Caprica

On Friday night SyFy premiered the new Battlestar Galactica prequel, Caprica, which takes place not in outer space but on a planet very much like our own, 58 years before the events of Battlestar. The creators of the earlier show (the sequel to this prequel?) have applied the same sharp political edge that invigorated the space series, except here we're watching the highly advanced society that made whatever mistakes that led to the revolt of the cylons (both human-like and chrone plated robots) and the planet-wide destruction of Caprica by the very devices they originally manufactured to serve their needs.

Bottom line up front: the pilot is brilliant.

This is clearly a comment on our own society with some interesting differences and one key reversal. The event that sets off the plot and eventually leads to the downfall of humanity is the death of two daughters in a terrorist bombing. One is the teenaged child of Daniel Greystone, played by Eric Stoltz, an engineering visionary who is the cornerstone of a huge corporation that is currently working on the first crude cylons, all exposed metal and clumsy artificial intelligence, hoping to keep the huge defense contract. The other daughter is that of Joseph Adams, played by Esai Morales, who's surviving son will become Galactica Commander William Adama in the years to come.

Making friends through their shared loss, Greystone uses Adams to get something he needs to begin bringing his daughter back to life -- as a cylon. The conflict between the two men begins. The second major conflict is one that runs through the original series as well -- that of religion. Caprica is polytheistic, but as we learned in Battlestar, the cylons are seeking the "one true God," and their anticedents are here already, an underground network of human beings who want a single God who knows right from wrong -- like the one that's dominated all major religions in our real world since the beginnings of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

So while the series looks to bend the mind with the question of what really makes us human and whether a human-based artificial intelligence is itself a being with the same worth as a flesh & blood person, by far the most transgressive element of the series is the questioning of our very own monotheism. This is using science fiction in the best possible way, by positing an alternative reality that rips open otherwise unmentionable questions and letting us reconsider our most precious assumptions in its light.

I don't think it's a stretch to say that Caprica posits monotheism as a source of violence based on the certainty of the faithful. On another level (thus far -- the series is just beginning) it is also an abdication of personal morality, arguing that the reliance on a single all-knowing God is a way not to wrestle with morality on one's own.

On the other hand, Caprica is already a decadent society, with a gangster syndicate (from the Tauron colony planet, where Adams/Adama hails from) and young people entering holo-clubs using technology originally invented by Greystone, clubs where sex, drugs, violence and even human sacrifice are all part of the scene.

And there's a Shakespearean element to the drama as well. We're looking at the characters who's actions will set the groundwork for the fate of the planet six decades down the line, and their very human grief, yearnings, desires, lusts in steady conflict with each other have a weightier feel for our knowing what will come. This series is by nature a multi-season tragedy.

The cast is well-prepared for it. Stoltz seems more handsome than he did in his youth, and fellow '80's film veteran Morales is a great match. Greystone's wife is played by Paula Malcomson, whom I'm so pleased to have back after her breakthrough as Trixie on Deadwood. Polly Walker, another HBO vet, from Rome, is great as the headmistress of the school where Greystone's daughter went, and where his daughter's best friend (Magda Apanowicz) is coming under the influence of the One-God underground. The rest of the cast is terrific as well -- Alessandra Torresani as Greystone's daughter, Zoe and Sasha Roiz as Adams' violent gangster brother are the other regulars thus far.

I predict another peak sci-fi experience from Ron Moore and company. It's a nice change-up from the setting of the first series, and the themes may cut even closer to home.