Warning: There might be some spoilerish material here.
I finally took the time to watch the pilot for Caprica, which is the pilot for the Battlestar Galactica prequel/spin-off. Overall, I liked it. Very different feel from the original show, but you definitely feel like you’re in that universe. There’s just a couple of things that I have to nitpick.
First off, Adama’s dad accidentally gets involved with the creation of the Cylons? That feels a bit forced to me, like the producers decided they needed to hit the fans really on the head that there are real ties to BSG and the future that awaits this universe. Okay, I suppose, but it seems sort of forced. Even though they don’t get too deeply into it in the other show, you might think Adama might have some memories about some of this stuff happening since he’s 11 years old in this show (making him 69 years old when the attack on the 12 colonies happens? Shit, Edward James Olmos was only 59 when they made the mini-series in 2003!). This sort of backwards retconning drives me nuts. Not as much as some of the fanboys, but nuts enough.
Secondly, and I’m sure this will develop more as we go along but it’s worth mentioning, do the Cylons evolve from the memories of a 16 year old girl? While I have to give RDM and company credit for how they explain the Cylon’s monotheism here, this seems a bit silly. Sure, it explains why the Number 1’s (Cavils) are so damn petulant, but still kind of silly overall. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt on this one because they do have the whole series to evolve how this turns into the Cylons we know and love (and hate).
Overall, I’m pleased with the show and I think it will be worth my DVR’ing. Hopefully we can get deeper than two seasons before RDM effect kicks in and the show blows its load all over itself.
(Side note for the uninitiated, which would be all of you: RDM Effect is a theory I developed a while back on the old D6 blog that states that stuff that Ron D. Moore touches has a great buildup but climaxes way too early. It’s how I explained how they spent most of the second season of BSG building up this great tension about the Fleet elections and Baltar’s running for President and Roslin’s having all of these cancer induced visions about Baltar colluding with Caprica Six before the attacks and just when it should have crescendoed into something really awesome in the season finale, all they threw at us was that Roslin weakly tried to steal the election and then flash forward one year to Baltar as the drugged up President on New Caprica. No matter what RDM and co try to tell us about doing one of those Lost-like shifts in time to move the story along, they frakked up a good thing. It was good, but never as good, for the last two seasons, and I for one am glad it ended when it did. RDM effect in action, folks.)
