Caprica: The Final Episodes

[Aeolius]

Syfy aired the final 5 episodes of Caprica, last night (now available on iTunes).

I admit that I feel somewhat cheated.

I do not feel cheated that the series was cancelled. In that, I am disappointed. I feel cheated by seeing the final minutes of the final episode. They were...outstanding!

If they had compressed the entire season into 4 episodes, then expanded upon the final few minutes of the last episode to complete the season, it would have been golden.

Still, just like the Dresden Files, Surface and the pilot for Aquaman, Caprica will hold a treasured place in my iTunes Library.

 

[Ahnehnois]

(Also on Hulu)

I'm beginning to watch. The first of this last bunch was a much more directed and entertaining show than we've seen. I can see why it was necessary to set things up, but the pace of the early episodes didn't seem like it was fast enough and that's when the show needed to catch an audience. I think it just took them too long to figure out what the show was.

Even now, they've got a lot of great cast and characters but some I vehemently dislike (not in the sense I got with many BSG characters of disliking them as people but finding them interesting). The production values contiue to be excellent. I'm sure good work will come out of the same people in the future.

I still can't see any compelling reason for a non-BSG fan to watch the show, and even the BSG fans I know aren't terribly interested. I would rather have seen a full season of Virtuality.

 

[Aeolius]

still can't see any compelling reason for a non-BSG fan to watch the show, and even the BSG fans I know aren't terribly interested.

I never could get into the BSG reboot. It just never seemed interesting, to me. Caprica, on the other hand, piqued my interest.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Based on the ratings, there aren't many people that did that. A shame, perhaps, but that's why the show didn't last.

I think watching this show before BSG would be a very interesting experience.

 

[coyote6]

Argh, I missed 'em. Just switched to U-verse, and hadn't gotten the DVR fully redone. Oh well, DVDs, Netflix, or Hulu, I guess.

I thought Caprica was the most science fictiony SF TV show I'd seen -- digitizing human consciousnesses and the implications thereof, the virtual world & how people acted there, etc. Plus it seemed like they were maybe doing actual worldbuilding (with the Taurons & so forth), rather than just making things up as they went along, which BSG probably could have used a bit more of, ahem.

 

[Fast Learner]

Just finished watching them. I'm really glad they finished out the last episode like that. Obviously we knew that eventually the Cylons would revolt, and that the "skin job" plan was in motion, so they didn't have to follow it through, but I'm very glad they did.

It does make you wonder if there were unseen Zoe models in BSG or if she was a one-off, or what have you.

 

[Ahnehnois]

The big mythos thing to me was at what point the Final Five arrived and linked up with these cylons, but that's probably a big leap ahead.

The gag at the end with "Billy" Adama was both a heartwarming origin story and a massive soap-opera cheeseout. More the latter, in my opinion.

I thought Caprica was the most science fictiony SF TV show I'd seen -- digitizing human consciousnesses and the implications thereof, the virtual world & how people acted there, etc.

The concept is at once a big push (could you really create a believable facsimile from public records?) and socially relevant (given all the information about ourselves we willingly and unwillingly put out online). It didn't seem like they ever did much with the issue (they spent a lot of time talkong about whether the avatars were real, but ultimately characters just seemed to accept the visceral nature of seeing a dead person, and the question was never really answered), but maybe that's because it was a character that wasn't really established before she died. The big implication for the BSG universe is to ask what is resurrection. There was never much technical explanation, but the cylons always said their consciousness was "downloaded" from the dying body; which in Caprica is clearly not what is happening, it's being recreated.

All in all it was a pretty good end for a show that was ambitious but never lived up to its potential.

 

[Fast Learner]

The big implication for the BSG universe is to ask what is resurrection. There was never much technical explanation, but the cylons always said their consciousness was "downloaded" from the dying body; which in Caprica is clearly not what is happening, it's being recreated.

I don't think it's all that clear. There was a strong implication that the consciousness was being uploaded when the one tech guy noted that the martyrs didn't have to go through the pain of dying, that their consciousnesses could be removed before the bomb went off.

That tells me that after the upload the body is left empty of consciousness, which is an upload. I don't think he was saying that the consciousness uploaded to heaven wouldn't need to experience it but the original still would.

 

[Krug]

I liked Caprica more than the last two seasonf of BSG but haven't bothered to catch these final episodes.. must find time to do so.

 

[wingsandsword]

Just finished watching them. I'm really glad they finished out the last episode like that. Obviously we knew that eventually the Cylons would revolt, and that the "skin job" plan was in motion, so they didn't have to follow it through, but I'm very glad they did.

It does make you wonder if there were unseen Zoe models in BSG or if she was a one-off, or what have you.

The idea that Cylons were working on "skin jobs" before they left known space at the end of the Cylon Wars was shown already, in the BSG: Razor TV Movie, with flashbacks to Bill Adama discovering a Cylon research facility in the last hours of the Cylon War where imprisoned humans were being experimented on and Cylons were doing various grisly experiments and cloning/bioengineering attempts, and had finished creating the first fully functional Hybrid. . .at which point they decide to withdraw from known space and call off the war.

Now add the layers added to that from Caprica and the last season of BSG to figure out the Cylon agenda and mindset.