On Board for Caprica After Missing Battlestar

Sometime in the future, I hope to watch Battlestar Galactica. The Sci Fi Channel version of the space opera had rabid fans and there were some critics who maintained it was one of the best series on TV.
Now Syfy is launching Caprica, which is a prequel to Battlestar and I wanted to make sure I checked it out while it was still on the launching pad.
The two-hour pilot airing Friday was glossy and compelling. It featured solid actors in Eric Stoltz and Esai Morales. And it wants to deal with important issues, including the limits of technology, the pervasiveness of racism and the effect of religion (monotheism is a radical idea on Caprica). Though set in the future, characters smoked. And they say frak when a good curse word is called for. It also opened with a virtual orgy at a club that featured just about everything, including ritual sacrifice of virgins.
What little I know about Battlestar is that it was about a group of human who escaped their planet after it was destroyed by machines created by humans. And the machines—Cylons, with their sweeping red eye–were out to get those survivors.
So it was fun knowing that an attempt to build a robotic soldier would eventually go very wrong. That the inventor’s deceased daughter’s memories and emotions were implanted in the machine makes it fascinating enough to want to follow along.
With its frequent talk of virtual reality avatars, Caprica invites comparisons to the record-breaking theatrical hit “Avatar.”
The Washington Post thought the TV series was an improvement on the film.
“As often with Syfy’s original fantasy films, this one looks great and sports a splashy array of visual delights, there’s enough going on in ‘Caprica’ to keep a sci-fi fan, or anyone who likes to settle into a good story, satisfied and even beguiled — and though it’s shot too dark, those watching on an upscale, big-screen TV will be treated to a visual spectacular,” Post critic Tom Shales says.
But the New York Times expects the new show’s appeal to be limited to the relatively small base of Galactica fans.
“Solemnity is still the primary tone, and the earlier series’ predilections for hazy philosophizing and for moralistic commentary on current events are even more pronounced in the new show,” the paper says.  “You’d expect the back story of how humanity nearly brings about its own destruction (in only 58 years!) to be serious, but through the three episodes sent to critics ‘Caprica’ stays on that one note; it hasn’t yet developed enough humor or authentic domestic drama to move beyond the ‘Galactica’ fan base.
USA Today believes Syfy didn’t do anyone any favors by giving the Galactica saga new life.
“Knowing where we’re headed wouldn’t matter if the journey were inspiring, but Caprica is lugubrious, portentous to the point of unintentional self-satire and, to any non-initiate, impenetrable,” says critic Robert Bianco. “Clarity was never a Battlestar strong point, but the writers now seem to have adopted incomprehensibility as a virtue. It isn’t. Again, if you loved all things Battlestar beyond measure, Caprica may satisfy. For all others, this is a planet best left unvisited.”
With Syfy being a part of troubled NBC Universal, both the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times found it surprising that a scripted show as good as Caprica had been produced by the company.
Mr. Zucker, say thank you to Ms. Hammer, who runs USA and Syfy for you.