Caprica DVD: Review By Brian Gallagher

I have only seen one episode of Battlestar Galactica, and it sure was a doozy, even though I wouldn't have seen it had I not been assigned to go see it. The episode in question was last June's midseason finale (you know, the one where they get to Earth, finally... and it sucks) and even after having not seen a single episode before (or since... sorry), I was rather blown away by seeing it, although seeing it in the CineramaDome at the Arclight in Hollywood helped matters too. Still, it was good enough to make me at least consider picking up all the DVD's and starting from scratch. Thankfully, with the new prequel series Caprica, and this pilot episode out uber-early on DVD (an extreme rarity, to say the least), I can get a fresh start here... and man is it amazing.

From what I understand of BSG, is it's very much a sci-fi action drama thing set out in space somewhere, or something like that. Even though this will definitely have sci-fi elements, don't expect this to be a full-on sci-fi show at all, because, while this episode is constructed just as exquisitely as I imagine the BSG episodes were created, it's still a very different show. The series takes place 58 years before "The Fall" on Caprica, a peaceful yet bizarre planet, where normal citizens pray to the Greek and Roman gods we know from Mythology courses, and the following of a single deity is a movement that is vastly hated throughout the masses. A group of youths carrying out a secret mission to try and spread this word, ends in tragedy when one of them, Ben (Avan Jogia) blows up the transport they were on, taking the lives of his genius partner in crime, Zoe Graystone (Alessandra Toreson) and also kills, among many others, the wife and daughter of Joseph Adama (Esai Morales). During a chance meeting after the tragedy, Adama meets Zoe's father, Daniel Graystone (Eric Stoltz) a zillionaire industrialist who made his fortune creating the HoloBand, which seems to be some sort of virtual reality device. What starts out as an amicable meeting between mourning fathers, beautifully unfolds into what will be one hell of a series, with two warring families on opposite sides of what will eventually be the biggest battle for humanity yet.

First off, BSG fans will surely get a kick out of all the "frak's" thrown in the series, as it seems that the word goes back quite a ways in this sci-fi world. You will also get some excellent acting from some people you've either never heard of, or heard from in a while. Eric Stoltz and Esai Morales are simply fantastic as Graystone and Adama. I love how creators Ronald Moore and Remi Auchubon created these characters because we start out seeing how much they're alike, both in mourning after the tragedy, and by the end of this pilot, you'll see how much things have changed in outstanding ways. I'm not really familiar with anyone else in the main cast, but I rather enjoyed everyone including Paula Malcomson as the Graystone matriarch Amada, Polly Walker as the private school headmaster Sister Clarice Willow, who might not be all that she appears, as well. I wasn't a huge fan of two of the other kids, Magda Apanowicz as Lacey Rand, the more skittish of the group, and Avian Jorgia as another in their group, Ben. Aside from Stoltz and Morales, though, the real star just might be Alessandra Toreson as Zoe Graystone, who shows such incredible and immense range for this character and it will be truly a joy to see how this amazing character gets fleshed out. You will also get plenty of glimpses as to the origins of certain things in the series (which I won't say, in case you haven't watched this yet), but ultimately, this is a vastly different show.

How different? Well, the best way I would say to describe it was that it's a cross between The Matrix and The Godfather set in the sci-fi realm that BSG was set in. This is really a "family" drama, both in the Mafioso sense of the word, in certain aspects, but mostly, they set this up for this series to be a good old fashioned family feud, only one that seems to hold the fate of humanity in the balance. We have Stoltz's Graystone on one side, fantastically rich with exponential amounts of resources at his disposal, and Morales' Adama of Tauron descent, a race of powerful, strong-willed people who believe in vengeance and an eye for an eye, although Adama seems to be one of the more passive ones of his race, happy with his life on Caprica with his son, but still keeping ties to his roots. What happens after the tragedy leads up to some incredible discoveries for BSG fans and by the end of this pilot episode, not only will you have some questions answered about BSG... but you will likely have found a suitable replacement.

Not much here, but I'm surprised there's this much, since this is just the pilot episode. First off we get some Deleted Scenes, seven of them at just over seven minutes long, and most of these are pretty damn good, especially the last one with a rather shocking reveal at the end. Definitely worth checking out.

The only other thing we get here, besides, oddly enough, a full Ghost Hunters episode (weird, I know), are some Video Blogs. we get four of these - What the Frak is Caprica?, The Director's Process, The V Club and The Birth of a Cylon - that delve into this pilot. The What the Frak is Caprica blog has all of the main cast and crew, including creators/executive producers Ron Moore and Remi Aubuchon, talking about the planet of Caprica and how this planet and series will be similar and different from Battlestar Galactica. The next blog is The Director's Process with director Jeffrey Reiner talking a little a bit about what he wanted to do here, and then we hear from a lot of the cast and how they liked working with him. The V Club talks about this virtual club with Alessandra Torresani, who plays Zoe Graysmith, taking us on a little tour of the place where anything is possible that you can imagine. The Birth of a Cylon talks about... well, you can tell what it talks about, and I don't really want to spoil it for you, but it talks about the very first Cylon that is born right here. Anyway, these are all a little over three minutes long and they all come in at 13 minutes total, and they're all well worth checking out.

The disc is presented in the anamorphic widescreen format, in the 1.78:1 aspect ratio.

The sound is handled through the Dolby Digital 5.1 format.

An odd, if not semi-eye-catching design here. The front has a big title card up top (with the reminder that this comes from the people who brought you Battlestar Galactica), and the rest of this cover is in a modular design, with shots of some of the characters laid out neatly, a shot of Caprica itself and a tagline. The back again reminds you it's from the BSG folks, and has a nice synopsis, brief special features listing and a weird shot of some other characters as well, along with the tech specs.

Caprica is The Matrix meets The Godfather set in this realm that Battlestar Galactica inhabited. It is certainly NOT Battlestar, but fans of the series (and even non-fans) will surely have a new addiction on their hands with this amazing new show.