Take Three: Caprica

Caprica: Season 1, Episode 3 “Reins of a Waterfall” (C)

Only three episodes in, this show has already become far too centralized, essentially dealing with only one story. The attempted offshoots – mishandling of the case in the police department and Sister Clarice’s involvement in the one-deity movement – don’t really work that well and aren’t anywhere near as interesting as the subject that is hardly broached in this installment: there’s a frakking human living in a Cylon body in her parents’ living room! What exactly does virtual Zoe do with her days? I doubt she stays put in the Cylon body, and her travails through her house would likely be more than apparent if her maker ever checked on her status. And while she was almost subject to the sight of her parents reconciling physically right in front of her, it ended up being only a semi-touching moment where the Graystones tried to come to grips with what they think happened. The fact that the discussion ends with Daniel pointing out that it’s hard to deal privately with this information after Amanda blabbed it to the whole world just serves as a reminder that there’s no going back from that, and this series may well be plagued by that announcement for a long time. Well, at least the Graystones are actively doing something, while Adama Senior spends most of his time concocting elaborate ways to intimidate Daniel and force him to show him his daughter again, who just happens to escape the virtual room only minutes before her father shows up. None of these threads are terribly interesting, I fear, and I’m not sure how the show will be able to sustain them going forward.