The Ziggurat of Doom

I wasn’t planning on watching Caprica, since these kinds of spin-offs are almost always very contrived and/or watered-down. People were making noises though, so I gave it a go. Caprica doesn’t particularly suck. Some things about it are very good. It is definitely not a show, as I think Rhad can attest, that one will want to jump in on mid-stream. This is partly because the show doesn’t spend sufficient time explaining everything that’s going on; it feels like it really wants to have 60 minute episodes. The acting and production are good, and the plot is potentially very William Gibson, which I obviously find appealing, though I have my doubts as to the show’s ability to follow through on this. For a science fiction fan, Caprica is probably worth following, for now.

As for Japanland, I haven’t been watching much anime of note in the past while, except for some good remakes. I caught the first to episodes of Sora No Woto. I don’t know about the story yet (interesting world at least: post-apocalyptic, kind of Haibane Renmei esque but less opaque), however this show is gorgeous in HD. Absolutely gorgeous.

Some spoilery critiques of Caprica below…

Caprica seems to have a habit of doing things, and then explaining why the hell they were done, like, an episode later.

Example: Adama’s uncle is introducing him to organized crime; it’s not at all clear why, or when that started or what; around the end of the episode / middle of the next, it’s fleshed out a little bit.

Another Example: It’s not at all clear why the SotO woman goes to a bar at the end of ep 3 (1) until later we find out she’s kinda in trouble.

Also, the best parts of the show seem to be the SheepDroidsy Science Fiction Concepts, but it doesn’t spend enough time on them. I needed to be sold just a littttle bit more on the New From Google: Google Clone Yourself thing. It’s fine to have these Suspension of Disbelief SF Concepts, but this is more like the Golden Gate Bridge of Disbelief. Or rather, it’s brought up, seems really important, and then dropped. In general, the show seems to give lip service to its SF Concepts just to get whatever story elements it wants out of them. But the SF Concepts are cooler than the story. Realize where your cool parts are, Caprica!