsibility. No, I'm afraid I'll fall in love with Caprica, and then it will be taken away from me like so many other risky sci-fi shows before it. Theoretically this series has wings -- a built-in audience hungry for intelligent science fiction and fresh from the burning heartache of BSG's grandiose finale. However, with nary a space battle in sight, it's quite likely the folks who never got into Galactica's character aspects will abandon this exercise after the first hour and never look back.

That's not to say Caprica isn't good or interesting. There is a lot of potential on display here, but the central tenets of Galactica's mythos, namely the differences between biology and technology / science and religion, have already been explored in great detail in this universe. Finding new things to say about these controversies will be difficult. Plus, this pilot was written and filmed before the final 10 episodes of Galactica's epic run were finished... it seems logical to expect a little discontinuity of vision, especially when we know how much the ending of BSG changed after last year's writer's strike.

Short aside: Is it just me or is the Eric Stoltz / Jamie Bamber physical resemblance ridiculously distracting? I kept seeing Lee Adama with 15 extra years and red hair, which is really confusing if you don't stay on top of it.

Now, an unexpected complaint... where are the strong female leads? I love Trixie from Deadwood just as much as everyone, but she was barely in the episode. And Polly Walker (Rome) will run away with this thing if she gets more to do than look devious, but that remains to be seen. And the teenage girls just don't cut it for anyone over the age of 17 who didn't go to Catholic School. Zoe is a vibrant character, but she stopped being female about 20 minutes into the story... and by the end of the pilot she bears more resemblance to Six than Starbuck. One of Galactica's greatest strengths (and Deadwood's for that matter) was the presence of strong, passionate women... Galactica even went so far as to turn male/female stereotypes on their heads. It's hard to judge from just 90 minutes, so again these are just initial impressions... but here is another place we see Caprica suffer from its parentage. It's probably easier to just say this show has big shoes to fill.

I don't mind giving it the chance to try them on, though... because if Stargate Universe was the only science fiction we had coming next year I would probably shoot myself in the spleen.

Caprica will air Friday nights on SyFy in the US and on Sky1 in the UK beginning in 2010.

And Just Like That, She Walked Out of Our Lives Forever

The following article contains MAJOR SPOILERS for all episodes of Battlestar Galactica up to and including the series finale.

Galactica arrived only a few months after Firefly was canceled, at a time when it seemed like great science fiction was not long for this universe. I'm still amazed that the same network heads who are (even now) commissioning yet another Stargate spinoff were able to greenlight a show like Battlestar Galactica... not only to take a risk on re-imagining a classic cult favorite, but to allow its developers to push past the boundaries of the genre and create something dark and ambitious and completely new.

Against the odds, here we are, and it's all over now. As Ron Moore said in his blog on friday, "today there is a show called Battlestar Galactica and tomorrow there was." But even with as much as I loved Galactica, I'm still a little surprised by the emotions it's drudging to the surface. When I first saw Danny Boyle's film Sunshine, I became overwhelmed with fear and wonder at the thought of the magnificent size of space, and how we are all only momentary spikes of laughter, love, and tears -- hurtling through the infinite blackness on this rock that's been called the lucky planet. That each of us has so little time, and what we are able to accomplish with it, is a marvel like no other in the universe. And even if there's nothing else: no god, no angels, no heaven... if this is all there is, especially so, humanity's brief time in the world has purpose.

Galactica's 3-hour, epic finale has a similar message, despite its reliance on contrivances like angels and destiny (those are mere sidenotes). After years of running, trapped together like sardines, 38,000 men and women are able to make final land-fall, having reached journey's end at last. It's an uncharacteristically happy ending, too, rooted in finding joy and meaning in an existence that is far from certain and way too short. Lives have been lost in the struggle, as all lives will be lost eventually, but for now these few (these happy few) have found peace.

I'm waxing a little poetic, I know... it's difficult to remain objective when you're facing down such grandiose ideas and emotions, trying to tame them as you work through your grief. And that's what is on display here: grief. Amazingly, Moore & Co. have cemented these characters that we love into reality -- I suffer their loss deeply, much more so than I expected. I feel as connected to them now as I do to the far future Eloi of H.G. Wells' The Time Machine. Indeed, these two are closely related -- living clean and free without the trappings of science and technology. There's something awfully romantic about that, sort of a head nod to the inevitability of death; or, if you like, a sneer at the inherent futility of life (depending on your personal philosophy).

The point is we gotta find our happiness where we can, and the survivors of the Colonial Fleet have done that -- I have no interest in arguing the finer points of the plot; frankly, as far as I'm concerned, if you didn't get this episode you never liked the series. I don't find the convenience of God and Angels to be a cop-out, and I think it's entirely reasonable that the colonials would desire to leave their technology behind and start fresh. This isn't a show that was ever about a plot that had to advance from point to point in linear fashion. Much like Deadwood or The Wire, Battlestar Galactica was about characters making decisions, and acting in the best way they know; the deus ex machina is an afterthought, a way to give meaning to the things we (and the characters) don't understand.

Shit happens, and maybe none of it means a damn thing, but for a period of time we've got a chance to be in love, to grow up, to make decisions, to breathe in and out and in again. Whatever your politics, or your religion, or your gods-damned views on popular culture, we can all agree that merely being alive is a rare gift. Of the thousands of millions of stars out there, it's quite likely we're all alone out here in the dark, pushing ever onward into an uncertain future. And the only real, verifiable constant is that each of us touches the rest in a continuous line down through history, unbroken and glistening. Call it DNA, call it destiny, call it late for dinner, it doesn't matter. What does matter is, as Laura Roslin says with her final breath, "there's so much life..."

TIFF 08 - $9.99

Immediately after the screening, star Geoffrey Rush was on stage to answer questions, along with the writer and director. When asked about his choice to play an Angelic Hobo in $9.99 (pronounced "nine dollars ninety-nine" by its creators), Rush mentioned the sordid pleasure he took participating in a film with "puppets having sex". And although anyone who saw Team America wouldn't necessarily consider it a novelty per se, director Tatia Rosenthal's substantive approach to stop-motion love-making does lend the concept some much needed gravitas.

Rush is a bit player here, despite his character's long, gnarly fingers dipping into every tangled plotline -- the inexorable hand of Fate, or God, or Whatever -- pushing each character toward happiness or despair... and in some cases both. His hobo wanders in and out of the film's Sydney apartment building, bumming cigarettes, spewing expletives, and stirring up the lives of its unhappy residents, often via disturbingly violent means, and almost always without any general sense of plan or meaning.

I don't normally give plot synopses, because the films I see are fairly mainstream, but we made a concerted effort to pick (mostly) smaller features at TIFF, because the bigger films (like Burn After Reading) will be coming to a Theater Near Me in the next couple months, so why fly to Canada to watch 'em? Because of this, I kinda see the need to provide a little context. So I guess I'll refer you to the official description over at the TIFF website.

Right around the time young Dave Peck receives his copy of "How to Swim like a Dolphin", the various plot threads begin to pull tight, and a tapestry of lives that seemed only tangentially related begins to emerge. Each character, like each of us, is earnestly and constantly seeking love, acceptance, and happiness -- though of course these things are not always connected. When they are, however (as in Lenny's bizarre desire to physically change himself to please a woman), we are presented with stirring and powerful metaphors that challenge our own moralities even as they reinforce our expectations. Is it really okay for him to embrace his desire to literally ruin himself for the sake of love? It's a silly notion, but it lays bare the underlying truth: we often expect our lovers to change, much as they expect it of us. And while most of us (certainly I) see this as negative, we're asked to allow Lenny's happiness to supersede our own hard-coded notions of good and bad, right and wrong.

Ultimately, it's a story about finding your own path to joy -- and while you could take away a Religious Message if you wanted to, the concepts of God, Fate, and Angels are really just a loose covering for something far more humanistic: the interrelatedness of all things; the way each of our actions affect others on and on down through the history of the entire species. The way love and optimism find us in the places we least suspect. And that's not a novelty either; it's the Experience Homo Sapiens. But here, in this marvelous stop-motion film, bits of clay and wire are allowed to represent the core, most powerful facets of our lives and emotions, and to give us the chance to look at ourselves as simply bits of flesh and bone, hurtling through time and space, together.