Battlestar Galactica is one of my favourite sci-fi shows, I watched the entire series and enjoyed it a lot. So I was eagerly waiting for the side story “The Plan”, with Ed Olmos’ words resounding in my mind – “then you’ll have to watch again the series”. If you imagine that my expectations were high, you are underestimating them.The Plan, basically is the Cylon backstage, what you don’t see directly in the show, but you put together from evidences, tips and untold parts of the story.
Caprica, instead is the pilot episode the prequel series, set some 50 years before the beginning of BSG and, my thumb estimation, 20 years before the first Cylon wars. The goal of the show is to tell the … well the prequel, why things got so screwed up with robots and what is all that fuss with the single god vs. the BSG-universe pantheon.
I liked Caprica, although I won’t buy the show – it is not enough “space-opera” for my taste. I found characters believable and promising. “The Plan” left me quite disappointed with the bitter feelings I wasted my money. That’s mainly because “The Plan” doesn’t add anything to the story, don’t expect twists or mighty revelations… the backstage is very similar to what you can imagine. Or, put in another way the story is what BSG show is telling, you may consider “The Plan” a sort of deleted scene collection, glued together to make a plot.
Now, the anti-spoil warning, if you want to watch the shows, go and watch them, then return here to read below. If you swap the order you are going to ruin an amount of entertainment.
The Plan, the story is strictly tied to the first season of BSG, starting with the moments before the Cylon attacks up to when two preacher Cylons (can’t remind Cylon model numbers… apart from six, can’t see why O:-)) are discovered and thrown through the airlock.
The story browse the motivation of cylons in the attack and the evolution of the feelings of human form Cylons toward humans. Apparently there is just one evil toaster (one of the Preachers) that is able to fast talk the others convincing they are doing the right thing in wiping out the entire human race.
“The Plan” provides some behind the scenes explanation to some mysteries. You’ll know who let the paper with the cue of 12 cylon models in Cmd. Adama quarters, as well as where the Six who accused Baltar disappeared. Other misteries are left unanswered (how did Baltar survived the nuclear blast? Just by taking cover behind Caprica Six?!)
“Caprica” is a different show, it is about virtual realities, teen agers, families. At least, this is what I can say after having watched the pilot. There is this robot industry tycon whose daughter dies in a terrorist attack. He suffer immensely from the loss, so when he finds that a virtual reality contains a nearly perfect copy of his daughter, he decides to transfer that identity in a robot (guess what kind of robot).
On the other hand another father lost his daughter in the same accident, and suffers the loss in much the same way, but, after having experienced the virtual reality, decides to let go her daughter giving up the idea to have a surrogate experience. This man last name is… Adama and his little son name is William.
The plot also involves the unique god, in the sense that the girls and the boy who caused the bomb attack were believers of the unique god.
So why if I liked the pilot I won’t go watching the entire series? Because I feel this kind of sci-fi, too little “sci”. This is something more about family drama, mysteries (strange things turns out to happen in the virtual reality), quest for power… something that doesn’t really need the distant future or space opera setting. At least the show is not enough motivating for me to afford the expenses, of course your mileage may vary.