This Friday on “Caprica” ep 05: “There is Another Sky”

Morale of the story - you do not want to get on a Tauron's bad side, particularly the nice ones. No sir.

Also - a deeper look into the Colonial Hedonism. You take the virtual world, where you can make anything, and what do they make? A world where realism and the permanence of death are the main characteristics.

The real world makes a virtual world to make a "real" world. There's a joke in there somewhere. Still nice to see the battlestar blimp.

Jake Meridius Conhale, at your service!
"Old Man" of the BSG (RDM) boards.

Who all's been complaining about the slow pace of the show? Well, here we have a single ep which took Tamara from scared lost girl in a strange place to the ruler of New Cap City. That's quite a rapid transformation. Possibly too rapid, but all things are relative.

I had to cheer for her when she shot that evil blonde dead to New Cap City.

Also, we see again that Daniel has no empathy for artificial sentience. He builds it, hypes it up with great praise, and sees the cylon as the ultimate slave. Even orders his prototype to rip off its own arm. Man! That had to hurt.

In all fairness, I don't thing Daniel is fully aware at this point that it's his daughter in there, but you had to feel for Zoe. She was so touched to see her daddy recognize her brilliant mind and then he goes and pulls something like that.

Sam has a lot to catch up on with his boy. Willie should have a bright future with the Ha'la'tha. That was one big rock he beaned that older boy with and the bunch of them had their hands full trying to pull him off their friend.

Bet they think twice about picking on any more little Tauron boys.

Poor Joseph. He's losing his relationship with his son and that is how his family finally convince him to go ahead with the Tauron ritual to let go of his dead wife and daughter, only to have a boy show up at his doorstep sent by his late daughter in the V-world. That's gotta be rough.

Nice. 7 new tattoos for the bereaved.

___________

I'd've gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for you meddling kids.

Three basic storylines in tonight’s episode. I’ll go over them in order of significance.

First, and most fascinating, was Tamara’s virtual world nightmare. She’s out of the black box, but stuck in the virtual teen universe – unable to get back and uncomprehending of why she is stuck there. She ends up drawn into a VR game set in New Cap City, a virtual version of Caprica City. Very spooky visuals there, particularly with the huge blimp passing by and dropping off airships or perhaps drones.

Tamara has to help rob a NCC bigwig named Chiron in order to get a promised ticket back home. Her young male partner Heracles has her distract their target by pretending she was a girl he met before. Chiron doesn’t recognize her. I couldn’t help thinking of how he might have reacted to Zoe wearing the same outfit. Chiron would probably have been desperately trying to convince her that they had met before. Anyway, Tamara gets shot but doesn’t disappear like a regular avatar would. While everyone is staring at this phenomenon, Hera copies Chiron’s avatar. But then Tamara seems to have vanished and Hera is suddenly seen some distance away carrying her in his arms. Granted, Chiron turned for a second because he felt the pulse of his avatar being drained. But, how could Hera possibly have pocketed that device, snatched her up and run off with her when so many other people were staring right at her? I’ll have to take a half-point deduction on them for that one.

Using information gleaned from other people’s earlier runs in this game, Hera poses as Chiron, gets rid of the guards, and has Tamara hop on the different symbols for the worlds (like our Zodiac) as the combination to open the safe. Oddly enough, with twelve worlds to choose from, three of the four names are Caprica, Tauron, and Geminon. Thankfully, the fourth is Picon, bringing the referenced worlds total to 6 now. The vault opens with coins floating in the air, which Hera absorbs with his device, getting 321 billion or so virtual dollars if I was reading his counter right. Guards arrive, but Tamara lets them shoot her since she can’t be harmed, and then she uses her newfound powers to somehow make them vanish.

As I said in previous weeks, Avatar Tamara’s existence isn’t at believable as Avatar Zoe’s. Since she was culled from Tamara’s old records, she could recognize her parents (from photos), know her street address and things of that nature. The rest of her personality she could only pick up from others around her. But she tells Hera that he should stop wasting his time playing this virtual game and use his energies to make a name for himself in the real world. That kind of complex thinking is too advanced for an avatar in my opinion. But I’ll accept it here as dramatic license, as it’s a great little scene. When Vesta tells Tamara she is dead and thus she can’t get her home, she tries to get her to stay and play the virtual game but Tamara shoots Vesta and all her guards, sending them back home instead. She tells Hera to contact her father in the real world.

Which brings us to storyline number two: Joseph Adama trying to win back his son. It seems Will didn’t take Sam’s advice about reporting to school first, and then sneaking off. Even with Sam taking him to school, Will still doesn’t report in to school and thus his father is called about his long absences. Joe tries to bond with him by taking him fishing. When a smart-ass kid calls him a “dirt-eater” for no reason, Will grabs a rock, throws it at the kid and then punches him out. He’s one tough kid, and that smart-ass had it coming.

To reconnect, they hold a Tauron passage rite for Shannon and Tamara. It’s a very touching service where they give a coin for each person’s passage to the next life, bid them good-bye, accept their loss, and then realize that their spirits will be with them forever. I was moved by it. And Joseph received a tattoo related to the service, so it would seem that not all Tauron tattoos mean something bad.

Then, just as Joseph is accepting that Tamara truly is gone, along comes Hera to tell him he has a message from Tamara. When Hera learns Tamara died in the maglev explosion, he runs off and Joseph is unable to catch up to him.

Finally, we have a short subplot about Daniel trying to prevent the Board from voting him out of his own company. Seems the Sarno appearance boosted their approval ratings dramatically, but that whole free product thing has the Board bummed out. Amanda gives him one helluva good pep talk about how he survived being down before. He goes to the Board meeting with Cylon Zoe having her walk around and examine the other Board members. I liked the smirk on Zoe’s face as she walked around. She also gets to hear herself referred to as a brilliant mind, instead of a monster. Daniel announces that she’s the next big thing – someone who can do the work of a human but doesn’t have to be paid! Yes, the ultimate in slave labor, and you don’t even have to feed them like human slaves. Then, to prove that the machine will obey any command, he asks the Cylon to rip off its own arm. Zoe does so with great reluctance, tearing it off, while bleeding oil or perhaps hydraulic fluid. Then she tosses it on the table for effect. The ploy works, and Daniel is kept aboard his own Board.

All in all, the episode was very interesting, particularly the virtual world storyline. The 44 minutes went by quickly. I’ll give it 8.5 Picon-Caprica-Geminon-Picon-Tauron virtual safe combinations.

- It turns out the skies were dark, but literally. It was an interesting episode.

- Ha, ha! "Uncle Sam." Ha! No comments.

- Willie doesn't have to go to school. He's enrolled in the "School of Life."

- Cool nightmarish "blade-runnerish" metropolis. I like the style they managed to pull with little budget, because, my god, the budget here is low, and it must all go in the robot and the rest of the CGI.

- It seems killing is in New Cap City what flying is in Second Life. One could complain why Capricans aren't more imaginative and do crazy, fancy stuff in the virtual world. Again, budget constraints. And what reflects their values is that they seek self destruction and corruption. Yeah, see what the absence of a single god makes? The message from the writers seems to be clear.

- Fishing: epic father/son moment. Also, epic fail! That reminds me of all the "are we there yet" moments when parents decide to drive their family to the country or some place nice to spend a holiday and kids get restless because all they want is to play games or watch TV. Or to learn to be a mobster, if you're a Tauron.

- Why such a huuuge hall for such a relatively tiny board meeting table? It makes the directors feel small. Is that the intention? And it's interesting directors can always vote owners out of their companies. I wonder in how many companies this classic TV trope is actually feasible.

- Where does iZoe shop for new clothes? She seems to be showing up with new stuff regularly, but nothing too extravagant. But she could even be naked, for all she cares, since nobody can see her.

- This is how I imagined the scene:
Daniel: "U87, ripp off your arm!"
Robot shakes its head slowly.
Daniel: "Come on, do it."
Robot just shrugs.
The comedic possibilities are endless. But then, the U87 would become an Interrodroid class robot.

- Seriously now. Ripping its arm off was a grand gesture, but an empty one. But I'm sure the directors were impressed because they must be, well, impressionable.

In the first episodes, Philo explained that the chip's AI (or something, but it's understood it's iZoe's virtual soul, or something...) has hacked into the robot body's subsystems, but it wouldn't do that with other robot bodies. But if the arm can be replaced, what else could be replaced? And wouldn't that mean she could just as well inhabit another robot? Well, my theory is that she won't do it because she just doesn't want to.

Now, either Daniel cracks up that code and learns to do it by himself, or gets iZoe's cooperation to do it. but even then, how will he be able to power more than one robot at a time and have the product he promised the board of directors?

- I agree with bob, iTamara's arch was very significant and happened quite fast. And we can see where Cylons got a taste for killing and Capricans, for dying... And now iTamara is the new "queenpin" of New Cap City. By the way, that kid, iTamara's new friend, I see him in every Canadian show I watch. And he isn't even that good.

- Oh, my. Those guys are crazy about the zodiac!

- No sister Clarice this time. No Lacy. Minimal Amanda, and the little she did was useful in a non-nagging way. Good, I didn't miss them.

OVERALL

I was wondering about what charmed said last week, that he doesn't like any of the characters. Well, I like villains and devious characters. They can have a remarkable personality, so I like Daniel, Joseph and Sam. But even if we deem the morally reprehensible/fully criminal elements as "unlikable," a notion I disagree with, but let's run with that for a while, I still think there are salvageable characters.

I like the girls. iZoe just want to find her place in the world, and she's very cute and warm in her own way. Lacy doesn't have much of a personal life, but she's an effective friend and Clarice's apprentice. And iTamara has proven she can be a lovely kickass full of badassery. Judging by iTamara's change, I think the writers are indicating that all characters can change drastically, or at least have this potential, and that promises to deliver nice twists in the near future. So, even if a character is not so likable now, it can change into one. So, probably we can hope even Amanda will improve, because the role of nagging wife and grieving mother is very tiring for the viewers.

I also like detective (?) Jordan Durham, because he's doing what he can to catch terrorists, and even if corruption is around him, he's still clean and determined, as far as we know.

Now, some people might complain the pace of some story lines is too slow, and I can see why the show failed to conquer some types of audience. Some people prefer more standalone adventures with a clear development and conclusion. We had that with iTamara in New Cap City, but the grieving situation with the Adamas is going on forever. I don't really mind that, but some people will.

What matters to me is that each chapter weaves a little more of the rich tapestry the writers intend to show us, and this takes time for slow-burning development.

All in all, I liked the episode, and because of the iTamara's arch, I think it deserves 8 billion bitcoins.

Well I'm sure the rest of the group will be falling all over themselves about what an great episode this is but alas for me it's another story. I feel as if I am trapped inside the holodeck and can't get out. virtual this virtual that and now Tamara is the queen. There is a new sheriff in town. it is interesting though the parallel of the adamas, gangsters in the real world and now Tamara is the head gangsta in the virtual world. The adamas are just gangsta's alive or dead.

Adama's kid is so irritating and that Sam is quite the instigator. again no one in this show to like. We need more Zoe. On the good side there was no Clarice in this episode.

All in all not another dark depressing episode worth 4 death coins on the Caprica scale.

http://codenamestone.blogspot.com/

This Friday on “Caprica” ep 05: “There is Another Sky”

This one was a little slow for me this week who knows it might just be me. Tamara figures out she is dead but somehow lives on in vworld. She could become dangerous since she can’t leave vworld I expect to see bodies everywhere she seemed to take to the vworld killing game. Joseph was almost over the loss of his wife and daughter and then comes the knock on the door. I’m sure he’s off to vworld in next week episode. Joseph kid really beginning to get on my nerves I could do with less of him. Daniels fast thinking saved his company now they are in the AI business making killer robots for what purpose that part is still clear to me. Who are they at war with surely not the STO? No Lacy this week kind of miss seeing her was starting to get into her character. Just one shot of the evil Sister Willow what is up her sleeve she like a snake in the grass waiting to strike if you get too close. This week episode gets a five.

Random advertising.....

My boss simple know to me as Dr. B. Tooth is in danger of not reaching his kickstarter goal. Pass it on to anyone who might be intersted. Only a few days left.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2105764235/rekam-dr1-smartphone-programmable-car-program-on-t