Caprica: The Imperfections of Memory (s1e7)
Posted on 15. Mar, 2010 by Simon in Television
This episode had characters flying vipers and somebody uttered the phrase: “all of this has happened before and all of it will happen again”.
If Caprica is trying to distance itself from its Battlestar Galactica heritage, it certainly seems to have no qualms throwing out universe details to appease it’s BSG migrated audience.
By my guess, that migrated audience would be roughly 99 per cent of the folks still watching this show. For that majority, this episode was probably fairly satisfying.
As always, spoilers after the jump.
As a whole, I liked this episode because it seemed to lurch the overarching narrative (Cylons and Zoe) forward a bit and focused on one of the B-plots I am most intrigued by (Tamara’s avatar being trapped in v-world).
There was also that whole thing where Amanda Greystone, apparently, is going crazy as she once was and is now BFF’s with Sister Clarice, imbibing in mid-day benders of ultra-rare booze and hanging out in opium dens. You know, totally understandable turn of events for these characters after two episodes. But, you know, whatever.
Virgis, in one of his continuing rants to Daniel like an evil villain revealing master plan to James Bond so we know exactly how to foil them, lets slip that the stolen MCP chip actually doesn’t work.
CURIOUS, think Daniel, who upon getting back to the lab is further stoked by the theory of his lab assistant / lonelyheartsclubmember Philemon (ripped from Zoe, in an ironically failed attempt to manipulate Philemon into letting her out of the lab) that perhaps the one working Cylon is uncopyable because it actually might be analog and therefore cannot be accurately duplicated. Being a genius and all, Daniel seems to put it all together, asking the robot straight up if it’s Zoe in that bucket of bolts as the episode ends.
In terms of greater plot, the secret that Zoe = Cylon is the break many have been waiting for. I know I certainly have at least, and I hope things pick up a bit now that the cat’s out of the bag. By far for me the progress of Cylonkind is a huge interest for me in watching this show.
As much as character development is important, I always value it in tandem to progressing the greater story. We learn about characters based on how they react to situations and how they play off each other. BSG did this amazingly well, obviously starting with a great scenario to catalyze its ensemble ragtag cast.
At times, Caprica has emulated this formula admirably but there just seems to be a sense that, instead of letting its characters develop off the main story, Caprica tosses out situations just to drive home points about characters that it wants to make sure we understand.
I.E. This person is bad, so lets randomly put them in a situation where they can be bad. This is completely different from having characters stumble through the show and make decisions that we as an audience can discern as defining personality traits. I prefer the more subtle, organic methodology of story telling this allows, and this episode is a microcosm of Caprica’s hits and misses in this regard.
The Tamara Adama storyline seems, at this point, unconnected to the greater plot. It certainly however deals with the greater theme — what exactly defines a human? Is Tamara actually dead? Could she actually be defined as immortal now, ironically as the STO think? The issues this story tackles and the thought of being able to literally discover your dead daughter online, talk to her and see and hug her again is just a great, great concept. I hope it fulfills its potential.
In other stuff, Lacey is willing to become a full-fledged terrorist in order to help Zoebot, even if that means upping her seduction powers +15. I am mildly interested in this whole Barnabas stuff, but it seems like more of an ends to a mean for the writers.
All in all, this episode actually made me look forward to next week, something I can’t say has been consistent with Caprica (not that it hasn’t been trying, either).
