MovieChat Forums > Caprica (2010) Discussion > Mostly liked it, but had some issues

Mostly liked it, but had some issues

posted 9 years ago by HarpoSpoke
8 replies | jump to latest

The first couple of episodes it seemed like they were really going somewhere interesting with the story of how the Cylons were created. The whole religion thing was very interesting to me. All the politics and business stuff sounded interesting too.

But a few episodes in, I got the sense they were kinda milking it....perhaps thinking they needed to stretch out the story over several seasons? It devolved into a soap opera about Amanda too often. Her character really started to get on my nerves. When she stood up and announced "My daughter was a terrorist"...good lord. Then several episodes later she had the gall to lambaste Daniel for acting without thinking about consequences? I was so hoping she was really going to die. I will admit she was better in the last couple of episodes.

That glacier speed plot is probably why it failed in the ratings. I'm assuming they found out it was ending just in time to cram everything possible into that last episode. I'm grateful they were able to do that instead of leaving me hanging completely though. They gave me enough to piece things together.

Seems like they could have made one epic season if they had just treated it that way. Of course if it had been a hit, they would have used up all the story so that's a catch-22. Unlike other stories, this one has a definite ending and once they get there it's over.

I did think it was kinda odd that so many things about their lives were identical to modern life today. I can overlook stuff like that though.

[–] panzermeyer44 9 years ago

"Seems like they could have made one epic season if they had just treated it that way. Of course if it had been a hit, they would have used up all the story so that's a catch-22."

That's due to the nature of the tv business model in the US. If there is a show that is getting high ratings and making lots of ad dollars for the network, the network will tend to want to keep it on the air regardless of whether or not there are still creative and interesting stories to tell. This is why you end up with so many shows that started off so great but then jumped the shark and hence the quality suffered.

And the slow-burn progression of the show most definitely killed Caprica's ratings. No doubt.

Check out these ratings for the Caprica episodes. You can see that by the episode "Gravedancing" that the show was toast,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Caprica_episodes

[–] HarpoSpoke 9 years ago

That's due to the nature of the tv business model in the US. If there is a show that is getting high ratings and making lots of ad dollars for the network, the network will tend to want to keep it on the air regardless of whether or not there are still creative and interesting stories to tell. This is why you end up with so many shows that started off so great but then jumped the shark and hence the quality suffered.

I was actually thinking about British TV shows I've seen where they seemed to have thought in terms of making one season (Black Adder, The Office, Faulty Towers) when I wrote that.

The US model can work if you have writers who can come up with new stories to tell. But in this case, there is a definite end-point and the only way to make it last longer was to slow down the narrative to a crawl.

And the slow-burn progression of the show most definitely killed Caprica's ratings. No doubt.

Check out these ratings for the Caprica episodes. You can see that by the episode "Gravedancing" that the show was toast,

Thanks for the link. It actually looked like the first 10 episodes hovered around 1 million viewers or more, then took a big hit after that and never touched 1 million again. It started out with 1.6 million so if they were happy with the initial ratings, I wouldn't think the 1.23 million of ep 9 would be a big problem.

Having just watched it, that makes sense to me. It was around ep 10 that I was really losing patience waiting for the story to advance. The middle part of the season just drags.

It's too bad, that last episode showed there was a ton of interesting story to tell and they didn't get a chance to tell it even though they had plenty of time to fit it in with 19 episodes.

[–] panzermeyer44 9 years ago

There was also a huge gap between the end of the first half of the season and the start of the second half of the season. If I remember correctly episode 10 was shown in March and episode 11 didn't air until October. Big mistake.

What little momentun the show had with viewer numbers was lost.

[–] HarpoSpoke 9 years ago

There was also a huge gap between the end of the first half of the season and the start of the second half of the season. If I remember correctly episode 10 was shown in March and episode 11 didn't air until October. Big mistake.

What little momentun the show had with viewer numbers was lost.

Wow...that sounds like how Firefly was shown on TV.

And also....apparently they weren't happy with the initial ratings for the show if they had decided to cancel at that point so I guess it was doomed either way.

[–] panzermeyer44 9 years ago

The long hiatus was partly caused by the fact that the day to day show-runner was changed. It was Jane Espenson in the first half of the season but it was switched to someone else for the second half (I forgot the guy's name).

[–] sticksstoneswwiv 9 years ago

yep in terms of airing, considering it
part A and part B season 1 with a gap.

you can see some differences like the introduction between the parts.
indicating some tooling.

[–] Squeeth2 9 years ago

The interminable advert phlegmmed all over the start and the titles were difficult to fast forward, which would put anyone in a bad mood, then watching the actor playing Zoe's mum made it worse and then the teen angst capped it off. Trying to appeal to everyone and pleasing no-one. Polly Walker's bits (ooh-er) were very good though.

Marlon, Claudia and Dimby the cats 1989-2005, 2007 and 2010.

[–] panzermeyer44 9 years ago

Actually, the producers were most certainly not trying to appeal to everyone when they made this show. They made a conscious decision to make it very different from Battlestar Galactica and took a big creative risk which obviously did not pay off.

I think a fundamental problem with the premise of Caprica was centering the creation of the cyclons on the rebellious behavior of a high school bratty teenager and her friends. It just gave the show too much of a "Dawson's Creek in space" vibe.