Oh Caprica!

Sat on the couch for 5 hours last night to watch the last 5 episodes of Caprica. It was so good! Random thoughts, trying to avoid spoilers:

1. Many twists and turns -- so many characters were revealed to be different than presented in the past. Stand outs: Joseph and Willie Adama. So totally did not see those twists coming.
2. Compressed storytelling -- I usually like watching multiple episodes at once, but having 5 back to back, without time in between to digest each episode, kind of gave me whiplash. I feel like things moved too quickly, one after the other, that I missed details. And there are scenes I want to go back and see again. I am definitely getting the DVDs. Though I still balk at the price.
3. Good to see Amanda Greystone in action as the plastic surgeon she is. Makes perfect sense that she's that kind of doctor.
4. It felt rushed; I'm sure that's because the creators knew that they wouldn't be renewed and had to get all the storylines tied up. But it's such a rich world, it could have gone on for years. At least 3 if not the 5 that BSG got or Buffy's 8.

The stuff I want to know more about, still:
1. What was Lacy's story? So much about her character's arc was left out.
2. What happened to Tamara? Are we to assume that she traveled the same arc as Zoe?

All in all, a very satisfying prequel to BSG. Just sad it's over.

How Much for Caprica?!?

Caprica 1.5 comes out on DVD today. Amazon.com is selling both 1 and 1.5 together for $73.48 (what kind of pricing is that?).

And what kind of pricing is that? Nearly $74 for less than 15 episodes? I liked the show; it was appointment television for me. But I'm balking at the price. I'm gonna have to Netflix it instead of buying it.

Which makes me wonder: what's the economics at play here? By not buying the DVDs, am I confirming that there was no audience for the show? That there's not chance that another network (oh, like AMC) would pick it up?

Or should I just enjoy it and accept that it was a good show.... and there's only one season. Like it's just one novel, not part of a trilogy, as much as I would like it to be.

I'm getting to that point with Firefly. I keep following Whedonesque and am rewatching Dollhouse Season 2, so will stay interested in the 'Verse, but not hoping that it will continue on the web or in comix.

I feel that Buffy the Vampire Slayer the comics have (has?) wander far, far afield from what I enjoyed about it as a show. Granted, I need to rewatch it, but more slowly, and really pay attention. I'm happy to have Shepherd Book's back story, finally, but I think as a periodical medium, comics don't work as well for me.

I contrast this to graphic novels, like Fun Home, or Persepolis, or Maus, which are written as one piece, and meant to be read as one piece.

Okay, I'm not sure where I'm going this train of thought. It's wandered a bit from the price of Caprica DVDs.

Oh, back to the economics/logic of the Caprica 1.5 release: why do it now, when Syfy won't air the last 5 episodes (presumably on the DVDs) until January? I understand the buy-it-for-Xmas push for pretty much any sale, but it still doesn't make much sense to me.

Finished BSG, Still miss Caprica

So I finished Battlestar Galactica on Sunday.

I knew there was controversy about angels, so when the revelation came, I wasn't outraged.

My favorite parts were:
1. Roslin and Adama. I got all teary-eyed at the end. Made me think of the ending of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. So close and yet one of them died. At least they had a measure of happiness at the end.
2. Athena, Helo, and Hera. Grace Park did an amazing job over the season playing at least 3 different variations on Eight: Boomer, who was actually 2 characters: the one who thought she was Sharon Valerii; and the one who knew she was a Cylon; and Athena. Tricial Helfer was good too, playing all those versions of Six.
3. Sam the Hybrid, going off into the night.
4. The Centurions being given their freedom
5. The settlement of Earth by the humans and Cylons with the human ancestors.
6. Gaius Baltar and Caprica Six settling down on a farm. Kind of hard to see it actually happening, since they're both so urbane. But sweet to see.

Question it left me: If the Hera, the mitochodrial Eve, was found 150,000 years later, what about all the technology and settlements the BSG humans left behind?

It made me really miss Caprica, though. I wanted to see how Tamara and Zoe in V-world became the Cylons. How did the V-world become Cylon projection? How did Tamara and Zoe or whoever create Ellen, Tory, Tigh, Sam, and Tyrol? How did the other Cylon models come about? Who made them? What happened to the Adamas? Amanda? Lacey? Clarice and her multi-family? The different threads in Caprica were just beginning to come together and then Syfy pulled the plug. Won't even show the last 5 episodes until sometime next year. Gah.

There's some talk in the blogosphere that Caprica should move to AMC, home of slow-building drama. That's something I've thought too. I wonder what it would take to make that happen.

So, now that my one show, Caprica, is gone I've turned the Walking Dead as my appointment TV. It helps that it's filmed around where I live. Last night, as part of our evening walk, Husband and I walked down to Fairlie Poplar (where the horse went down and the tank was located in ep 1), and the Southern Business District, where ep 2 takes place. Saw no zombies. Added bonus, it's appointment TV for both Husband and I. I think it's the first show we share since we stopped watching the Simpsons.

And for my sci-fi fix, I'm watching Season 3 of Fringe on Hulu. Not as into it as I was with Caprica and Leverage, but the 2 Earths idea is enough to keep me watching.

Walking Dead, Sherlock Holmes on PBS, and other thoughts on Caprica

I watched the Walking Dead on AMC this weekend, even though I'm not into zombies. However, it's set in Atlanta so I was very interested in seeing what I would recognize. Husband watched with me too. As has been noted everywhere, it's a very good show.

We didn't realize that it was a 90 minute episode so at the 60 minute mark turned off the TV. But it had a sense of closure at that point. I went to bed thinking, "well next ep is where Rick goes to Atlanta." I'm satisfied with what I saw, esp with Morgan and Duane's story arc. Can't wait to see next week's ep."

We'll have to catch up online later. I kind of like that better, because then I can pause to scrutinize the background.

I've been listening to the podcast Talking TV with Ryan and Ryan They mention that the success of The Walking Dead may lead to a slew of zombie shows next year but not as good.

Apparently Mo Ryan and Ryan McGee both like Rubicon, another show on AMC. I've watched one or two episodes but AMC is not one of my go-to channels. They loved Rubicon and do mention that each episode is slow but it delves into the work and lives of national security analysts who have to wade through massive amounts of information and make sense of it. They like that the eps have depth and some may seem unrelated to anything but by the end of the season, it all comes together really well. However, they don't like Caprica.

As I listened to the podcast, I was thinking, all the things they like about Rubicon, are the things I like about Caprica! My previous post was about this, so I won't go over it again. However, I'm thinking "You praise Rubicon for it, but complain about Caprica for it. And you're BSG fans. I don't get this."

Anyway, I don't know that I'll join the send an apple, save Caprica movement. I haven't decided.

And in other BSG news, I have only the last 2 eps of the series at home. Will watch it on Sunday afternoon. I know it's controversial because of some characters being revealed as angels, but I don't know anything else about it. Looking forward to it.

The other night as well, Husband and I watched the PBS series Sherlock Holmes instead of the baseball world series. That's pretty meaningful considering Husband's a baseball fan and had a bet riding on the outcome.

Anyone who thinks serial scripted TV shows are worthless needs to see The Walking Dead and Sherlock Holmes. They are really good shows, so good that this long post is the result. And especially the Walking Dead. The Holmes episodes, being 90 minutes long, are like self-contained mini-movies. The Walking Dead is definitely telling one big long story.

Kind of like Caprica! Yes, I'm still a bit bitter about it. This is the first show that I really liked that got the Firefly treatment. Now I know how the first Browncoats feel, speaking as a later convert.

Caprica Cancelled.

Frak.

It did a lot of world building w/ great ideas about family, technology, artificial intelligence, culture, religion, the afterlife, politics, business and all kinds of possibilities. With compelling and complex characters, many of whom were women and girls. Things that i want from good drama and sci fi.

But, Caprica had no space fights so it got cancelled. Frak SyFy. I no longer have any reason to watch that channel. At least not until next year when they air the last episodes.

And what was the point of airing 9 eps, wait 6 months, air 3 eps, then cancel and air the last 4 or so eps yet another 3 mos later? No wonder the audience was shrinking.

Damn

eta: lots of great articles out there lamenting its end. I really like this one http://www.tor.com/blogs/2010/10/rip-caprica-we-hardly-frakking-knew-you#more

ReCaprica

Caprica returns in 2 weeks. Very much looking forward to it. Here's a snarky, 2 minute recap, done by Syfy channel themselves.



Even with all the steampunk reading, I am still making it through the last season of Battlestar Galactica. Got to the point when they've just found Earth.

The Woman King and Four of the Final Five

Progress shot of my Babette blanket. I'm using black as the final round of each square. I really like how the oranges really pop. Makes me think of the juicies vs blahs rule discussed in the first Mason-Dixon Knitting book, about the miter square blanket. You need blah colors like tan, taupe, moss, etc for the juicy colors like lime, fushia, orange, etc to pop against.

I've been watching Leverage for the commentary and listening to the Battlestar Galactica podcasts. I love the discussion about how they decided to tell the story they told.

I finished BSG season 3 and have seen four of the final five cylons revealed. I knew who they were already, since I read up on them on Wikipedia. Still, it was very interesting to see how it happened.

I also watched the Woman King, widely cited as one of the worst episodes. That's all I knew about it, but based on the title, I assumed it had something to do with President Laura Roslin. It was about the ethnic discrimination against the Sagitarrons and was actually Hel0-centric.

In the podcast commentary, Ron Moore mentioned that he wanted BSG to break new ground and that this episode didn't do that. On the other hand, the Leverage commentaries say "you may call it a trope, I call it a time honored storytelling device."

I liked it anyway because it showed more about the different cultures on the different colonies. I'm a sociologist working with refugees and immigrants from every continent (other Antartica), so culture is very interesting to me. That's what makes Caprica appealing to me.

Also liked the episode "Dirty Hands" which discussed class issues in the colonies and one the ships. And it was written by Jane Espenson who wrote for Buffy, Firefly and now produces Caprica and Warehouse 13.

The BSG podcast mentioned that The Woman King was supposed to be Dualla-focused but became Helo-focused. Dirty Hands was supposed to be Dualla-focused but became Tyrol-focused. I am really disappointed by the way Dualla is treated. Moore talks about her in the commentary as being a very important character but that's not what we see in the way she's actually treated and shown in the episodes.

Even so, all in all, I think BSG ended season three strongly. Just got Razor today from Netflix but will watch it tomorrow, as I work some more on Babette. If only I could do this every day...

Caprica midseason assessment

So, last night was the last episode before the midseason break. Why is there a midseason break? Some one explain this to me please.

Any, my thoughts on the show so far.

Caprica is appointment TV for me. I don't mind the pacing. There are lots of things going on and the quiet moments give you time to get to know that characters and worlds better.

I haven't watched BSG and don't plan to until after Caprica.

There are people who don't like the Amanda and Joseph storylines but they make sense to me. They've lost dearly loved family members and that would make people lose their minds. Some people subsume their grief into work (Daniel), some turn it inwards -- Amanda into her own crazy past, Joseph into V-world.

Heck, I'm under a lot less stress than them and there are days when I would rather stay in bed and escape to a virtual world. Oh, wait, I already do that. It's called DVD marathons on the couch.

I like that Emmanuelle was Evelyn. Joseph told her to look up Heracles/Tad, so she did. He didn't tell her why, but it makes sense that once she found Tad, she'd ask him what's up. Then Joseph got Heracles kicked out of NCC so Evelyn stepped in to help Joseph. And believe me, if I had a chance to look like Emmanuelle and act like a hardened gangster, I would.

Another plus is Daniel's descent in his own way to madness. It looked like he has his act together but clearly he doesn't.

He lost Zoe, he decided to steal tech from a competitor, that theft's come to light. He's losing his company, his team, as well as his family, and soon, probably his mind too. In the preview for the next half we see Daniel unshaven on the couch, even as in this ep we see that Joseph finally gets off the couch.

Everyone has hard choices to make and has behaved in shades of grey. I like that about this show.

What I would like to see/looking forward to finding out:
1. More Sam Adama, with or without his shirt. And what happened to his husband Larry?
2. More Tamara. How does she build a life in NCC? Can she get out? Does she and Zoe ever interact again?
3. More Lacy. She's killed people now. Even if Clarice survived, that bomb surely has killed other people. What does that do to her relationship with Keon and Barnabus? Does she go crazy too?
4. I hope Amanda survives, but how?
5. More Cyrus. More Tsattie. More Tauron life.

I don't mind giving a show time to find it's legs. The collateral material really interests me too: the podcasts with the frank discussions about budget, time, storytelling; and the composer's blog about how he creates the music which is another layer of the show.

It all adds up to win for me.