Round Two: Caprica

Caprica: Season 1, Episode 2 “Rebirth” (C)

After a somewhat promising pilot, this second installment isn’t nearly as hopeful. Its main problem is that its story simply isn’t very interesting. There aren’t enough characters in the ensemble to ensure that something engaging is always going on, and it doesn’t seem like the show has very far to go. It certainly seems like a one-season premise, if anything, and that’s not a good start. Showing Zoe in her human form while everyone else sees her as a Cylon is a bit too reminiscent of Gaius’ incessant visions of Six on “Battlestar Galactica.” The difference here is that it’s Zoe rather than other people who perceives herself as a human, and while there’s something intriguing about that, it doesn’t exactly work well because Zoe seems barely to be aware of her current situation. The writing is also extraordinarily poor. When Zoe severed that guy’s finger, he didn’t even seem to care and just seemed a tiny bit annoyed. The character of Amanda Graystone is particularly corny and unbearable. Her confession at the end of the episode was clearly a bad idea, and the fact that the overprotective Daniel just so easily let it happen without assigning any of his guards to ensure that she wouldn’t slip doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Sister Clarice and Lacy aren’t terribly interesting, and someone else really needs to find out that Zoe is actually alive in the body of the Cylon. Joseph Adama’s brother sticks out from the rest of the plot because he’s a gangster in an otherwise civilized and futuristic world, and it feels like the show is desperately trying to make itself seem like a period piece. I’m not so convinced.