This episode brings us back to V world and we catch up with the Zoe & Tamara Avatars or, as they are known in New-Cap City the Dead Walkers.

We also see Daniel reassume his position as CEO of Graystone Inc and the true cost of his methods to get there.

Im going to start with the V world stuff, I found the Tamara character pretty boring I have to confess, she had such a strong outing earlier in the season that I found her pretty weak in this episode, I understand that the events in the challenge arena were more about Zoe than Tamara but I feel that it was so one sided that the Tamara character was made to be very one dimensional and.

The one thing I found interesting was the idea that perhaps, she is the mother of the Cylon race we know from Battlestar, a lot of people speculated (myself included) that Zoe Graystone’s Avatar would eventually bring about the Cylon Human war but using this episode as a reference, if one of the avatars is going to do that then right now, it seems more Tamara’s deal than Zoe’s.

Once again I found it confusing that another of our characters appears to be having visions, this time the Zoe avatar is flashing into memories from the real Zoe and at the same time somebody who appears to be the real Zoe Is appearing to the avatar – during both events the two Zoe’s are having conversations, so these aren’t memories being replayed or re-accessed, also when Zoe Prime appears to the Avatar she seems a lot like the Baltar & Six we saw appear to Dr Baltar and the Cylon Six in BSG, those two were revealed to be angels of sorts – steering the two on the path god had set out for them, are we seeing a similar pattern here? Or is it just wishful thinking on my part for the grander theme to become more prevalent.

The episode seemed to resolve the search for Tamara thing a little too quickly for my liking, it had been a theme of the episodes before the hiatus and now it’s wrapped up within an episode, I can only assume that this has been done because the greater story is now what the two avatars can achieve together.

Clarice is holding Lacy in the attic of her house, a fact that her family isn’t too happy about, now that Barnabus is gone (or is he?) I can’t help but wonder whether members of Clarice’s own cell will rebel against her? There were definite signs of displeasure towards her actions and decisions this week, both in keeping Lacy alive and captive and towards Amanda Graystone moving in.

Amanda of course has engineered this as a way of getting closer to the information the GDC has tasked her to find.

The scenes with Lacy and Clarice are very strong, brilliantly acted and engaging – personally I hope the Lacy character doesn’t spend too long off world as I find the character one of my favourites

I found the scenes with Daniel and Tomas to be amazingly powerful and was shocked when Tomas pulled the dagger into his own chest, of everything I love about Caprica learning more about the 12 colonies and their peoples is way up there on the list, whether its because of their treatment in Caprica so far or because I just find them the most engaging I don’t know, but I have a serious love for the Tauron people so all of that was great to watch and it was great to see Daniel realise what he was involved with.

By the promo, next weeks episode looks to be action packed so I hope to catch you all here in a few days time with loads to say about it

Later!

I’m just going to start by saying that as I watch these new episodes of Caprica I struggle to understand why more people aren’t watching it, it’s edgy, smart and engaging and those are three things that I look for in my television viewing.

This episode begins with a botched bombing attempt by Lacy and the other young STO recruits of the Barnabus Cell.

The acting in this opening is outstanding so it’s a definite shame that, with the exception of Lacy, by the end of this episode the other three Young STO are dead…

The Caprica writers have taken an interesting creative choice when dealing with the shows hiatus, that choice being that things have progressed during the hiatus that we viewers are still not completely caught up on, through out this episode and the previous one we are treated to “flashes” of memory from our principle cast members detailing some of the events of what has transpired during the gap.

This episode deals a lot with the fallout from Clarice’s visit to Gemenon; she now has full control over all STO cells on Caprica and has basically decided that Barnabus’ cell is surplus to requirements.

The other focus of the episode is Daniel realising the full scope of his deal with the Ha’la’tha as he helps Sam & Joseph Adama blackmail the Graystone board members into voting him back in as CEO.

For me, this episode is a lot about darkness, on Daniels side his somewhat uncontrollable decent into darkness and on the side of Clarice, her acceptance of it as a price of doing business.

The C plot of the GDO’s ongoing investigation and the involvement of Amanda Graystone in this is particularly exciting, as it gives the character something more to do than grieve, get drunk, unspool and go a little nutty – I have to admit to being a bit confused about her storyline before the shows hiatus (being a BSG spinoff Caprica really shouldn’t expect its viewers to trust that a hallucination of your dead brother isn’t something else pretending to be a hallucination of your dead brother…)

The idea of Apotheosis is touched on again in this episode, the idea that With Zoe Graystone’s avatar program, an immortal soul could be created – this idea offends the monotheists on Gemenon and leads to one priest to push for Clarice to be killed for the good of the church, but Clarice is better connected than we realise and it is the priest that finds himself out of the picture.

Im a little bummed that Barnabus got blown up, as I was really enjoying the character – although I did note that we only saw the explosion from the ground and that it wouldn’t be impossible for Barnabus to have escaped (Improbable, but not impossible) James Marsters is a wonderful actor and to see him gone from Caprica so soon would be a shame.

For this week, that’s me – sorry it’s short once again, some personal obligations are eating away at my time I hope to be back with some more detailed reviews in short order.

A short and sweet review this week folks, I promise things will settle down in a few days with our regular reviewers doing their thing and time won’t be so stretched.

Caprica is back with a fraking bang my friends, although this episode starts a little slowly and has moved on somewhat since the events of the mid season finale about ten minutes in it hits it’s stride and maintains it’s pacing throughout.

We have a little catchup to do, Amanda seemingly didn’t survive her suicide attempt and Daniel has lost control of Graystone Inc to Vergis.

UB86 or the Zoe-bot didn’t seem to survive the crash and subsequent fire but they have been able to copy her chip, the copies fail to achieve sentience but they can ‘point and shoot’

The focus of this episode is split between Sister Clarice and Daniel and their attempts to achieve their goals (gaining control of all Caprican STO cells and regaining control of Graystone Inc respectively) – during this we get further insight into these characters and their limits.

Throughout the episode we learn a little more of what’s occurred since before the break and at the end we learn that both Zoe and Amanda Greystone have survived (in one way or another) and the whole episode serves as an introduction to the new playing field, it was less about what is happening and more about what’s going to happen.

I could go play by play and talk about the amazing character wok from Daniel to Serge but honestly, it’s all great and it always is – to break it down into key moments would make this a very long, very wordy review.

For me Caprica is always stellar, apart from a feeling that the mid season finale was rushed I’ve had few to no complaints about the episodes, however I think this episode is right up the top of my list (below the pilot) as one of the best episodes we’ve had.

I’m a big fan of Caprica and honestly feel that if it doesn’t make it to a second season it won’t be due to writing or acting, it will just unfortunately fall in with the growing number of great shows that just didn’t manage to stay running long enough for everybody to realise how amazing it is.

Or, we could blame it on the highly questionable move from Fridays to Tuesdays

The episode begins in the middle and flashes back to the start, a practice that always bugs me in shows like this but you learn to get used to it.

I’m a huge fan of Caprica but I feel that this episode was hurried into a mid season cliff-hanger position when it wasn’t really suited for it, the tension of the end of episode 7 for example when Daniel realised the prototype Cylon was Zoe was natural and palpable, the cliff-hanging points in this episode seemed forced somewhat.

The characters I find myself fixating on in Caprica and have done since the beginning are Amanda Graystone, Lacy Rand and Sister Willow, other characters are interesting and hugely compelling (Daniel Graystone being my personal frontrunner in that pack) but I find myself spending more time between episodes wondering where their plotlines will take them.

The moment between Sister Willow and Barnabus was extremely impressive in last weeks episode, getting to see that Barnabus wasn’t so easily put in his place was an interesting plotline throughout this episode, seeing how he manipulated Lacy by showing her what she needed and then telling her it wouldn’t be any good to her unless she helped him.

Joseph Adama and his continued descent into V-world was compulsive, but just as I was beginning to grumble at the possibility of an addicted to computers storyline they changed the whole dynamic by having Emmanuelle, revealed as a V-world avatar of Evelyn arrange for Joseph to be shot and killed in V-world, removing his ability to continue his search for Tamara.

Amanda discovering that Daniel had arranged for the MCP to be stolen from Vergis added further confusion to her already diminishing mental status and she opted to attempt to end her life, for me – I have to say this seemed like an extreme progression, which is part of what makes me feel that this was rushed to conclusion to fit in before the mid season hiatus.

The only two scenes in this episode that I felt worked, naturally and completely were the scenes where Barnabus informed Lacy that she had put the bomb on Willows’ car and that she would detonate it, if she wanted her “boyfriend” to live and the scene where Zoe (as U-87) revealed herself to Philo and in an attempt to stop him sounding the alarm, killed him.

Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t dislike the episode, I just felt that it was strangely fast paced where Caprica has employed a more time-release method of story telling in its run so far.

I hope when the show returns, these plotlines are resolved and, I honestly can’t believe im saying this but I hope the show can return to a slower pace for the remainder of season 1, gradually building to these points instead of rapidly approaching them in the last 45 minutes.