caprica

[bedlamsbard]

Caprica! I have finished it, mostly by virtue of the fact I watched approximately two-thirds of the season yesterday. (I just couldn't stop.) I'd seen all of it except for the last five eps that didn't air in the U.S., and gosh, those eps are when it gets really, really good.

I love how the Graystones are basically the WASPiest couple that ever did WASP -- except I guess in BSG world they're more like White Caprican Polytheist Monogamists? Or something -- and by the end they are so kickass. You keep expecting them to fall apart, and -- they just never do. (Also, I have realized that my Chaucer professor looks a lot like Eric Stoltz, which is kind of disconcerting.)

And Lacy! Lacy and her big damn journey, from the scared schoolgirl to the religious leader, gosh, she is so impressive and so kickass.

And the Adamas! Occasionally Bear McCreary throws in the strains of the Adama trauma drama theme ("Wander My Friends", if we're being specific) from BSG. I do wonder when the PTB made the decision to kill off Willie and substitute Bill, because it seems like the kind of decision that's made when you've already filmed half the season and then someone does the math and realizes it doesn't quite add up for Bill Adama's age, so then you do a bait-and-switch with a dead brother with the same name. (I have no idea if that was the actual decision process the PTB went through.) In some ways that weakens the Adama plotline for me, since it starts out so epically with the audience going, "OMG BILL ADAMA HAS BEEN TIED TO THE CYLONS FOREVER." And he has! But not the way that you start out thinking.

Like I said to scy, I do wish that the show had world-built the polytheistic religion better -- it tends towards window-dressing, which makes me sad, because I remember being so pathetically grateful when I first started watching BSG that you had this amazing modern/advanced civilization that was polytheistic. But they do pretty well on the monotheists. (You know. Considering that most of what we see of them are the terrorists.)

ALSO HAVE I MENTIONED THAT I LOVE THE FUTURE/RETRO FEEL OF THIS SHOW. It's the combo of fifties costume porn (or...some era, anyway) and virtual reality and spaceships! And gangsters! And robots! Even though it deals with a lot of the same themes as BSG, the feel of the show, the setting, the look, the characters, are just so completely different.

There are a couple of loose ends that never got tied up -- I think most of the GDD stuff, since Youngblood never comes back and Agent Duram is in limbo at the hospital and we never find out who shot him. And Tamara Adama -- we never see her again, so for all we know she's still out there all alone in V-world. I think those are the two main ones? (Well, and they complete drop the Athena Academy as a setting. *hands*)

For a one-season show (DAMN YOU SYFY), it hangs together really well and sets up BSG nicely. Although I guess the arrival of the skinjobs is a wee bit early, since by BSG they're all, "WTF, Cylons look like us now?" Although there's something really inhuman about resurrected Zoe.

The one thing that really annoys me is the appearance of Head!Zoe in episode, um, I don't remember. According to the BSG Wiki (oh my god, keep it away from me, once you check in you can't check out), they originally want Head Six in, but they couldn't get Tricia Helfer. *hands* It is just too obvious for me, but it's such a small part of the show (only one episode) that it doesn't really matter.

In conclusion: OMG SHOW.

I have a theory about what happened to V-world, but it looks like it's going to come out in fic since it's a little handwavey.

In further conclusion: Caprica vid rec! (Which looks like it came out early in the season, since it doesn't have a lot of the bits from the back half.) Brand New You're Retro by hollywoodgrrl.