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Back in Time with the Crew of Caprica
by Jordan Riefe
Now that Battlestar Galactica is counting down the end of its run, and with the Television Critics Association press events once again in full swing for 2009, we're looking ahead to a passing of the Galactica torch when the upcoming Battlestar spin-off, Caprica, hits the airwaves in the not-too-distant future. As creator Ronald Moore has revealed, Caprica takes place 51 years prior to the setting of the current Battlestar Galactica and centers around two rival families - the Graystones and the Adamas - that will determine the fate of the 12 Colonies.
 Since Caprica still doesn’t have a confirmed air date on SCI FI, we're revisiting our time spent at the 2008 TCAs and the Caprica panel as we get set to say good-bye to BSG. But with Galactica picking up steam toward its final 10 episode run and the end of a fantastic era of revamped sci-fi, we know there's going to be a huge void once the doors close on BSG forever.
Back in July we were on hand at the TCAs where Galactica creator Ronald D. Moore sat down with producer David Eick and writer Remi Aubuchon to catch the press up to speed on Caprica. Although the panel also featured a few of the cast members, we've also included the panel additions of Caprica actors Eric Stolz and Paula Malcolmson.
For those looking to a future beyond Battlestar Galactica, here's a look at the questions and what went down in July at the Caprica panel while we were there, which is still relevant today since there's no word on the Caprica premiere.
How do you put suspense in as we know where this is going? Was that a narrative challenge?
RONALD D. MOORE: I think the tension comes from the fact that you do know where it's going. From the opening frame of the pilot, and the first words that you probably see on screen say "Caprica," fifty-one years before the fall. And the idea is to say all of this, this world that you're about to visit, is doomed in some way, shape, or form, and there's a sense of dread and an ominousnessness that gathers over all the characters. In terms of the narrative and the story structure, it's like any period piece. You know how World War II turns out. You know the Nazis are going to lose. But that doesn't mean that you can't tell compelling stories in the time frame and you can't make it suspenseful and exciting and wonder exactly which of the particular characters that you're following will live or die, or what will happen or the twists on the way you think things are going to turn out. And then you find out it didn't happen exactly the way that you thought. It wasn't a huge hurdle, I don't think, to get over in the writing room.
Why do a prequel? And how does this relate to what happened in Razor?
 MOORE: It doesn't really relate to "Razor" directly except in the most arcane bits of the mythology. The project came about because Remi Aubuchon had gone into the studio and pitched an idea for a series. What had you gone in and pitched?
REMI AUBUCHON: Turns out very similar to what we have, a series about our lack of control of technology, about how we often take for granted the service class around us, and how that sometimes can come back and bite you in the butt.
MOORE: Studio heard his pitch and knew that David and I were talking about various ideas about what a possible companion piece to Galactica would be, and David and I already sort of discussed, well, the way we are going to end Battlestar Galactica doesn't really hold itself open for another story. We're going to end the Galactica tale with sort of a period at the end of the sentence. And then we said, well, what is it? It's Battlestar? No, that's boring. You could do the first Cylon War, which is part of our backstory. But then it's just another war story, and we felt like we had covered that ground.
And when Remi's idea came in and we sat down in the room and started discussing it, I think is when we started to really realize that it was a great possibility to do a different kind of series. This show is really nothing like Battlestar, has a completely different tone, completely different mood, completely different way of telling stories. It's shot very different. And I think I was particularly attracted to the idea of doing a science fiction piece that was not built on a foundation of action adventure. It wasn't about Vipers and it wasn't about the Cylons attacking every other week. It was really a character piece. It was really a drama, and you can infuse with a lot of political commentary and a lot of religious overtones and really dig into a people and a society and how and why it all came unglued.
Why, then, 51 years? Is that just to give you a couple of generations to get through to get to the big day?
MOORE: For those of you steeped into Battlestar mythos, at the time of the miniseries we had said that no one had seen or heard from the Cylons in 40 years and that we had kind of said that the first Cylon War, we never nailed down exactly how many years it was. But it was a multi-year conflict. So this gives us a little more of a cushion and sort of still be expansive on exactly how long the initial war took place. And we were also locked into the idea of we wanted William Adama to be a character in this piece, albeit a boy, with his age and doing math - we came up with 51 years.
 So Esai Morales is the father of Edward James Olmos, is that right?
AUBUCHON: [Nods head, yes.]
And do we see a boy, is there a young actor who plays Edward James Olmos' character?
AUBUCHON: [Nods head, yes.]
Are there any plans to flash forward into the Battlestar world and flash back, or no plans at all in Caprica?
MOORE: There's nothing like that, certainly in the pilot. And then in our discussions of the series, we're not really talking about that, no.
DAVID EICK: The two are so incongruous that it probably wouldn't really fit. There's a certain urgency and a kind of kinetic immediacy to Battlestar, which can only accompany a war show, and this is a story about peace, or at least what appears on the surface to be a peaceful time, and so inner-cutting the two would feel very oil and water.
Is there kind of a Mad Men, '50s feel to the show?
AUBUCHON: Well, there is a stylistic choice to make it feel a little retro so that we can feel as if we're telling a story as if we were telling it from 51 years from what we understand now. If we think of Battlestar as the present, and in an exploration of the war and survival of the last remaining human beings, we're saying, "Oh! So you want to know how this all came about? Let me tell you a story about what happened 51 year ago." So we wanted to get a feel that we were telling an older story that took place 51 years ago. So that's part of it. It certainly wasn't to try and emulate Mad Men. But I think what Mad Men does well, and what this show does great, is give you a sense that this is a different time and place where there were different rules and there were different things happening.
You have a lot of fans after Atia and Atia of the Julii and your amazing performance in Rome, and I'm curious to know how this script came to you and why you selected this project?
POLLY WALKER: It came to me the usual way, you know, via an agent and stuff like that. I mean, you only see so much when you read a pilot. But there just seems to be so much sort of scope and places that I could go. It's a very strong character. It's a woman that's on her own in a sense. She's not attached to anybody. And she has very strong convictions, and I think and believe that I can do something equally interesting with it.
David Milch - dense, dark, opaque, intellectual. Ron Moore - dense, dark, opaque, intellectual. Are these the kind of roles you like to play? And who is harder to play, David Milch or Ron Moore?
 PAULA MALCOMSON: I look for roles that are strong women, and that are as strong as they are, they're equally flawed where I can create a human being. I think that is a similarity of these two women, with Trixie, that I played for a long time, and this woman, Amanda. And when we started working together, I saw the potential for that to have sort of a long journey with this woman. There are a lot of places to go here.
MOORE: I know one of the reasons we cast her is based in large part because of the tremendous work that she had done in Deadwood. And I think one of the things that we really liked in this performance, and in that show in general, there was a certain fearless quality to what she did, and there was a certain thing that we like to do in Battlestar and that we want to do in Caprica where we are really willing to push, challenge actors and actresses, ask them to go places that are not typically done in conventional television. So we tried to assemble a cast that we felt could go places with us and that would really take leaps of faith and really be willing to do things that would be truly challenging and still bring an emotional truth to it, and that was really of a tremendous appeal to casting Paula in the role.
Where is the humor going to be? Where is the fun going to be?
MOORE: It's set in a different context than Galactica. Galactica is set literally in a post-apocalyptic universe where billions of people are wiped out in the beginning, and it just sort of goes downhill from there.
EICK: Babies are killed.
MOORE: Caprica's a different animal. Caprica's taking place in a different time and place. It's about a vibrant society. It's really at the height of its power and the height of its decadence at the same time. So it's really a thriving, vibrant culture that's going to come apart as we watch, but it's sort of the roller coaster. It's thrilling at the top when you see how far down you gotta go.
What drew you to this project because you don't have a huge sci-fi background? Were you a "Galactica" fan yourself?
ERIC STOLTZ: Yes. But what drew me to it was the script. It was such a wonderful, rich, surprisingly smart script to be sent out of the blue that I couldn't resist.
Are there any story points that you've had to take out of Battlestar Galactica as far as revelations to long-held questions by Battlestar fans because you now need to save them for Caprica?
 MOORE: No. I can say with relative confidence that just about all the questions that are raised and mysteries that are in Battlestar are answered in Battlestar by the end of the series. And I don't think we ever really had any conversations about, "Oh, okay, here's a secret that we want to hold for Caprica," that we were going to do in Battlestar. We really have kind of separated them out in the mythos, and there's really nothing in Battlestar that has to be held for Caprica or vice versa.
EICK: Although, there are some things in Battlestar that have helped in a backflow way and form some directions we may go in Caprica in series. And that's actually been helpful. It's sort of like having a head-start you don't ever get when you're launching the show.
How often in Caprica will there be reference sort of to the world of Battlestar Galactica? Will we be seeing, like, Gaeta's grandfather ...
MOORE: I don't think so. I'd like to hope that we probably don't do that.
STOLTZ: We say no now.
MOORE: We say no now. It might be one of those things you just can't resist, but I think the plan is not to really do that. We kind of felt ...
AUBUCHON: I think we made a pretty conscious decision to only make the Adamas the only touchstone to that, I think.
MOORE: Yeah.
AUBUCHON: It's also a whole different world. I mean the 12 planets in Caprica - I don't think I'm giving too much away - are not united in - at all. Each planet has its own government, each - in fact, we're calling this the - there's a prime minister on Caprica now, and there will be a lot of -- part of the plotting will be the conflict between the 12 Colonies.
 MOORE: Yeah.
AUBUCHON: So it's a very different world.
MOORE: Because presumably, all the people in Battlestar, most of the people came from sort of a federalized universe where all 12 colonies -- it was one president. There's no equivalent to Laura Roslin in Caprica, a president who serves all of the people of the 12 Colonies. At this point in the story, they're all disparate and they're - they war against each other periodically.
When you talk about having 12 planets, there's got to be some space flight in there somewhere. Are you going to be doing any of that, or is it strictly going to be urban-city kind of drama?
MOORE: I'd say it's predominantly going to be urban city. I mean, they have space flight. They will refer to space flight. There's commerce between the planets. There's wars between the planets. There's relations. We make references to the other planets within the pilot, but that's just not where the show lives. The show lives on Caprica. The show lives in the city and with the characters that are there. It's going to be sort of like a contemporary drama. If you set another series in San Francisco, it's - most of the action's going to be there but it doesn't mean the character can't fly to Hawaii or someone can't come in from London or you might have a reason to play the scene on the 747 when they're flying someplace. And we'll treat this show pretty much the same way.
EICK: Well, the technological emphasis is on artificial intelligence. That's the breakthrough. That's the new technology, the new frontier in this show rather than space travel which we're taking as sort of an existing technology.
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