Yesterday, the
SyFy channel broadcast the debut of
Caprica, a prequel series to
Battlestar Galactica. Starting about two generations before the Cylons annihilate the 12 colonies of Cobol,
Caprica's plot tells a depressing story:
- how humans came to create artificially intelligent machines,
- how the machines' characters come to be mirror images of their human creators',
- how a lethal conflict between the two civilizations that immediately develops,
- and how the whole thing is amplified by religious intolerance on both sides.
Without giving away too much of the plot, I'll just say I liked the pilot. (If you've missed it, you can
rent it from Amazon.com. Well, maybe "liking" is not quite the right word. Caprica messes with your mind in the same ambivalent ways as
Galactica did. But, it's a nice setup for future episodes of gratuitous explosions, mind-wrenching speculations on the nature of humanity, creepy perspectives on messed-up relationships, and plenty of needless cruelty, both physical and emotional. I think I'm gonna stick around.
Is any of you A2Kers watching it, too?