Caprica (series)

For information on the colony in the Re-imagined Series, see Caprica (RDM). For other uses, see Caprica.

Caprica
Created by	Remi Aubuchon
Starring
Theme music by	Bear McCreary
Statistics
Production company	NBC Universal
Number of seasons	1
Number of episodes	20 (18 ordered and the already-shot pilot) (list)
Debut channel	Sci Fi Channel
US first-run airdates	2010
UK first-run airdates	Spring 2009
DVD release
Production staff
Executive producer(s)	Ronald D. Moore David Eick Remi Aubuchon
Producer(s)
Supervising producer(s)
Associate producer(s)
Co-producer(s)
Story editor(s)
Online Purchasing
Available at iTunes – [ Purchase]
Related Media
			@ BW Media

Caprica is a television spin-off of the Re-imagined Series, to be produced by Remi Aubuchon, Ronald D. Moore and David Eick for the Sci Fi Channel. It is a prequel that focuses on the Adama and Graystone families on the planet Caprica and the invention of the Cylons in the Twelve Colonies. The pilot is set 58 years before the Battlestar Galactica miniseries and was released direct to DVD on April 21, 2009.

Overview

Just as Battlestar Galactica is about a lot more than space battles, Caprica will be as much a family drama as a sci-fi tale. Remi Aubuchon (The Lyon's Den, 24) wrote the pilot script with co-writer (and executive producer) Ronald D. Moore; "Galactica" veterans Ronald D. Moore and David Eick are the executive producers. The two-hour pilot was directed by Jeff Reiner (Friday Night Lights).

Plot summary

The Caprica pilot takes place 58 years before the Battlestar Galactica miniseries. It follows the lives of two families, the Graystones and the Adamas (the family of William Adama). A startling development occurs by the end of the pilot — the creation of the first cybernetic life-form node or "Cylon".

The Graystone family includes the father Daniel and mother Amanda, a computer scientist and surgeon respectively. When their daughter Zoe dies due to the religious fanaticism of her boyfriend, Ben Stark, her father manages to resurrect her — after a fashion. Already having acquired a digital clone of her personality developed by Zoe herself, he uses stolen technology to create a robotic version of his daughter, the first step towards creating the Cylon race.

The same terrorist attack claims the lives of Joseph Adama's wife Shannon and daughter Tamara. Together with Daniel Graystone he initially works on bringing back their children, but is appalled at his partner's methods and ethics. However, as a result of this tragedy, he grows closer to his eleven-year old son William.

Cast and characters

Although the main series cast is yet to be revealed, it is expected to include the following roles:

• Eric Stoltz as Daniel Graystone
• Esai Morales as Joseph Adama
• Paula Malcomson as Amanda Graystone
• Alessandra Torresani as Zoe Graystone
• Magda Apanowicz as Lacy Rand
• Polly Walker as Sister Clarice Willow

Production history

Initial concept

According to an interview with IFmagazine, David Eick said that they had been contemplating a spinoff prequel series since Season 2 began and were tossing around ideas. About the same time, 24 writer Remi Aubuchon pitched a series that had a lot of similarities to the Cylon storyline. Realizing that they could not devote their full time to both Battlestar Galactica and a spinoff, Moore and Eick decided to merge with Auchubon, seeing it as an opportunity: "We took some of what we had and some of what he had ".

According to a post on the official Scifi.com messageboard by Ron Moore's wife Terry Dresbach, executive producer Remi Aubochon will be the showrunner for "Caprica", in charge of the writing staff. Ron Moore will oversee and approve the story arcs, casting, sets, and read the scripts, though Moore will probably rarely write an individual episode for Caprica.

In an interview in Dreamwatch Magazine in May 2006, Remi Aubuchon said that he originally pitched a series which was an "allegorical story about slavery with robots", when approached by Moore and Eick. Aubuchon stated that William Adama will be 11 years old when the series begins. Aubuchon described the new show by saying, "This is a very human story about how our own hubris can lead us to disaster". He goes on to say that Caprica is meant to stand on its own from BSG: while still addressing backstory issues from Battlestar, it will not be required to have watched it to enjoy Caprica. However, "certain elements have been embedded into the first few episodes of season 3" of Battlestar Galactica, which might refer to things which will be further fleshed-out in the prequel series.

On November 6, 2006, the Sci Fi Pulse website reported that Ron D. Moore updated Dreamwatch magazine regarding the new series:

"It's actually a prequel, and this would be a one hour pilot not a mini – series. It takes place 50 years before the events of Battlestar Galactica and it's essentially about the creation of the Cylons.

"It's a very different show; it's not action – adventure and it's not even in space. It takes place on the Planet (sic) Caprica and it’s more of a family drama, with political and corporate intrigue. We're well into the writing of it actually; we're doing re-writes on the script right now and Sci Fi has been very happy so far. At the moment, we're just waiting to see if they greenlight it or not. Generally, there’s always a two step process: there's ordering the pilot and then there's ordering the series, but because we're not designing it as a mini – series, I don't know that anybody would even see the pilot if they chose not to go to series with it.

"Tonally, it will be very different," promises Moore. “This is Caprica before the fall. It's a decadent world, but also a world that's going at a very fast pace. It's a prosperous society that hasn’t experienced the devastation of the first Cylon war yet, so this culture has really not been taken down a peg, and their hubris is getting the better of them. It's a go – go society that's teetering on the brink, so it’s not that apocalyptic survival scenario of Galactica. The whole thing is tonally very different."

Development hell

Since April 26, 2006, Caprica was in "development hell" (major rewrites and resubmissions to network executives), until it was seriously considered during the WGA strike of 2007-08. On March 24, 2007, Moore discussed the status of Caprica with Salon.com's Laura Miller:

"It's possible [that the series will still happen]. It's been in development at SciFi for a while and they haven't picked it up. And I don't know if they're going to pick it up at this point. There's talk of doing it as a TV movie and seeing how that works, as a back-door pilot, much as we did with the "Galactica" Miniseries. Right now there's nothing telling me that they're going to move on it anytime soon, so I'm starting to feel that it's going to remain on the development shelf.

"It was a different kind of show. Instead of an action-adventure sci-fi piece, it was more of a prime-time soap, a sci-fi "Dallas." It was about a family, the Adamas, and a company, and it was about the creation of the cylons (sic) 50 years ago. It was not going to be space-based, but set entirely on the planet of Caprica. But it would have sci-fi touches, and it would deal with issues like artificial intelligence and the various schemings and backbitings that you get in the traditional soap opera."

New life

On September 18, 2007, it was reported that with the end of Battlestar Galactica around the corner and Moore poised to leave Sci Fi for NBC, Sci Fi executives were considering green-lighting the 2-hour pilot for production as a means of keeping Moore with the channel. Contingent on the performance of "Razor", it was reported that Caprica might also see a release in the form of a direct-to-DVD movie that is simultaneously premiered on television . Furthermore, with the writer's strike (the first since 1988), networks scrambled to stockpile finished scripts for various productions, and thus Caprica became a front runner for production because its script had already been completed before said strike.

In March of 2008, it was announced by the SciFi Channel during a news conference that Caprica will get a two-hour pilot episode, the filming for which ended June 19th.

Series pickup

On December 2, 2008, SciFi Channel officially announced that Caprica was picked up for a 20-episode first season. According to the press release, production is slated to begin in the summer of 2009 and the series is expected to begin airing in 2010. The reason for the delay is attributed to the fact that they are attempting to regroup the core staff that worked on the pilot and Battlestar Galactica, as these persons have since found work on other projects.

Analysis

In the finale of Battlestar Galactica, our Earth was discovered 150,000 years before the present day. Therefore, unlike most science fiction series, Caprica is a tale of our ancestors rather than our descendants.

Visual Cues

• The shape of the Graystone office building's tower is pentagonal, capped with two concentric pentagons -- the same pattern that was marked on original-series Cylon Raiders.

• The monotheistic movement on Caprica uses an "infinity" symbol to represent itself.

• The Mandala's colors can be seen in Zoe's V-Club room as light shines through the windows as well as on Zoe's wall when her mother visits her room.