Saturday 23 January 2010

Caprica news roundup - interviews, articles, reviews

Okay, with the show premiering this evening, a whole bunch of news, reviews and interviews showed up in the last couple of days. Here are some links:

L.A. Times has a couple of new interviews as part of their Caprica countdown.

Magda Apanowicz:

The old standby question: Were you a fan of "Battlestar Galactica" before joining "Caprica?"
I made a conscientious decision not to watch it until after we filmed the pilot. I was one of those people that looked at it and said, "Eh, I'm not really a sci-fi fan," but holy! I went back and watched it and I'm like "Holy!" How did I not know that this show existed in my life! It was unreal. I just recently watched the whole series again. It's so good. I can't believe that I was one of those people who said "I'm not really a sci-fi fan."

I saw you at the screening of the "Battlestar" finale at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences last year, talking to "Caprica" [executive producer] Jane Espenson. What have you learned from working with her?
Yeah. You saw me bowing to her because I am a huge "Buffy" fan, again from someone who said they weren't into sci-fi. Though I've realized over the past few years that I am a massive sci-fi fan. Pretty much every one of my favorite movies is sci-fi. Everything I've worked on is sci-fi. And meeting Jane Espenson was just jaw-dropping, not talking just in awe. I was like "You're Jane Espenson and you worked on 'Buffy' and how was that and that's awesome and you're awesome and this is awesome." There was more actual conversation once we got past that. I just felt really honored to meet her. Keep reading

David Eick:

So how long ago did the idea for "Caprica" actually come about?
The first time that myself, Ron Moore and Remi Aubuchon got together to discuss it was was five years ago. It's crazy cause it doesn't seem that long. Ron and I came from these franchises that had spawned offspring. In Ron's case it was "Star Trek" and in mine it was the "Hercules"/"Xena" world. At some point during the second season of "Battlestar," we started kicking around the idea of another story rooted in this world. We started kicking around the idea of a more human-based, terrestrial-based soap opera with a sci-fi undertone that would take place in the years before the events that were depicting in "Battlestar." In affect, it would be Dallas where the McGuffin would be artificial intelligence instead of oil.

We had a general conversation with execs at Universal, then we tabled it as we continued to make "Battlestar." We got a call from those execs some time later and they said that at some point in time they heard a pitch from Remi Aubuchon that they felt crossed paths in many ways with what we'd talked about for our "Battlestar" prequel. It just made sense to Ron and I to have another partner since we were so into just making "Battlestar" at the time. So we sat down with Remi and started to hammer out where this spinoff would be.

So I don't really need to ask if it was a harder sell than the original 'reimagined' "Battlestar" premise?
Our reimagined "Battlestar" premise was held back by a couple of things at different stages. One was title, which was a blessing and a curse. It opened certain doors, but there's a whole contingent ... who would not watch a show called "Battlestar Galactica" no matter how many trophies you win. And Bonnie Hammer said to me, 'You're gonna have to explain to me again when you come in to pitch this why the world needs another space opera.' And I think we did.

In this case, we had a leg up, you could say. We were coming at the "Battlestar" mythos at what did not feel like a lot of other shows. As unique as "Battlestar" is, it's still easy to lump it in with "Stargate" and "Star Trek" and "Andromeda" and I can't even name them all. Whereas with "Caprica" I think we're operating in very unique territory. Keep reading

They also reviewed the pilot here.

SpoilerTV has the full transcript of the conference call with David Eick and Paula Malcomson here.

BuddyTV talked to Jane Espenson about Sam Adama, the gay character on the show - link.

Airlock Alpha talked to Bear McCreary about the show's score.

PinkRayGun has an article about the Caprica set visit last October here.

Ausiello at Entertainment Weekly has a pic of James Marsters and says he will first appear on the show on March 5.

Times Colonist interviewed Magda Apanowicz - link. So did Dose.ca.

Wired talked to Alessandra Torresani - link. Sioux City Journal also has a new interview with her.

SeattlePi has an interview with Esai Morales here.

And the Wall Street Journal talked to David Eick - link.

AfterElton.com has a lengthy review/feature about some of the issues that will be explored on the show.

And here is the New York Times review.

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