Caprica - There is Another Sky, S01E05

Although I was not as big a fan of this episode as I was of the last one, it address some interesting issues in our own culture through the Caprican culture. The episode did not go as far as I might want it to, but hopefully that will happen in upcoming episodes.

The holoband is similar to the internet. More and more people are using it, especially young people, and they are using more and more illegal methods because they want to experience so many things for free. Like us, their younger generation has a sense of entitlement that far exceeds the possibilities the world has to offer.

While Daniel Greystone (Eric Stoltz) may have pulled the rug out from under the illegal aspects of the program by ceasing to profit from the holoband technology, giving it to them for free certainly will not stop the entitlement issues.

We also got the usual pointed comment about being able to be someone, to accomplish something in a virtual world having no real baring on real life. Tamara (Genevieve Buechner) was quite right when she told her new friend that perhaps he would be able to be someone, to accomplish something in the real world if he were not so immersed in the virtual one. How many people have incredibly powerful WoW characters, but have nothing of value to speak of once their computers are turned off?

I also have to wonder how close any modern scientists are to creating artificial intelligence, let alone artificial sentience, given how many times we've been warned that we will end up being weaker than the creatures we create. To create sentience, artificial or otherwise, and to expect unquestioning obedience while giving no rights...well, it's no wonder that the Cylons revolted. Zoe (Alessandra Torresani)'s Avatar so closely resembled the real person, how could she accept such subservience so easily? And how must she have felt to have to tear her own arm off at her father's command? It may not have hurt physically, but Zoe clearly has enough of a mind to be affected.

And why is it that two of the most interesting characters, Zoe and Tamara, were killed within the first hour of the series?

But, while all those technological questions are thought provoking, nothing is more concerning to me that the choices that the writers of Caprica are making in regards to William Adama (Sina Najafi) and his father (Esai Morales). At some point, I am going to have to go back and discover if there was ever any sort of a reference to Bill's uncle in BSG. Hard to believe that a man like that could be easily forgotten. And what about the glorification of Joseph Adama? Does he become a better lawyer and a moral man to be proud of as the show develops?

I suppose you can dismiss it all with a "Bill Adama got hurt during the Cylon war and it changed him so much he forgot his childhood. But you'd think they would have been a little more careful with everything.

What did you think?