It's probably too late but
Oct. 27th, 2010 04:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chaniIt seems like Caprica has finally found its footing with" False Labor", or rather, has gone back to what it was in the pilot, to where it worked, to the family Sci-Fi drama it was supposed to be.
I still don't understand why some viewers expected Caprica to be like BSG given that the show was about a twelve world universe before the Cylon war. It couldn't be the same! And that is what is interesting. A spin-off that would basically use the BSG formula and repeat it would have no interest in my book! I'm afraid that it is precisely what they are going to do with their new pet project...
BSG was intriguing in the way it deals with what humanity and Cylons had become after the war, with what meant to be human when you were survivors on the run. Caprica is fascinating in the way it deals with a civilization that is about to fall, with the crimes and family issues that are at the beginning of so many mythologies. It's pure Greek tragedy recreated on screen for us.
The writing is smart, the acting is great. I'm a bit angry when I think of tv shows that aren't even as half good as Caprica yet are "easier" and therefore get much better ratings and will be renewed without any problem while this incredibly ambitious show is probably toasted.
I've always said that I could go without the STO/teenagers stuff and I'm saying it again. The show is great when it focuses on family. It's in its Greek roots. And there was so much going on in the last episode!
The show is better when it's connected to its pilot (minus the annoying STO kids) and has Daniel and Joseph interacting with each other.
And Joseph has found Daniel's favourite spot!!! Okay it's just a smoking spot but still (Amanda, Adama there' s only one letter difference after all!).
Their little heart-to-heart exchange was of course my favourite scene. Daniel was almost flirting with Joseph (yes he was!) while Joseph is still resentful ("until your daughter blew her up") but the two of them still work. In spite fo what happened between them they manage to make one another drop the guard and tell the truth. The chemistry is there, and one scene encapsulated so much: what they had lost, what they might have become, what they could have been to each other, where they stand.
It's funny because this scene works on a meta level, Joseph might be precisely the person who can see the man Daniel was inside the man he has become, and he is the one who isn't afraid to call Daniel on his shit, he is the one who insists on not forgiving him, he is everything that Amanda-A can't be .
And of course we got to see the famous Adama lighter that was mentioned on BSG!
I also loved the Daniel/Amanda-A scenes and how Daniel is killing two birds with one stone, using the avatar for personal and work-related reasons. It was deliciously creepy and perverse to see him trying to "educate" Amanda-A, to use the image of his lost wife (which echoes the company using his image!!!)in order to retrieve Zoe's program, or rather to recreate the code, and at the same time it broke my heart because Daniel also tries to get a little comfort in that substitute. It's like the scene in the pilot, the one where he captured the code while abandoning himself to Zoe-A's embrace and shedding a tear. There's two men in Daniel, always was, and this is why I find him so compelling to watch.
And when he lashed out in the end, screaming his rage that Amanda-A wasn't real, that she was just a thing, it was a powerful moment, because it played on both his frustration at not managing to get the program right and on his missing his wife. And of course there was also his own guilt and the fact that he couldn't forgive himself "I would deserve it".
Paula Malcomson was great, playing well an Amanda that sounded off (wanting to be her best like a doll in Dollhouse but failing at sounding human)and Eric Stoltz did strike again. He really plays Daniel to perfection and he was good at playing a digital image in the creepy commercial too. I had seen that clip in the sneak peeks and I was worried about Daniel, but it wasn't him, it was a false Graystone with false emotions. Daniel's reaction to the commercial was perfect (and Joseph commenting on the good likeness!) and so was the Guatrau's. Daniel's speech foreshadowed his final reaction to Amanda-A. False image is off putting. The Guatrau sums the episode up with his "Afterall, there's no substitute for the real thing".
BTW the scene reminded me of Spike and the Buffybot from BtVS, except that in this case it was as if the Spike/Buffybot scenes from season 5 and the beginning of season 6 of Buffy were squeezed in one episode (even the blowjob that virtual Daniel seemed to enjoy!).
And Daniel being Daniel goes back to work at the end of the episode. But it is what he does (something he told Zoe-A in the pilot).
I also liked the scenes between Amanda and agent Durham. It is a good storyline for Amanda. Her scenes in the Willow house weren't my favourite but they allowed Paula to play real Amanda which was a nice contrast to Amanda-A, the smiling housewife on high heels.
Oh one character was named Atreus! He couldn't not meet a bloody end. He had to!
Sam using the Cylon to do the dirty job was both terrific for any BSG geeks ("By your command") but also terrifying given what we know of the future (same with Daniel wanting the program to feel and think by itself instead of reciting data).
The Guatrau is becoming a great character. What a screen presence he has.
Nice parallel between Sam and Daniel, both feeling sorta estranged from their spouses yet still loving them ("se philo" Sam said on the phone), no matter that Sam and Larry still sleep in the same bed while Daniel and Amanda-A have separate beds!
BTW I love the detail of Daniel still sleeping on the couch, not wanting to sleep in the marital bed without his wife.
The title "False Labor" calls to our mind pregnant women having contractions, and there was a pregnant woman giving birth at the end of the episode with a montage that echoed the one from the pilot in which Sam killed the Defense Minister while Joseph was crying alone and the Graystones were making love, except that this time on Bear's beautiful music ("Tauron scarifice"), we had a birth instead of a kill, Joseph and Evelyin having sex and Daniel fixing his holoband all by himself. As Joseph said: times change.
However, since Clarice's wife actually experieneced true labor, I think that the title had more to do with Daniel and perhaps Sam. "False labor" means that this isn't the real thing, not yet. Daniel is getting closer, but the creating life in the virtual world, something that Zoe achieved (and how could she not given that her name means "life"), is still out of reach. Even Amanda-A whom I could precisely call Faux-Amanda got to voice it saying that it was "so unreal".
The beauty of the writing lies in the fact that in Daniel's case it is resurrection, not birth. Compared to his labor, birth seems a lot easier eventually.
As for Sam, he's the first character to have used a Cylon to do something in his stead, even the final kill (again it ties up with the pilot in which Sam used his knives in his bare hands to get the job done). Cylons are about to become a race of tireless workers and enforcers. A Labor force without labor laws.
I don't think it's a coincidence if the Guatrau reminds Sam of the meaning of Ha'La'Tha in the end. "Always faithful to the soil". He reminds him of what the real thing is (the opposite of False Labor then). The connection to the soil is what matters (something that foreshadows the finale of BSG!).
Here I can't help thinking of the Old Testament's words " For thou shalt eat the labor of thy hands".
I still don't understand why some viewers expected Caprica to be like BSG given that the show was about a twelve world universe before the Cylon war. It couldn't be the same! And that is what is interesting. A spin-off that would basically use the BSG formula and repeat it would have no interest in my book! I'm afraid that it is precisely what they are going to do with their new pet project...
BSG was intriguing in the way it deals with what humanity and Cylons had become after the war, with what meant to be human when you were survivors on the run. Caprica is fascinating in the way it deals with a civilization that is about to fall, with the crimes and family issues that are at the beginning of so many mythologies. It's pure Greek tragedy recreated on screen for us.
The writing is smart, the acting is great. I'm a bit angry when I think of tv shows that aren't even as half good as Caprica yet are "easier" and therefore get much better ratings and will be renewed without any problem while this incredibly ambitious show is probably toasted.
I've always said that I could go without the STO/teenagers stuff and I'm saying it again. The show is great when it focuses on family. It's in its Greek roots. And there was so much going on in the last episode!
The show is better when it's connected to its pilot (minus the annoying STO kids) and has Daniel and Joseph interacting with each other.
And Joseph has found Daniel's favourite spot!!! Okay it's just a smoking spot but still (Amanda, Adama there' s only one letter difference after all!).
Their little heart-to-heart exchange was of course my favourite scene. Daniel was almost flirting with Joseph (yes he was!) while Joseph is still resentful ("until your daughter blew her up") but the two of them still work. In spite fo what happened between them they manage to make one another drop the guard and tell the truth. The chemistry is there, and one scene encapsulated so much: what they had lost, what they might have become, what they could have been to each other, where they stand.
It's funny because this scene works on a meta level, Joseph might be precisely the person who can see the man Daniel was inside the man he has become, and he is the one who isn't afraid to call Daniel on his shit, he is the one who insists on not forgiving him, he is everything that Amanda-A can't be .
And of course we got to see the famous Adama lighter that was mentioned on BSG!
I also loved the Daniel/Amanda-A scenes and how Daniel is killing two birds with one stone, using the avatar for personal and work-related reasons. It was deliciously creepy and perverse to see him trying to "educate" Amanda-A, to use the image of his lost wife (which echoes the company using his image!!!)in order to retrieve Zoe's program, or rather to recreate the code, and at the same time it broke my heart because Daniel also tries to get a little comfort in that substitute. It's like the scene in the pilot, the one where he captured the code while abandoning himself to Zoe-A's embrace and shedding a tear. There's two men in Daniel, always was, and this is why I find him so compelling to watch.
And when he lashed out in the end, screaming his rage that Amanda-A wasn't real, that she was just a thing, it was a powerful moment, because it played on both his frustration at not managing to get the program right and on his missing his wife. And of course there was also his own guilt and the fact that he couldn't forgive himself "I would deserve it".
Paula Malcomson was great, playing well an Amanda that sounded off (wanting to be her best like a doll in Dollhouse but failing at sounding human)and Eric Stoltz did strike again. He really plays Daniel to perfection and he was good at playing a digital image in the creepy commercial too. I had seen that clip in the sneak peeks and I was worried about Daniel, but it wasn't him, it was a false Graystone with false emotions. Daniel's reaction to the commercial was perfect (and Joseph commenting on the good likeness!) and so was the Guatrau's. Daniel's speech foreshadowed his final reaction to Amanda-A. False image is off putting. The Guatrau sums the episode up with his "Afterall, there's no substitute for the real thing".
BTW the scene reminded me of Spike and the Buffybot from BtVS, except that in this case it was as if the Spike/Buffybot scenes from season 5 and the beginning of season 6 of Buffy were squeezed in one episode (even the blowjob that virtual Daniel seemed to enjoy!).
And Daniel being Daniel goes back to work at the end of the episode. But it is what he does (something he told Zoe-A in the pilot).
I also liked the scenes between Amanda and agent Durham. It is a good storyline for Amanda. Her scenes in the Willow house weren't my favourite but they allowed Paula to play real Amanda which was a nice contrast to Amanda-A, the smiling housewife on high heels.
Oh one character was named Atreus! He couldn't not meet a bloody end. He had to!
Sam using the Cylon to do the dirty job was both terrific for any BSG geeks ("By your command") but also terrifying given what we know of the future (same with Daniel wanting the program to feel and think by itself instead of reciting data).
The Guatrau is becoming a great character. What a screen presence he has.
Nice parallel between Sam and Daniel, both feeling sorta estranged from their spouses yet still loving them ("se philo" Sam said on the phone), no matter that Sam and Larry still sleep in the same bed while Daniel and Amanda-A have separate beds!
BTW I love the detail of Daniel still sleeping on the couch, not wanting to sleep in the marital bed without his wife.
The title "False Labor" calls to our mind pregnant women having contractions, and there was a pregnant woman giving birth at the end of the episode with a montage that echoed the one from the pilot in which Sam killed the Defense Minister while Joseph was crying alone and the Graystones were making love, except that this time on Bear's beautiful music ("Tauron scarifice"), we had a birth instead of a kill, Joseph and Evelyin having sex and Daniel fixing his holoband all by himself. As Joseph said: times change.
However, since Clarice's wife actually experieneced true labor, I think that the title had more to do with Daniel and perhaps Sam. "False labor" means that this isn't the real thing, not yet. Daniel is getting closer, but the creating life in the virtual world, something that Zoe achieved (and how could she not given that her name means "life"), is still out of reach. Even Amanda-A whom I could precisely call Faux-Amanda got to voice it saying that it was "so unreal".
The beauty of the writing lies in the fact that in Daniel's case it is resurrection, not birth. Compared to his labor, birth seems a lot easier eventually.
As for Sam, he's the first character to have used a Cylon to do something in his stead, even the final kill (again it ties up with the pilot in which Sam used his knives in his bare hands to get the job done). Cylons are about to become a race of tireless workers and enforcers. A Labor force without labor laws.
I don't think it's a coincidence if the Guatrau reminds Sam of the meaning of Ha'La'Tha in the end. "Always faithful to the soil". He reminds him of what the real thing is (the opposite of False Labor then). The connection to the soil is what matters (something that foreshadows the finale of BSG!).
Here I can't help thinking of the Old Testament's words " For thou shalt eat the labor of thy hands".
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-10-30 03:16 am (UTC)*sigh* I really liked Caprica. You're right there's entertainment, then there is entertainment. What some like us seek out entertainment is a head trip. If it doesn't make us think about meanings, metaphors, "the 'big' things," etc., in conjunction with telling a story, then it is not worth it to us.
________________
But one comment: Sam is not the first to have a Cylon do what it wants. That was indeed Daniel when he order the U-87 (Zoe-A) during the meeting with his board of directors (including telling the U-87 to tear off its own arm).
Odd that BSG never had an Isaac Asimov. Could have used his 3 Laws of Robotics!
...
no subject
Date: 2010-10-30 10:46 am (UTC)As much as I've come to like Fringe, it doesn't provide the same food for thoughts.
The board meeting is a pivotal moment but I don't think that Daniel displaying his U-87 and commanding it to tear off its arm was exactly the same as Sam using the robot in "False Labor". Daniel didn't use the cylon to do his own work, he just showed his "baby" off to get what he wanted, to convince the board that his "creation" was the future. He was mostly behaving as a scientist and a business man. Besides there was that Pygmalion thing and the Father/daughter vibe that has nothing to do with the "relationship" Sam has with the cylon.
Sam is the first person to behave like a master-"consumer"; he did what human beings are going to do until the cylons rebel, make the sentient robots do what human beings used to do, that is their labor (as workers or as soldiers, and in Sam's case as assassin). It has begun.
Had there been Laws of Robotics, BSG could not have happened since it's precisely based on the Cylons rebelling and deciding to wipe the human race off.
I hope you'll get to see BSG even though Caprica is cancelled, because the show often puts the characters in line-crossing situations and thus tackles so many fascinating themes (genocide, torture, abortion, unions, terrorism,justice etc) in a such intelligent way.
Oh trésor, I will miss discussing all that stuff. :- (
no subject
Date: 2010-10-30 11:46 pm (UTC)