TV Review at The House Next Door: Caprica - "Rebirth"

by Tony Dayoub

Those interested in Friday's Caprica episode, "Rebirth," the first of its weekly hourlong entries, can read my recap, up now at The House Next Door. "Rebirth" should be on heavy rotation this week on the Syfy Channel.

Continue reading at The House Next Door

TV Review at The House Next Door: Caprica - "Pilot"

by Tony Dayoub

Those interested in last night's debut of Caprica, the Battlestar Galactica spinoff, can read the first of my weekly recaps up now at The House Next Door, now the offical blog for Slant Magazine. The premiere should be on heavy rotation all weekend on the Syfy Channel.

Continue reading at The House Next Door

Interview: Battlestar Galactica's Ronald D. Moore on Virtuality - Part 2

In Part 1 of this interview, Ronald D. Moore described how Virtuality (an unsold pilot airing at 8-10 p.m. ET/PT on FOX) differs from the show that was his claim to fame, Battlestar Galactica. Today he goes further, expanding on some of the details that set Virtuality apart from other well-known science fiction series. In terms of how Virtuality's virtual reality and reality show aspects comes into play, Moore wondered, "What would NASA or the space confederation do at that point to keep them from going crazy? They’d probably have a really advanced virtual reality program to help them while away the hours, and there’s interaction between those two worlds. "Somewhere in those discussions we started talking about when they would be broadcasting pieces back to earth, obviously, like astronauts do today, and hey, what if they made a reality show out of that? Then it all kind of started to come together. You had these three layers of storytelling going on in the show where you had what was happening in the real world on the ship, what was happening in the virtual space, and then what was the reality show that was seen back on earth. Were the needs of the reality show starting to impact what was happening on the spacecraft? Were people being manipulated in order to make better drama for the reality show? The astronauts themselves would start to wonder about, 'Are they telling us the truth about what’s happening back on earth, or is that something to just get us to be upset for the cameras?' It did sort of become this really interesting sort of psychological crucible that they would all be put in." Concerning the similarities to Caprica's virtual reality subplot, Moore says, "They do have different purposes and different sorts of constructs to them. They both involve putting a set of goggles on your face, so they’re similar in sort of that perspective. In Caprica it’s really much more akin to the Internet where you go out and the virtual spaces are practically infinite and they intersect with one another. On Caprica you can go from the V-Club where we establish in the pilot is sort of a hacked world and then, presumably, there are Worlds of Warcraft type of worlds, etc., etc. It’s all sort of interconnected into their version of the Internet. "In Virtuality we’re looking at something much more discrete, much smaller, much more of a gaming type of environment where an astronaut has a specific virtual reality module that they go into and play whatever game or have whatever experience they want, but there is no expectation that you can cross from one module to another." Moore also gave an intriguing taste of what one could expect in Battlestar Galactica: The Plan, a movie that reframes the events of the defunct series through the Cylons' perspective. "I think there are definitely surprises. It’s really a piece for people who love the show. If you love the show you’re probably going to be really intrigued by The Plan, because it’s going to have all of these little bread crumbs and throw away lines and indicators and suggestions from other episodes. You’ve seen the show. You’ve watched the finale. You know how the story ends. Okay, here’s like an additional slant on some things that you didn’t know about." But Moore really hopes his fans tune into FOX tonight to try Virtuality. "It certainly does not resolve itself in two hours. I mean it sets up for a [series], so it’s got some pretty heavy things that go down in it and kind of leaves you going, 'Whoa! Where is that going?' by the end of it." Virtuality airs tonight at 8-10 p.m. ET/PT on FOX.

Interview: Battlestar Galactica's Ronald D. Moore on Virtuality - Part 1

Ronald D. Moore, executive producer and developer of the late, great Battlestar Galactica, is an ambitious man. In addition to two Galactica follow-ups—TV movie The Plan (which airs this fall), and prequel series Caprica (airing in 2010)—Moore is hoping the new science fiction pilot he co-created, Virtuality (airing Friday, June 26th, at 8-10 p.m. ET/PT on FOX), will prove popular enough with viewers to go to series. Virtuality follows Earth’s first starship, the Phaeton, and its crew of 12 astronauts who embark on a 10-year journey critical to the survival of life on Earth. They have reached the point of no return where the crew must commit to traveling to a distant solar system millions of miles away. If they commit, they cannot turn back. Tensions are heightened even further as surveillance cameras capture their every move for The Edge of Never, a reality series back on Earth. To give the crew a vital recreational outlet on the long journey, the ship has been equipped with revolutionary virtual reality modules. Each crew member can assume avatar-like identities—from a war hero to a rock star to secret lovers—as they explore self-created worlds in the ultra-life-like simulators. These are their psychological lifelines, and each module’s unique setting was chosen by the crew member before departing Earth. But there is a bug in the system. As crew members go in and out of reality, they realize that a virus has entered their private world. Is someone on the crew responsible? When the intruder crosses a violent and disturbing line, Commander Frank Pike (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) makes a difficult decision to shut down the modules. But before he can, a tragic event threatens the mission. Is it an accident or a crime? Real or virtual? I spoke to Moore about Virtuality, asking him how the idea for sci-fi thriller came up. "It was an unusual situation in that [executive producers] Gail Berman and Lloyd Braun had wanted to have a sit down—a general meeting with me—and then separately they wanted to have a sit down meeting with Michael Taylor, who was one of the writers on Battlestar. So I sat down with Lloyd and Gail, and in that conversation Lloyd had this idea of, 'I would like to do a show about the first long-range mission to Mars.' We kind of talked about that a little bit in just a get-to-know-you meeting, and kind of expanded on the idea of what a long-range mission would be. "They had a similar meeting with Mike Taylor. The same kind of topic came up. He sparked to it from sort of a different angle, and then Michael and I started talking about it separately. Then the three of us started talking, and it all kind of became this sort of 'Here’s a show.' Then we just took it to FOX. We went into FOX and pitched it to [entertainment president] Kevin Reilly and his team—and they really liked it—and it kind of went from there." When asked how it differs from Galactica, Moore says, "It’s a much less serious situation than Battlestar was dealing with. Battlestar was literally a post-apocalyptic show where the future of humanity rode on their every decision, and death was stalking them continuously. So it’s not set up in the same way. The crew aboard Phaeton signed up for what just seemed like a very straight-ahead mission of exploration and they were chosen with that in mind. They were also chosen to participate in this sort of reality show that’s being broadcast back to Earth. "So there was a conscious attempt on the part of the people who put the crew together to sort of have an interesting mix of people. There are debates within the crew themselves who was chosen just for sort of their demographic content and who was legitimately supposed to be there. Now, you’ve got a group of 12 people stuck in a metal tube going in a straight line for a decade or so, and that’s going to just sort of produce a lot of tensions and frictions and manipulations and sort of cross problems between the characters. It has a stronger element of fun and suspense, and sort of interesting plot terms in terms of what characters will do with one another than did Battlestar. Battlestar was very driven by the internal pressures of the huge weight that was on all of their shoulders from the beginning of the miniseries." In Part 2 of the interview (which will be posted on Friday), Moore will discuss some of the more unique aspects of Virtuality that set it apart from other science fiction series, and give us a taste of what to expect from Battlestar Galactica: The Plan. Virtuality airs Friday, June 26th, at 8-10 p.m. ET/PT on FOX.

Caprica Pilot: A New Chapter for a New Era

With the recent demise of the much beloved Battlestar Galactica, this avid TV watcher found himself mourning the loss of its wonderful characters in a way he seldom has before. Perhaps it was because the series reached what is generally rare for television: a satisfying conclusion. I actually found myself wanting to follow the new adventures these characters had set out on in the final minutes of the show. It is fitting that the science fiction series, an allegory for Bush's "War on Terror" era, would wrap up as America enters a new, hopeful, but more opaque era of economic uncertainty. The new prequel spinoff, Caprica, is a chapter in the Galactica saga that captures the feeling, characteristic of the Obama era, of American life at a crossroads. The opening title card states, "Caprica: 58 Years Before the Fall." It is a world we've seen in glimpses on Galactica, beautiful, glistening buildings forming a gleaming skyline overlooking an ocean. But it is a society on a precipice. It has reached the apex of its civilization and the seeds of its ultimate destruction are being sown right now. It is a world much like our own where there are differing socioeconomic levels because of class and racial bias. And its young people rely on virtual technology to fill the void in their lives where the gradually disintegrating family structure once existed. The Graystones are representative of just such a dysfunctional family. Its patriarch, Daniel (Eric Stoltz), is a Bill Gates-type billionaire genius in the robotics world, struggling to find the missing component necessary to bring his cybernetic life-form nodes to life. Wife Amanda (Paula Malcolmson) is a surgeon. They both have a contentious relationship with their good-hearted but rebellious daughter, Zoe (Alessandra Toreson). Zoe is one of a whole generation of kids that retreat into a virtual world called the V Room, a rave-like atmosphere where one can participate in orgies, Fight Club-like match-ups, or even kill avatars that stand in for people you hate. But Zoe has built a separate room for herself and her friends within the V Room, a spiritual oasis where she and the others can share their newfound monotheistic religion secretly, without being ostracized in Caprica's polytheistic society. More than that, Zoe, apparently a cybernetics wunderkind, has found a way to download enough of her medical, scholastic, economic, and personal data into her virtual avatar that she has imbued it with life in a way that still eludes her father. So when she is killed in a suicide bombing by her religiously radicalized boyfriend, the Zoe avatar is all that's left of her. Here is a scene where Daniel first meets the Zoe avatar: Discovering his daughter's creation, Daniel sees a way to both bring Zoe back into the real world, and resolve the issue with his cybernetic life-form nodes, which we'll henceforth call Cylons. Also killed in the bombing are Joseph Adams' wife and daughter. Adams (Esai Morales) comes from a different planet and background than Graystone. The economically depressed world of Tauron is still crime-ridden as it continues to recover from a civil uprising decades ago, and supplies Caprica with its farming and labor classes. Joseph emigrated from Tauron as a child, and is now a mob lawyer. His brother Sam (Sasha Roiz) is a hit man-for one of the Tauron mob families that Joseph represents-who promises to find out who was responsible for the bombing. Daniel and Joseph soon form an unlikely bond over their shared grief in a wonderful sequence where they go to a cafe, and smoke and drink coffee together for the better part of a day without speaking. Daniel shares his discovery about the new AI technology with Joseph. Despite some reluctance, Joseph is willing to see what it can do. But a haunting scene with his daughter's avatar soon makes Joseph call the whole idea an abomination. Joseph realizes that he must let go of his grief and focus on raising his 11-year-old son. In a portentous scene accentuated by one of composer Bear McCreary's familiar musical motifs from Galactica, Joseph opens up to his son about his background, how he named him William after his own father who died in the uprising, and how he changed their family name from the more ethnic Adama to hide the fact that they are Taurons. William Adama will, of course, grow up to be the protagonist of the previous series. The events in Caprica cleverly foreshadow much of what happens later in Galactica, while still managing to make a clear break with the mother show. The pilot feels a bit overstuffed with characters and ideas that will certainly be delved into later in the series. This also occurred in Galactica, which didn't really show its potential until its first regular episode, "33." My favorite actress from Deadwood, Paula Malcolmson, doesn't get much to do just yet. And I didn't even mention another powerful actress, Rome's Polly Walker, who plays the sinister leader of the cult behind the bombing, Sister Clarice. She establishes a strong presence in the pilot, but she is tangential to this story at the moment. I have a feeling that her true contribution to the series hasn't yet begun. The cinematography by Joel Ransom is a lot less vérité than it was on Galactica, setting a much more formal tone. McCreary's score is more lyrical, weaving in more string motifs throughout while avoiding the drums associated with the mother show... until we get a look at the birth of a Cylon where the drums are a welcome callback to Galactica. Also back is production designer Richard Hudolin who remembers that though this is a prequel, the technology should look newer since this pre-Cylon war society was still a bit more arrogant about its advances. And costume designer Glenne Campbell returns as well, offering some interesting eccentricities in the clothing worn by Capricans, the men wearing fedoras and sporting suits and overcoats much like you'd find in a period piece. Thematically, Caprica picks up where the epilogue to Galactica's final episode left us, with a society overconfident in its technology and dependent on its consumerist creature comforts, but spiritually bankrupt. This new chapter is far more in keeping with the turbulent and confusing times we live in today. Where Galactica's Cylons and their destruction of the Twelve Colonies were clear stand-ins for 9/11 and Al-Qaeda, Caprica could potentially confront the moral gray areas that arise when we are our own enemy. Our country's decline in power and our decisions to throw multiple rescue plans at the problem to see what sticks is alluded to in Graystone's approach to solving his Cylon development issues. Another theme: The social stunting of our youth and the degree it involves computer social networks as a replacement for forming real relationships. Even the spillover of drug violence from Mexico as a result of corruption and economic strife is referred to in the Tauron subplot. And so the Galactica saga begins to take shape in Caprica. While the show's focus is still a bit scattered, there is a lot of substance to this allegorical look at our increasingly complicated times. Caprica debuts in 2010. An extended edition of the pilot will be available on DVD and Digital Download on 4/21/09. This post first appeared at The House Next Door on 4/20/09.

TV Trailer: Caprica

by Tony Dayoub

If you've seen the current incarnation of Battlestar Galactica, then you know it does for science fiction drama what The Dark Knight does for comic book movies. It elevates it past its genre trappings to reflect on today's world events.

But for those who don't buy into spaceships and the like, for those who like their drama a little more grounded, comes a prequel called Caprica. More of a multi-generational story of rivalry between two families, the Adams and the Graystones, in the vein of Dynasty or the current Dirty Sexy Money, Caprica is set fifty years earlier.

It tells of how the events now playing out on Galactica first began in a setting not too different from our own. Starring as Joseph Adams is Esai Morales (NYPD Blue, La Bamba) and as Daniel Graystone, Eric Stoltz (Pulp Fiction, Mask). Also cast so far are Polly Walker (Rome) and Paula Malcolmson (Deadwood).


No word yet on the exact premiere date, but it will appear on the Sci Fi channel. I'll update you with more information as it becomes available.

Click on the picture above to be redirected to the Battlestar Galactica website where you can catch a preview of Caprica.