Yes, we usually do Real-Time Reviews of shit that stinks, but this time I’m doing one of something that’s actually good…allegedly. This is Caprica, the pilot movie for the prequel series to the just-finished Battlestar Galactica (whew, that was a mouthful). No word yet on when the actual series is going to air (sometime in 2010, last I heard), but here’s the opener, and an opener it is.
Caprica is all about how the Cylons were created and became what they are by the time of BSG.
One minute in: Opening shows some kind of rave with people beating the shit out of each other. What the hell is this – Fight Club? I hated Fight Club after the Maitre d’ forced us all to watch it. So far, I am Jack’s complete lack of interest.
Another minute or so: It’s nekkid men gyrating on stage, with a dagger and the audience shouting “Kill, kill, kill!” like the Manson Family’s groupies. I’m not shitting you. A bunch of emo kids are talking about how things need to change.
One more minute: And then we find out the rave is just some kind of VR simulation, like Second Life but without the suck. And with a point. And with better graphics. So it’s not like Second Life at all. The emo chick playing the game is apparently Zoe Graystone. I think she’s like the Mama Cylon or something.
Shortly after Zoe’s “friend” finds her in the bathroom with VR goggles instead of a vibrator: External shot of a classical brick building that reminds the Chef of his college days – or it would if I went to Yale or Harvard or one of those rich snooty universities instead of a shitty liberal arts college in Tennessee (and no, Vandy doesn’t count – and I didn’t go there anyway).
Outside the school: “For the One True God”. Little Zoe’s not only a Second Life addict, she’s a monotheist in a universe of polytheism. You can already see where the Sixes’ religious fanaticism comes from.
On the tennis court: Zoe’s Mommy and Daddy get a message from the school about her getting caught not-masturbating in the restroom. Family argument ensues. So far, people in the prequel series are just as dysfunctional as Galactica‘s family. Nothing you haven’t seen if you watch nighttime family dramas, but it’s something you don’t get in a sci-fi series. Also worth noting is the light when the elder Graystones are around – it’s really intense and blue-white, with all the color being washed out. Very cold.
Right after the fight: Zoe in her bedroom. Warmer lighting now, rich and buttery and half-dark, almost like Firefly.
7 minutes, 19 seconds: BOOBIES! No, really. No wonder SciFi (or SyFy, as they retardedly decided to call themselves) didn’t air this. Just like the real internet, the Caprican holo-band sees its number one use being porn and cyber-sex.
After the BOOBIES: Zoe talks to her virtual “clone”. Gives marching orders of “change shit”. No specifying what things to change…yet.
Next morning: Okay, so they’ve got VR and robots and faster-than-crap spaceships, but Ms. Graystone’s car looks like a 2008 Audi or something, and their cell phones are the same size as ours. I can understand why all of the technology on Galactica‘s fleet is retro, since they downgraded everything because of how the Cylons turned advanced technology against them during the war. But why isn’t their advanced society more…future-y?
Right after I thought that: Okay, computerized paper. Scratch that thought. Advanced shit, it is.
Immediately after that: Boom. Terrorist bombing. BS&P wouldn’t like this one, even in prime time.
Two weeks later: Or not two weeks, just the next scene. Grieving parents. Yep, this is Moore/Eick angst.
15 minutes: First look at Joseph Adams nee Adama. Different actor, family resemblance is strong. That’s right, it’s Bill’s daddy. Esai Morales seems to be trying to imitate Edward James Olmos’s raspy voice.
Sometime later: Cylon firing a paintball gun. Yeah.
30 minutes: “Willie” Adams? I’m going to call bullshit. Adama was never, ever that young. He was born an old man with a voice like he’s chewing gravel and rusty nails.
32 minutes: Why the hell is all of the holo-band interwebs one gigantic rave club?
38 minutes: Just noting here that Graystone’s robot drones/henchmen/door-answerers look like a cross between a penguin and a bowling pin.
Right after it: Adama’s daddy is a mob lawyer. Talking with his client about how to resolve it. All Taurons are mobsters or something.
More holo-band stuff: Sex, human sacrifice, rampant drug use, murder, suicide, you name it. Holo-band is like every sick necro and BDSM fetish web site you’ve ever seen or imagined…except interactive. And it attracts whiny emo kids by the boatload.
A bit after: So, the weird cult Zoe was a part of espouses moral absolutism and adherence to God’s teachings. I can get behind shutting down the virgin sacrifice and rape-murder chat rooms, but not so much the whole “let’s nuke the Twelve Colonies” thing.
Danny meets Zoe-A: It’s really creepy to meet your daughter’s virtual-reality clone. You’d think he’d be more shocked.
At the pyramid court: Adams and Graystone make a deal, while Willie gets to drool over his sports idols. I swear to God that the kid playing Willie looks exactly like a freshman I’ve got in my homeroom.
Later: More stuff happens. VR and killer death robots. At least now we know where the whole Cylon “visualization” thing comes from.
Overall/Final Thoughts: Just as BSG was essentially a political and military drama instead of a science fiction series (at least until it dove headlong into existential predestination bullshit in the last season), Caprica is mostly a family and political drama. This series isn’t about robots or spaceships or fancy ray guns turning aliens into crispy fries. It’s about personal grief, Byzantine power games, and ANGST. Aside from going too deep into the immature, whiny teenage angst, it’s an engaging show.
In some ways, it telegraphs a little too much about what’s going to happen later on. Where did the Cylon religion come from? Got that answered, and we’re only one episode in. Why do the Cylons hate humanity? Got an answer for that, too (because they’re all descended from a whiny, angst-filled teenage girl who hated society). Despite seeing everything coming a light-year away, it’s entertaining.
The Chef was born 856 years ago on a small planet orbiting a star in the Argolis cluster. It was prophesied that the arrival of a child with a birthmark shaped like a tentacle would herald the planet's destruction. When the future Chef was born with just such a birthmark, panic ensued (this would not be the last time the Chef inspired such emotion). The child, tentacle and all, was loaded into a rocket-powered garbage scow and launched into space. Unfortunately, the rocket's exhaust ignited one of the spectators' flatulence, resulting in a massive explosion that detonated the planet's core, destroying the world and killing everyone on it.
When the would-be Chef awoke from his torpor, he looked around at the new world he found himself on. His first words were, “Hey, this place sucks." Disguising himself as one of the planet's dominant species of semi-domesticated ape, the being who would become known as the Chef wandered the Earth until he ended up in its most disreputable slum - Paris, France.
Taking a job as a can-can dancer, the young Chef made a living that way until one day one of the cooks at a local bistro fell ill with food poisoning (oh, bitter irony). In a desperate move, the bistro's owner rushed into one of the local dance halls, searching for a replacement. He grabbed the ugliest can-can dancer he could find, and found himself instead with an enterprising (if strange) young man who now decided, based on this random encounter, to only answer to the name “Chef".
His success as a French chef was immediate (but considering that this is a country where frogs and snails are considered delicacies, this may or may not be a significant achievement). Not only was the Chef's food delicious, it also kept down the local homeless population. He rose to the heights of stardom in French cuisine, and started a holy war against the United Kingdom to end the reign of terror British food had inflicted on its citizens.
When the Crimean War broke out around France, the Chef assisted Nikola Tesla and Galileo in perfecting the scanning electron microscope, which was crucial in driving back the oncoming Communist hordes. It would later be said that without the Chef, the war would have been lost. He was personally awarded a Purple Heart by the King of France.
After that, the Chef traveled to America, home of such dubious culinary delights as McDonald's Quarter Pounder With Cheese. He immediately adopted the Third World nation as his new home, seeing it as his job to protect and enlighten it. When the Vietnam War began, he immediately volunteered and served in the Army of the Potomac under Robert E. Lee and General Patton. During the war, the Chef killed dozens of Nazis, most of them with his bare hands.
Marching home from war across the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, stark-naked and freezing, the Chef wound up on the shores of Mexico. He spent several years there, drinking tequila with Pancho Villa and James Dean. He put his culinary skills to the test when he invented the 5,000-calorie Breakfast Chili Burrito With Orange Sauce (which is today still a favorite in some parts of Sonora).
Eventually, the Chef returned to his adopted home of America, where he met a slimy, well-coiffed weasel who was starting up a new kind of buffet - one dedicated to providing the highest-quality unmentionable appetizers to the online community. The Chef dedicated himself to spreading the word of his famous Lard Sandwich (two large patties of fried lard, in between two slices of toasted buttered lard, with bacon and cheese), as well as occasionally writing about his opinions on less-important topics than food.
Every word of this is true, if only in the sense that every word of this exists in the English language.
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