CAPRICA - WAS IT GOOD? 

I was so disappointed when Caprica was cancelled, it had such potential!

I loved Caprica. Filled with potential. A shame they never got the proper time.

I loved Caprica, myself. Galactica is my all-time favorite show, but I had always wished it built more into the world of the Twelve Colonies, and I was thrilled to see them do exactly that with Caprica.

What I liked about it was how it revealed more about the culture of the 12 Colonies prior to the events of BSG.

According to the book SO SAY WE ALL, Jane Espenson, who wrote for BSG as well as some Buffy and DS9 episodes, was originally set as the showrunner after Ronald D. Moore got things started. But it later became clear that she was not comfortable in that leadership role as a hard decision maker and would prefer to just be a writer (her career afterwords essentially indicates this). So Kevin Murphy (who later did DEFIANCE) took over for the rest of the series. That would definitely explain why the series has so many narrative problems as you pointed out.

I loved that show because it expanded the background lore of BSG. Like if Star Wars had a drama that took place on Coruscant that show's the lives of average citizens instead of space wizards, bounty hunters and galactic warfare.

I couldn’t really get into BSG but loved Caprica. Just finished rewatching it and it made me miss it all over again.

I happened to find a copy of the full series on DVD at a local Pawn Brokers. It only cost $5AU. I later on found the DVD of the extended pilot for $5AU from a Charity Shop. Not half bad for a complete series!

I loved Caprica. I think they gave up on it too easily. Some shows needs a season or two to find thier footing. It had so much potential and really gave a good hypothesis as to how machines could develop sentience.

I liked Caprica. You got to see how the Cylons got started. I wonder what ultimately happened to Zoe? Did she have anything to do with the Cylons rebelling? The show was cut short

It's too bad they didn't decide to do a decent first Cylon War show, especially since the Battlestar Galatica Deadlock game tells the story very well

I ALWAYS knew that Willy Adama wasn't the same William Adama that we know from Battlestar Galactica. Young Willy had brown eyes whereas William Adama has blue eyes (Edward James Olmos wore contact lenses). That was a dead giveaway.

"This isn't just our world with the serials filed off" But caprica city IS just Vancouver with the serials filed off.

I loved Caprica. Especially the finale. I would watch Eric Stolz read the phone book though.

I think it’s accurate that there was about 5 episodes of gristle that could have been cut out. It would have tightened the plot and made it meander less. The thing that gets me the most is the final episode because they tried to blow through the rest of the plot for the next several seasons because they knew the show was cancelled. I think the William/Bill bait and switch may have also never happened although William was too old to have properly fit in the timeline. One detail you missed is that Bill was born after William died by DaddyDama and his second wife. I believe that all happened in the last TL;DW episode. The Final Five were also set to appear in later seasons since they were actual ‘Cylons’ traveling to Caprica to try and rejoin the Twelve Colonies. It coulda been magnificent. Too bad SyFy is a garbage dump.

What hurt Caprica was they couldn't rando break to a space dogfight to rock the pace for max appeal. But I loved it. The timing of the drop couldn't have been worse. Sort of like ST Enterprise, just as they were setting up the Romulan war.

I always suspected that the hybrid man in razor was Daniel greystone

One of the other things Caprica had going against it was showrunner Jane Espenson. Same person who brought us American Torchwood and BSG: The Plan...

One of my favorites and I would have loved to see the next series that never happened. Very dramatic. Very well made. Great acting and imperfect, imperfect characters. With Zoe showing how the ceylons developed their hatred of humans. Showing the unintentional events that led to the ceylons construction. It can be complex with the different aspects of Zoe as in virtual reality, ceylon and real life. But I still liked that contrast.

The whole two family dynamic was symmetrical but the types of families made for an odd asymmetry. A tech magnate and a mob lawyer? Huh? I was more enthused by the monotheists, the day-to-day life, the sexual norms, the trappings of living, and the Taurons.

It's a flawed show with interesting ideas with cool potential. For a while, there was information floating around online about potential ideas for season two & beyond. Apparently, there would have been a 5 to 10 year time jump into the build-up to the first Cylon war. Lacy would be the new leader of the STO co-oping the movement to push the Cylons into revolution. Zoe would have had visions of Galen Tyrol on his way to the colonies trying to stop the uprising & sharing download tech with her. Apparently, eventually the memory of Zoe would become the base subconscious for the Six models & Tammara Adamma's memory the Subconscious for the Eight/Boomer/Athema line. That last would mean that when Admiral Adama interacts with any Eight he is talking with a version of his sister. I have no idea if any of these rumors were true or how they would've changed during production but they offer tantalising hints as to what might have been.

Good concepts, mixed execution. Definitely ahead of the curve on the idea of resurrecting a person just from their digital footprint (really feels we are just round the corner from that now).

Caprica was cancelled by syfy because syfy cancels everything! They have a huge list of great 1 season programs they shit-canned.

I think it was simply ahead of its time. The plot of caprica and the ethical questions it asked are far more relevant in 2021 than in 2009. It's main issue is its not similar to battlestar in pace and action. Caprica made today but not related to battlestar at all, could be mega good. If they wanted this amazing show to keep its bsg fans, they should have run blood and chrome as a show at the same time. Perhaps one at the start of the year and the other later in the year to fill in fan boredom. Like they did with stargate sg1 when Atlantis was running and when the walking dead and fear the walking dead ran.

I loved Caprica, I actually liked it even more than BSG. I wish it would have been a bigger success.

I liked Caprica and many of the stories were great. That being said at times it seem that the creative minds of the show were showing times of creative fatigue. That maybe due to the years they spent working on BSG and jumping into Caprica right after it ended.

Yes. Very. Life shown on the colonies was so interesting. The fact knowing it takes place 150,000 years in the past makes it more compelling. Loved the characters, the drama. I would loved to know what happened to the Graystone family after the First Cylon War Another interesting note is that the 6’s and 8’s were based off of Zoe and Tamara respectively. Now the scene of Boomer shooting Adama is even more heartbreaking!

I’d like to see how the cardassians changed lore evolution.

I loved BSG and I also loved Caprica but I also love cyberpunk. And I understand why it didn't resonate with most of the BSG audience. I think that it comes down to the fact that cyber-punk is a very hard sell at the best of times and even to other sci-fi fans. And Caprica has all of the cyberpunk trapings, corperate intregue, family drama, organized crime, cybernetics, VR, low life ect.

Short answer: no Long answer: still no but it had potential. We need them to make a series of the first cyclon war.

Reallly liked Caprica ....... especially Polly Walker , so much potential. The world building was exceptional , better even then BSG.

I just wish they would bring back DARK MATTER - at least maybe a 2 hour 1 off movie to finish the story arc -

I enjoyed it. Not as good as BSG but I didn't expect it to be a space adventure so I wasn't disappointed by that. I thought the young actresses did very well. It wouldn't be bad to watch before first watching BSG. Then, as Edward Olmos has suggested, after BSG watch Blade Runner. It works.

The ratings were more to do with the writers strike and SyFy moving away from science fiction. I really love Caprica you could imagine it becoming the show that Blood and Chrome was supposedly going to be a couple of seasons later. I also like the hints of nested simulation. That maybe the Galactica universe is itself a simulation and that God is literally a programmer.

It didn’t help Caprica that it’s original broadcast split the season into 2 parts with almost a year between broadcasts.

Lowkey some of the best television worldbuilding I’ve ever seen. Brilliant depiction of a society choking on its own success, plus the V world approach coupled with monotheistic terrorist recruitment was a disturbingly accurate thing.

Loved the show and still start my Battlestar Galactica marathons with it. The biggest issue I have with it is the timeframe of cylons developing into the menace of BSG show. It is like 50 years and it makes no sense given the information given of cylons in BSG. But that is common problem with prequels. The continuity issues. And best parts are the visualization of virtual reality and decadence of it and the whole society. Not to mention the religion and common people relationships because of it. Actually most relationships in it were portrayed perfectly. None of it was shoved to our faces but presented as a not a big deal, just as casual as anything.

the second half of the season was excellent!

I ABSOLUTELY LOVED CAPRICA! The storylines where fresh and headed in the right direction! It was a seriously great show that was totally pitched to the network and audience wrong! In fact, When they canceled the show and said it was "New Management Wanting To Go In A Different Direction" it was a bridge too far for me... I got up went around my house to all 4 televisions and Blocked the SciFi channel on all my Cable boxes... To this very day they're still blocked. I still feel the show was never even given a chance!!

I was one of the BSG fans (of both the original and reboot) and actually did like the idea of Caprica. What Ronald D. Moore tried to do wasn't a bad idea - don't just show us the First Cylon War, show us how the conflict between the 12 colonies and the Cylons came to be in the first place. What happened that caused the Cylons to turn against their creators in the first place? I also always kind of got the impression that what happened was Daniel Greystone's attempt to put the Zoe Avatar in the body of a Cylon that was what ultimately took the Cylons from just robots with a very good AI program to full sentience as well as giving them a reason to rebel against the humans.

The re-imagined BSG couldn't have been done without it being a BSG story. It ONLY made sense as a reboot of the original series. Caprica was a series about AI gone wrong. It could have been part of Star Trek, or Stargate, or any other mythos. Or it could have been a stand-alone story. It was quite obvious to me that Caprica started as a stand-alone AI story and someone told the writers to make the AI Cylons and add in some stuff about Caprica, Tauron, etc. to the existing story. I personally found the underlying story to be much better than the "Galactica" stuff they tacked on. I think the story would have been better had it taken place in Chicago in 2050 or something like that. Change the nationalities of the characters and you could keep 98% of the story. My favorite part of Caprica was when Zoe was depicted as a human emotionally interacting with people, while outwardly she was really a Cylon showing no emotion. The dumbest part would be the thing where if you die in the virtual game you're locked out forever. Stupid plot device to add non-believable tension. Especially for Daniel Graystone who owned the company. He should be impervious to getting locked out. There's no way he would limit himself like that.

I'm trying to get my dad into BSG and think Caprica is how I do so. He isn't a fan of sci fi but he loves the drama element. Its gonna be hard.

I really liked a lot of what they did or were doing with Caprica, but it was a bit like CRUSADE with Babylon 5, in that was more or less doomed from the start. I suppose it should be seen more like a Miniseries than a Prequel Series.

It wasn't Daniel Graystone who recreated the cylons on Caprica, but his daughter Zoe. It was Zoe who recreated a self-aware Avatar. The Cylons who participated in the First Cylon War had traces of Zoe's Avatar in their hardware and it was what ultimately made them self-aware and hostile towards humans.

Thanks for this. I just watched it and I agree with your points. It took too long to get to the events of the final episode. I wish it got there sooner.

I enjoyed it, I think it was a great companion series. I feel like it shows you Humanity before the Cylons and how their society was doomed to fail.

You cannot blame the Lee Adama character for "loosing the Pegasus". The Pegasus was destroyed in the original series of books that covered it, racing itself between to Cylon basestars as the Galactica got away. I read that in the books, way back in the late 80s, when I was heavily into checking out library books in Sci-fi. Pegasus was always doomed. They just really make it take out those two Cylone basetars upon its own death. He didn't lose it; he used it as a battering ram. It didn't just get lost a vacuum (no pun itnended on that, of course). The character did shift and change over time. Jeezus H. Christ, Rowan.

I enjoyed Caprica and the Sarah Conner Chronicles which is another program that was cut way too short, now do V the miniseries and V the Final Battle please :-)

seasons were short and could take over a year to get to the next season. The story was incredible.

I thought Caprica was OK and had about the same issues you had with the show. I'm probably also one of the few people that didn't want young Bill Adama as the lead character of a BSG first Cylon war prequel. I wanted a completely new character to follow so that the writers wouldn't be handcuffed to the continuity of BSG because a young Adama would end up getting a lot of plot armor. You can still have a young Adama in a prequel series as a supporting cast character.

It was awesome! The story arc would have been epic and the best since B5. Criminal it was canceled.

The concept of doing a show about how the Cylon/Human war first began was a lot more interesting than a show where we just watch the wars forgone conclusion. The final episode showed a time skip to right when the First Cylon War would have broken out in the timeline. So we could have had a whole Greek Tragedy/Robo-apocalypse season, then you could have seen how the war affected all these people down the line who unwittingly caused it. I think a big thing this video misses is that the whole point of Caprica's cinematography is that we are meant to be slowly watching this peaceful metropolis descend into becoming the world of BSG. I certainly agree that the first season should have been shorter. But I think the slog is mainly in the second half of the season. At the midpoint of the show there is a crescendo, and then things get pretty boring until the pieces are moved in place for the finale. Smarter application of time skips could have gotten around that. Another big part of this show's ratings failure was the fact that there was a ridiculous hiatus taken after the 8th episode.

I have mixed feelings about Caprica. I loved the exploration of the world. The rise of robots in a society and the influence of a virtual world upon that was interesting. I was hoping season two or three would answer whether the Cylon AI came about naturally or was based on human personalities downloaded into a computer. Add into that how much of this AI was based on, or influenced by corporate and family greed. Robots don't need wealth or comfort, but would they learn to be ruthless and aggressive by watching those who manufactured them, or those who "played" with them? Obviously the show is exploring ideas humans will be dealing with in the next 50 years or so. I also loved that the Adama family are mobsters, essentially bad guys. But they are human and relatable too. The two fathers, Adama and Greystone, bond over their mutual loss. Interesting stuff. As someone on another comment said I wanted to see more about the other tribes, planets and their cultures. I trust that later seasons would have fleshed them out more. Then there were the negatives. Yes, it dragged at times. The robot religion stuff and the terrorist organization seemed tacked on. Corporate shenanigans and boards were... okay. I haven't seen it since it aired so I can't really remember much of it. In all, I wanted a second season, even a third. Set-up with no payoff is frustrating.

I was so disappointed when Caprica was canceled. The show was at times slow to get the exciting, but overall a good show with a lot of potential. I wanted to see more about the other planets.

I enjoyed it a great deal even though I really didn't like Zoe and so much of the show was based around that character, what intrigued me was the group marriage and the polytheism which most of the society believed in, that sort of social world building was very attractive to me and I wish they dived into it more, so in a way maybe they did attract more women, I was very interested, however I was also a big fan of BSG so perhaps I am not very representative.

Haha, I forgot all about this show. I didn't particularly like it either. Mind you, the first time I watched Galactica I didn't get it and the only thing I hated more was Baltar... All I wanted was to murder him. But second time through when I was older, I appreciated it a lot more... It was a complete 180!

It was hard for me to warm up to the characters in Caprica. It was different with BSG 2004. The characters were flawed. This is the human condition, even if one intends well. I understood them, and even liked them, with their conflicted motivations (under the duress of war and survival).

I like Caprica. I thought Zoe and Lacy were done well. I see a lot of trauma as Zoe's avatar learned the details behind her flesh and blood self's death. And Lacy's journey as the young adult is caught up in the mechanizations of older adults that are using the ideals of naïve young to manipulate them.

Had the show explored the world's of the 12 colonies more I think it would have done a lot better. Getting stuck in Greystone manor or the V world for episodes on end was tiring. They spent so much time and effort talking about the various cultures, locations and religions, but in the end we were limited to just a couple of sets. It really is a shame.

Given how interesting the web episodes with Nico Cortez as Adama were, I was hoping for a full series.

I got hooked on Caprica just as fast as the reimagined version of BSG. I never found a single thing to dislike about it. I'm glad I have both on Blu-ray

Caprica might be my favorite show, ever! I've never seen Battlestar anything. Caprica rules!

It's frak good!!! Sad to see no season two for it. This has potential!

I enjoyed it. I wish they had finished it. The music that played at the very end was my favorite. The song Differently Sentient by Bear McCreary was beautiful and haunting. He's made some great music for BSG.

My honest opinion: If they made a second season in which they show HOW the newly created cylon gets mistreated and rebel it would have been a great prequel I also think they should have found a way to include more than just Adama family into the prequel. The show feels a bit disconnected from BSG as no other family name is even mentioned in it. And vice versa - no mention of either Graystone or Halatha or anything else is made in BSG

I miss caprica. It was such a great show.

There was also a really strong "Frankenstein" theme. Was waiting for you to bring that up xD

I think you can make the case that the Cylons learned about a monotheistic religion from humans if the STO themselves learned it from the final five(or even from Kobol). In a way, it would sort of just loop back around.

I liked Caprica because I was interested in the 12 Colonies

I only liked bsg more once I watched caprica and saw the Cylon beginning. It was really amazing to see. I wish this had continued.

ROWAN: Yes, "Caprica" was AMAZING! It made me want to be uploaded before I lose my mind. Seriously. I'm 52 now, living with undetectable HIV for 24 years, and artificial hips since age 33. Just replace my bits until I'm all machine. I loved Zoe. In her, I saw myself, a gay, high-IQ Aspie, often misunderstood, seeking... something. In being reborn as a Cylon, she had a second chance. As for you disliking the idea of Cylons gaining sentience by being inhabited by human souls, um, did you forget? In BSG, it was revealed The 12 were originally humans, whose consciousness had been sent out as digital copies from some other Earth, in a previous cycle, since, "it had all happened before." Their consciousnesses were captured by early Cylon AI tech, and the AI tech realised, it could evolve itself from Centurions into the fleshy ones by simply loading copies of The 12 into bot bodies, so they did. The only thing they didn't really cover was how and why they turned themselves from chrome machines into true cyborgs. Presumably, that was The 12's influence, same with their religion.

Caprica's problem was it was trying to do too much. It had the rise of the cylons, the monotheist terrorists, two feuding families, a corporate business/government commentary and some weird Matrix like VR world. It couldn't decide what it wanted to be. Pick a lane series!

For its time, it was ahead of its time. “Socially”, Sci-fi network just couldn’t handle it. And Amazon wasn’t huge enough at that time to step in like they did with “The Expanse”.

i liked it. it just needed to be able to find the audience after it's setup. it looked like it was going to take two seasons to finish the setup. season 1 was definitely just a setup but people these days aren't willing to let stories get setup.

Caprica was (is) adult science fiction. I have been watching sci-fi since the original Star Trek since I was a boy in the 1960s. Caprica is one of the best sci-fi stories produced. It is a shame it was not allowed to see its full potential.

Yes it was. Loved the show! I think they should have just planned it as a miniseries...which is what the one season resembles anyways!

Thanks for this great review.

Good video. I watched Caprica when it was airing and rather enjoyed it. I liked how it tied into BSG while also standing well on its own. It had a few little things that annoyed me. As you said, the William Adama fake-out seemed pretty pointless. Was that supposed to be profound? It wasn’t. But overall, I thought it was a good series and was disappointed to see it ended prematurely. Still it does give greater context to the overall BSG mythos and should be a must-see for every completist.

I really liked this show when it was on. Was disappointed when it was cancelled as it felt like it was just starting to build up steam.

Got CAPRICA on DVD at the same time I had ordered all the BSG season sets. I thought it was interesting but it felt a little too close to our reality for it to keep me hanging on. I didn't relate to the characters that much and the story wasn't as compelling to me, knowing how the Cylons would turn out in the future. All in all, I think that BSG fulfilled my expectations and I didn't feel the need to delve any deeper into the BSG universe. I didn't really have any BSG characters that I truly hated, though both Tighes and Gaius Baltar would annoy me from time to time. But, in Ellen Tighe's defense, she got more interesting when the story revealed her to be a Cylon. There were so many great BSG characters that I could overlook the annoyances.

As a bsg fan I didn't mind it... aside from all the major plot holes and mistakes... I mean it also showed skinjobs being made in caprica... but bsg said the 5 made them and cylons only could make hybrids... All in all a show worth a watch but not a must.

They say there is a new show , On September 17, 2019, NBCUniversal announced a straight-to-series order a new set in the same continuity as the 2004 series, produced by Sam Esmail as part of their new Peacock streaming service, set to premiere in 2020. But it seems to be a spin off they said we are not doing the same but with in BSG.

Was a good show, I just think that the writers strike took its toll on the series. Would be neat to see a reboot of BSG or Caprica in the near future, especially with the current political climate we're in.

Caprica was a really good show and I was sad to see it get torpedoed with a half-assed ending. It helped fill a lot of holes in Battlestar about V-world being a digital heaven and why the Cylons believed in a god. I don't think it was given enough of a chance to succeed, perhaps elements can be salvaged if the Battlestar universe is revisited. While the CGI wasn't movie quality, the ideas were innovative. I'll give them credit for today's foldable smart phone!

I'm generally happy to watch Magda Apanowicz in anything.

Agreed - messy and slow - some good ideas with poor execution - though I do see why moore thought throwing out his previous rules out the window would work - his success from BSG was mainly from tossing his roddenberry rule book out the window, just the lighting didn't strike twice

Once again you put it in the back of the net. You Sir, are a legend. I think you're absolutely right that Caprica has to be watched as it's own thing. I just don't like the re-imagining of BSG. They should have called it something else because it just isn't BSG. Cannot find one line you said I can argue or debate with. Btw the gf's last name is Kinloch 😂. Good luck with your movie, I'll probably buy it. Especially if it comes close to your retrospectives. Next summer my coastline history hunting hiking should bring me near your area, so if you ain't directing in Hollywood expect a visit from the triple troubles. Keep up the fantastic work

I thought Caprica was great. Lee Adama's speech while on the stand at Baltar's trial was one of the best scense in all of BSG, but I agree with you about his character in general. His pissy daddy issues annoyed the crap out of me.

Fortunately, we got a full prequel about the first Cylon War in BSG: Deadlock.

I loved Caprica so much and where it was going!

I like BSG….I like Caprica. I wish they’d had at least one more season to develop the theme and maybe even enough time to take the story up to the first Cylon war.

If it was given the chance to shine it could have been epic. The way they crammed like 3 seasons worth of stuff in at the very end because it was canceled was horrible.

It was the most advanced Sci-fi at the time. He doesn't appreciate the two young actresses enough.

I’ve never seen battlestar but I watched this show on Netflix about a decade ago and I remember being really into it. I might give it a rewatch and then try to watch battlestar galactica

I'm still bummed we never got the ending to this story. The show wasn't perfect, but I really enjoyed it.

I absolutely LOVED the exploration and expansion of what life was like on the 12 colonies! Seeing how diverse each colony was and how they each had unique histories and societies that were incredibly interesting. Loved seeing the colonials practicing their pagan religions and living in a world that had no real limits bc of technology. It could have explained so much to us about the final five and how they got to the colonies and met Zoe. I really wanted to see how they were going to explain how Zoe was going to be the inspiration behind the creation of the Number 6 cylon model and Tamara Adama would have become the inspiration or foundation for the number eights. Having Adana’s sister be an important part of the evolution of the cyclone would have been awesome to explore.

I wasn't one of the people pushing it, but I appreciate you going full in on Caprica and you have won yourself a patron with it. Its a mixed bag, but I appreciate it for daring to be very different from BSG. BSG banked on being different from old BSG, so I appreciate as an audience member being challenged.

Now you mention it, yeah, it did come out in the middle of a writers strike - and if I recall correctly was split into two half seasons as a result- both of which explain the disjointedness. Same strike did similar damage to SGU. It was a strange year, and at the end of it, no more big sci-fi on TV.

Yes, I am happy now. Thanks for sharing.

Wait... didn't BSG confirm that the monotheistic believe came from the Five from Earth? I'm pretty sure I remember Elen saying that when talking about Cavil after returning from the dead.