Caprica
"Rebirth"
Air date: 1/29/2010
Written by Mark Verheiden
Directed by Jonas Pate
Review by Jamahl Epsicokhan
The terrific Caprica pilot covered quite a bit of ground. It did a good job establishing the characters and their roles within this diversely plotted universe of technology, corporate intrigue, and criminal enterprise. And it was an especially intriguing sci-fi allegory on our technologically driven social-networked world.
Now we have the first episode of the produced series, which I can describe as admirably competent — continuing what we had in the pilot — but it does not invoke in me the feelings of enthusiasm that I had after the pilot. The pilot, in addition to its tech/BSG-prequel elements, hinted at a cool world of corporate intrigue with a sideshow of gangster movies thrown in for good measure. (And not just gangsters, but gangsters wearing 1950s suits and fedoras. How awesome is that?)
"Rebirth" seems to cover a lot of ground we already covered in the pilot. It's interesting enough, and there are things I liked quite a bit, but overall it felt more redundant than necessary. When you compare this to BSG's "33" — well, there is no comparison. "33" was revelatory. "Rebirth" is merely adequate.
The plot is more or less minimal. The story instead attempts to establish a few of the series' ground rules, the most crucial being the narrative device that depicts the Cylon version of Zoe by switching back and forth between shots of the chrome robot and shots of actress Alessandra Toressani. I liked this method. It feels at home in this universe (cinematically reminiscent of Head Six on BSG). It also does an effective job of humanizing Cylon Zoe, both physically (it is more disturbing to watch lab technicians carelessly slam a teenage girl into restraints than a robot) and mentally (these shots suggest how Zoe perceives herself — still as a virtual version of a teenage girl rather than a robotic soldier).
The story involving Cylon Zoe works the best because it continues the pilot's intriguing sci-fi notions of what happens when a very humanly emotional intelligence ends up inside a robot that was not designed for those emotions. There are shades of RoboCop here, with the robotic POV shots of lab tests and flashes of former-life memories. Zoe is transported back to the Graystone household and her father begins to wonder if perhaps something of Virtual Zoe somehow survived (Cylon Zoe stays silent), despite all data evidence insisting that it could not.
No one except Lacy (whom Zoe calls on her cell phone, in a bizarre twist on the typical TV scene of a teenager getting a cell phone call at school) knows that Zoe's virtual memory has actually survived. Their scene together toward the end is strange and intriguing. (Religious overture du jour: Zoe's combination of Virtual Zoe, Real-Life-Memories Zoe, and Cylon Zoe is referred to at one point as a "trinity." Take note, One True God believers!)
Less compelling, but adequate, were the other subplots in "Rebirth." The Graystones' continued grappling with their grief was performed well enough, I suppose, but offered no new take that we didn't already gather from the pilot.
Meanwhile, Lacy's dinner invitation to Clarice Willow's house ended up being as strangely overwhelming to me as it must've to Lacy. Clarice, whose role at school seems to embody conservative traditionalism, is anything but; she has an unconventional group marriage (one of her husbands is played by Scott Porter, of Friday Night Lights fame), who are fringy sorts. Later, Clarice goes to some sort of hookah bar and falls off the wagon. What wagon, I'm not entirely sure. Is this life a secret that's at odds with the image she portrays at the school? If so, how does she maintain appearances? We shall see.
Meanwhile, Sam's interactions with young William — showing him some street smarts and street psychology, which his father does not approve of — are reasonable as character-based atmosphere but do not offer the kind urgency that the mobster stuff had in the pilot. (Footnote: In a subtle moment of brief dialogue that is easily missed, it's revealed that Sam hits on guys, or at least used to.)
Brian Markinson is back as the investigator assigned to the bombing case. He's the sort of character that could be really awesome or really annoying, and it's going to completely depend on the material he's given. Markinson approaches the role in an absolutely-no-BS kind of a way. The lore surrounding the Soldiers of the One (STO), the organization that claimed responsibility for the bombing, will certainly be significant down the line.
I cannot endorse the ending of "Rebirth." I just don't buy it. For Amanda to have her suspicions that Zoe was a member of the STO and possibly responsible for the bombing is one thing. For her to go to the microphone and broadcast it at the memorial is something else. It's just too senseless and shortsighted for a woman who (1) was this girl's mother and (2) is the wife of a billionaire who should know something about PR and what an announcement like this will do to her already-shattered family. It plays more like a contrived moment meant to spark a dramatic and chaos-filled ending than something that the character would actually do. "Rebirth" has some nice moments, but the ending is a stretch.
Previous episode: Pilot
Next episode: Reins of a Waterfall
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22 comments on this post
Thu, Feb 4, 2010, 6:19pm (UTC -5)
Thu, Feb 4, 2010, 6:45pm (UTC -5)
Thu, Feb 4, 2010, 6:54pm (UTC -5)
Since TNG and TOS episodes have a very self-contained structure, individual character moments are easy to address in total instead of individually, because they each contribute to one big picture for the episode as a whole. For example, you don't need to describe every scene in Tapestry to talk about what it shows us about Picard's life or about the goading relationship that Q has to Picard. You could just have two generalizing paragraphs, one for each.
In a show like BSG or (so far) Caprica, there can be so many little threads running through that each thread tends to need a paragraph unto itself. The connection to a big picture may exist, but is often subtler, for good or for ill. DS9 was sometimes like this, too, although it was a little more self-contained than especially BSG S4 was, and obviously, those DS9 reviews from you were longer, too.
I guess I'm not really saying you should aim for this length. You should do whatever you want, obviously. I'm just saying I won't be surprised if something like this becomes the comfortable length for a show like Caprica.
It's still shorter than many of your BSG reviews, and hopefully between this somewhat shorter length, the lack of second viewings and detailed notetakings, and above all, the reduced number of technological hassles because of the blog format, reviewing will become more fun for you. I look forward to reading!
Thu, Feb 4, 2010, 7:22pm (UTC -5)
On either the TWOP boards or the boards where we poke fun at TWOP, someone noted that some of the human characters seem to have similarities to the personalities of the 1-8 (minus 7) skinjobs we eventually meet in BSG and speculated that we might eventually see Zoe (or even Dr. Greystone) take people she knows and essentially use them to create the rest of the cylons (not to be in human bodies until they eet the final 5 of course). They said they felt that Lacy is the mental profile for Boomer. Whether that will be the case remains to be seen, but upon re-watch then ending with Amanda made me think of the idea again.
Thu, Feb 4, 2010, 8:16pm (UTC -5)
Daniel is quite the piano player...
Fri, Feb 5, 2010, 12:22am (UTC -5)
I definitely understand your point about the end, but I'm a little more on mouse's side for this one. Yeah, it was a bit ridiculous, but the situation itself is pretty 'ridiculous' and crazy emotions come out of things like that (as some of us witnessed in BSG). It did seem a bit abrupt, but i'm just hoping that means they have a lot to cover.
The Zoe-cylon stuff I also found really neat, though the actress has me turned off a bit... mainly because of how weird she sounds in some of her interviews. (It's like she's bad at acting when she's being herself...?)
In all, it wasn't another "33" but it was satisfying enough for me... Which might not be enough for other viewers. (I'm just hoping it doesn't get cancelled.)
Fri, Feb 5, 2010, 8:49am (UTC -5)
picky continuity question - Dr. Greystone had blocked Tracy's clearance for admission to the house, so how did she get in to talk to cyber/Zoe? it seems kind of unlikely that the house robot would be programmed to respond to commands from the cylon.
I agree that the Calvin & Hobbs-like plot device of switching from cylon to cyberZoe is good. Unfortnately, I find Alessandra Toressani to be about as expressive as the Cylon, so it doesn't have nearly the impact it could have.
I actually found Amanda Greystone's ascent to the podium believable (stupid, but believable). She had already been exposed to the suspicion that Zoe was involved in the plot. Finding out about Zoe's secrecy, combined with the confirmation of the boyfriend and the STO, would have lead to an explosive mixture of betrayal, anger and guilt on top of the powerful grief. Throw in the opportunity and a momentary impulse and there you have it. Whether is was a good plot device remains to be seen.
Rant - how sterotypical for a decaying society to have "abberrant" life styles. Wouldn't it have been refreshing to have the alternative lifestyles be a little less creepy, or god forbid, even healthy? (Common RM, lets break some fresh ground) The group marriage was modeled on a bad commune stereotype, not reasonable poly relationships. After the creepy father/daughter incest vibes from last week, the Will/Sam exchange gave me creepy homosexual incest vibes, which was unfortunate, because I, too, liked the casual gay reference. (Presumably, Will already knows that Sam is gay from meeting partners). We've also got the cougar relationship (Clarisse and young "husband"), the creepy 3 way with underage teenager vibe (Clarisse, husband, Lacy) and the Robot/young dude relationship. How ironic, that the last one is the one that feels the most authentic, even downright sweet.
Fri, Feb 5, 2010, 1:19pm (UTC -5)
The Will & Sam scenes struck me as being the usual "crook trying to corrupt young minds" scene except that this particular crook happened to like guys. I especially liked the line about "don't feel guilty, talk about what makes the other guy feel guilty" which little Will employs on his father later on in the episode.
I don't think that Clarice's family was meant to be portrayed as "deviant" per se, Lacy's line about "my friend was in a family like this" puts it down as unusual but not abnormal in this world. The creepy vibe is in Clarice's almost predatory behaviour towards Lacy (I wonder how many of her family members are in on this) which is made all the more disturbing by her apparent advance knowledge (from the pilot) about the bombing. I think she referred to it as "premature?" THAT is why she should not be hanging around impressionable kids, regardless of how many husbands/wives she has.
Although, I remember a line from the pilot where real-life Zoe tells Lacy "There's a new family waiting for us" when they were about to get onto the train. Were they talking about some kind of church/commune or an actual multiple marriage like the Willow family?
Fri, Feb 5, 2010, 2:38pm (UTC -5)
Having Will use Sam's suggestion on his Dad was indeed a nice touch. I guess I'm edgy about how much corrupting of Will there is going to be.
Fri, Feb 5, 2010, 5:38pm (UTC -5)
Fri, Feb 5, 2010, 6:52pm (UTC -5)
Aside from Zoe and the Graystone family, the rest seemed like it was just there. I love Esai Morales as Joe Adama, but he, nor his family seemed to have much relevance in this episode. I appreciate the subtle mention of Sam Adama's accepted homosexuality though, nice sci-fi move. I'm gay myself and appreciate little things like this, though I can't help but wonder if lesbians aren't being left behind in this new TV age full of gay characters.
Also interesting is Clarice's rather large family, involving several husbands with several wives. My friend commented negatively on this, and I was a bit surprised by it too. The focus, however, as in every relationship, should be based on honesty and happiness, and I'm happy that it's a part of the show. I just hope it and Clarice in particular are used more interestingly in future episodes.
Sat, Feb 6, 2010, 3:43pm (UTC -5)
Let's try a different angle. Given a social moral code, it is possible to be honorable and adhere to the code or be dishonorable and twist it to your advantage. For example, Sam adheres to a Tauron moral code, which happens to deviate from the predominant Caprican code on the subject of murder and intimidation. But judged from the Tauran code, so far, Sam seems to be an honorable guy (and hopefully this will be born out in his relationships, if we see them). My impression of Dr. Greystone so far is that he is dishonorable in that he seems to twist the Caprican moral code to fit his purposes. Joe Adama is caught between two moral codes, and isn't doing well by either. Now, the character of Clarice could have adhered honorably to the STO moral code, which like that of Tauron's deviates from the Caprican moral code. I would have found this the more compelling approach simply because "alternative lifestyles" are such a cliched sign of "moral decline" in "decadent societies."
Some of this is coming from the fact that I was really pissed that Gaita's homosexuality wasn't revealed until he went rogue. If I had always known he was gay, that would have been fine - gay characters aren't obligated to be "good." What I objected to was the tight linkage between the two.
Sat, Feb 6, 2010, 7:27pm (UTC -5)
I agreed completely about the ending.. it was the first thing I said after seeing the episode. usually Mr. verheiden is a great writer...
Sun, Feb 7, 2010, 2:02pm (UTC -5)
Mon, Feb 8, 2010, 8:01pm (UTC -5)
Tue, Feb 9, 2010, 4:08pm (UTC -5)
1. The link to BSG seems weak to me. We already have devastating hints of just how horrible a cylon with the mind of an angry teenager could be. Also, I don't like Bill Adama's portrayal as the kid of a mafia family. And for God sake, don't make the most evil one the gay guy.
2. The visual scifi effects are a mixed bag, many are good, but using 50's cars, even Citroen DS-21's instead of mock-up, rocket cars is a stretch. Same for the motorcycles. And when the guy says he wants a 300 HP Citroen... Frak!
3. The writers seem to enjoy combining sex and violence which I find annoying.
Wed, Feb 10, 2010, 4:48pm (UTC -5)
Fri, Feb 12, 2010, 10:01am (UTC -5)
Fri, Feb 12, 2010, 10:23pm (UTC -5)
Mon, Feb 15, 2010, 2:18am (UTC -5)
The ending, in particular, struck a sour note. My distaste was not that Amanda making a speech was illogical, it's that I didn't find it emotionally believable. It felt more like the writers went searching for conflict, than a natural consequence of the characters and preceding story.
I also don't think I liked the opening credits, but they reminded me of the amazing opening credits from the HBO series Carnivale (which RDM also worked on). Maybe they'll grow on me; I hope the rest of the show does as well.
Sat, Aug 7, 2010, 11:27am (UTC -5)
Great review and great comments from all, it makes me more interested in watching this series.
I love the irony of having almost everybody in the Pyramid sports arena (starting at 8:21 ) , a place where we are our most "alive", saluting the national himn the way we now pose our dead.
Nice creepy touch
just my 2 cents
Sat, Mar 24, 2012, 10:58pm (UTC -5)
-Helena Cain, a vengeful despot who tolerated rape as a torture tactic;
-Sam Adama, an organized crime member and murderer;
-Clarice Willow, who sanctions terrorist acts to promote her religious beliefs.
As far as I know, there has not yet been a 'sympathetic' homosexual/bisexual character on the show. (okay, there was Gaeta, but only in the webisodes).
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