Let's start with yesterday's episode of The Firm. Brian Markinson made an appearance and if I hadn't trusted the press release (which didn't mention him) over IMDB, I totally would have posted a heads-up. You can watch the episode on NBC.com. It will be available until February 17.
Grimm is back tonight at 9 pm on NBC and Portlandia's BSG ep, "One Moore Episode," with Ron Moore, Edward James Olmos and James Callis, airs at 10 pm on IFC.
Synopsis & teaser for Grimm 1x08, "Game Ogre:"
AN ESCAPED FUGITIVE’S MURDEROUS RAMPAGE LANDS AT NICK’S FRONT DOOR
An escapee returns to Portland seeking revenge against those who put him behind bars. His unusual strength and high tolerance for pain makes Nick (David Giuntoli) take notice. As the case escalates Nick and Juliette (Bitsie Tulloch) are put in danger, and Monroe (Silas Weir Mitchell) is called into action to help put an end to the convict’s deadly rampage. Russell Hornsby, Reggie Lee and Sasha Roiz also star.
This is the first part of the weekend monster update, with more news & stuff coming in the next couple of days.
I got my Grimms confused in yesterday's post as it turns out. Tonight's episode won't be "Let Your Hair Down," but "The Three Bad Wolves." Rapunzel doesn't show up until next week.
Nick (David Giuntoli) is called to a suspected arson case, which exposes a longstanding family feud that brings Monroe (Silas Weir Mitchell) face-to-face with characters from his troubled past. While Monroe wrestles with restraining his wild side, it’s up to Nick to keep everything from going up in flames. Russell Hornsby, Bitsie Tulloch, Sasha Roiz and Reggie Lee also star.
There are a few sneak peeks at THR and Dread Central. Spoiler TV has the promotional stills. Here is the teaser:
Ron Moore and David Eick attended the Syfy Digital Press Tour in Orlando earlier today and the first reports are in. There is still no word on whether Caprica will get a second season, but Ron Moore is still confident that it will, and Syfy's Mark Stern says that the decision will be made by November 15.
In the second half, we'll see more momentum and focus on certain storylines. There will be more tie-ins with the "Battlestar Galactica" mythology. Eick says this is when they're "unapologetically" connecting to its origins instead of trying to establish its own identity. So more "BSG" tone, suspense, action, etc.
Moore says that they have a creative road map for the second season, should they be picked up. It's a fairly detailed plan with several points out on the horizon. So creatively they're ready to go, but just waiting for the green light. It'll almost feel like a fresh start, so you won't be bogged down with the mythology, launching that AI or sentience, from Season 1.
Continuity isn't too difficult because much of the story was created while "BSG" was still going on. "Caprica" pretty much has its own stand-alone mythology. During "BSG's" fourth season, they tried to not mention the origins of Cylons that much in order to give more freedom to the "Caprica" story. In fact, they had to cut a line from Adama who refers to his father.
And there is a short clip from the panel, uploaded by ash0283here.
More interviews from Comic-Con showed up online in the last couple of days, from MediaBlvd, Buzzfocus and MyTakeOnTV. Most of them are embedded below. The Buzzfocus folks also have freshly uploaded videos with Sasha Roiz, Alessandra Torresani and James Marsters on their site that haven't been posted on YouTube, so you need to follow the links to see them.
MovieWeb posted several new video interviews from Comic-Con yesterday. Before I embed them, just a quick note to say that The Sci Fi Guys will upload an interview with Ron Moore on www.dtrn.co.uk later today.
Also, TheCommentary.ca has an interview with John Pyper-Ferguson that's pretty recent. Not really related to Caprica, but fun to listen to anyway.
Okay, no panel video or extended season 1.5 trailer yet (The Sci-Fi Block has a brief description), but a few more interviews showed up on YouTube since yesterday. Check them out below.
The first interview with Ron Moore and Esai Morales from the London MCM Expo showed up online earlier today. For the full article, go to HeyUGuys.co.uk. Here are the parts that mention Caprica:
HUG: Was Battlestar written in the same way [as DS9]?
Ron Moore: It’s changed a bit, but the fundamental is still the same. It’s still a writing staff gathering in a room and putting cards up on the board, and arguing about which scene should go first, and what’s the best story. We thought we were telling this story, but it’s turning into that, or this doesn’t work, or ‘I’ve got a better idea’. The fundamental of working in a writer’s room is really the same.
For me personally it’s different, because shows like Battlestar and Caprica, I create and I’m running so I have more idea and control of what I want to do, whereas Trek was more somebody else’s to begin with and then I was more on the team rather than leading the team. My particular role shifted but the job is still kind of the same. It’s still sitting there and finding the best story. (...)
HUG: Esai, moving into a spin off of Battlestar: you hadn’t watched the show prior to working on Caprica?
Esai Morales: Not really. I was aware that it was a lauded show, but there is so much stuff that I can’t see because I don’t have the time. I just didn’t happen to be a fan, not that I wasn’t a fan on purpose.
HUG: Have you seen it since?
EM: I’ve seen much more of it now, but I remember asking how much should see and what I should prepare. They were like ‘you don’t have to see any of it’. This takes place before hand. If you’re going to do a story about Ancient Rome, you don’t need to know about how Italy does today. I mean, you could, but they didn’t want us to colour it.
RM: They didn’t want him to lead, always trying to get to where Adama, where his son, would be this person. We didn’t think that was necessary.
HUG: Writing and working on a prequel would presumably be a very different process from working on a new concept or an original series or sequel. Do you feel at all constrained by the overbearing and overwhelming Battlestar fifty, sixty years in the future?
RM: Not so much. We had the luxury of developing Caprica while Battlestar was still on the air. We wrote the pilot a long time ago, but they didn’t make it for a long time. So we had the opportunity to separate the two projects and we were careful to end the last couple of seasons of Battlestar in a way that wrapped up all of the internal Battlestar mythology. So there weren’t big, giant hanging questions that we then had to go back and answer in Caprica.
We were also able to set up Caprica in a way that it could just start from its own course, fresh. There was really not a lot of direct continuity between the two that we’re constantly having to make sure that this lines up, or go ‘we can’t do that in Caprica, because that would contradict this’. We really separated them in terms of time, and in terms of storyline. We don’t really feel that much of a burden while developing the story, about trying to make it match up to Battlestar. It’s not like the Star Wars prequels that are so integrated, that it must have been a challenge to try to make sure it all lines up. We’re just separated.
Michael Hinman over at Airlock Alpha has an article that addresses some of the concerns about the show possibly not getting picked up for another season. No concrete news, but if you are trying to keep a positive outlook, check it out: Caprica's Chances at Renewal? Strong.
Key paragraph contradicts what Craig Engler tweeted the other day about the show not getting picked up before the fall:
And news should be announced later this month both on when "Caprica" will return, and if Syfy is ordering more episodes for a second season. So keep your fingers crossed.
Granted, it's all coming from an anonymous source, so no one's committing to it, but at least there is a possibility that we may hear something in the near future.
As a sidenote, Ron Moore and Esai Morales attended the London MCM Expo this weekend, but there aren't any extensive reports out there yet. An interesting bit of info comes from this blog and isn't really related to Caprica, but to the other Battlestar spinoff, which hasn't been mentioned in a while either:
Ron Moore confirmed that they are discussing several possible further BSG spinoffs with the studios. Apparently there are multiple possible directions they could take, and no one in particular has been favoured over the others so far; consequently he was reluctant to discuss them. We will also see at least Gemenon and potentially more of the Twelve Colonies in Caprica.
Finally, an update that's actually fun (i.e. involves someone on the creative side of things discussing the show itself.) James Marsters did a Q&A at the Phoenix Comic Con yesterday and the podcast & clips are online. You can listen to the podcast here and, for the videos, go to the Multipleverses YouTube channel. James talked about playing Barnabas and his last day on the Caprica set. If you don't already know whether or not Barnabas makes it through the season alive, the first clip with spoil that for you. The second one is spoiler-free.
Magda Apanowicz did a couple of interviews this week. First, she did the TV Talk podcast with Shaun O'Mac. You can listen to it here (her segment starts an hour into the podcast and lasts about 40 minutes).
And the second one:
The Vancouver native, who plays Lacy Rand on the lauded sci-fi series, says this Friday's mid-season finale - airing just two months after the show debuted - has arrived far too quickly for her liking.
"It's so crazy, it happened out of nowhere. I'm like, 'What? No! There's got to be, like, three more.' But nope!" says Apanowicz, 24, who will be at Wizard World Toronto Comic Con this weekend.
"It just always feels like it's been only on for like, a month, and you're like, 'There's so much more, you guys need to see, there's so much more."'(...)
Friday's mid-season finale will feature "a bunch of cliffhangers," says Apanowicz.
"We're all pretty stuck in the decisions we make at the end and there's no real going backwards from them but kind of finding a new way to go forward from them."
Apanowicz has strong roots in the genre of sci-fi drama, with previous roles in the series "Kyle XY" and "Bionic Woman," the miniseries "The Andromeda Strain," and the film "The Butterfly Effect," among others. -- TheFreePress.ca
And Ron Moore and David Eick talked to The Associated Press about what we can expect to see in the second half of the season.
Fulle Circle Magazine talked to Magda Apanowicz. For the complete interview, go here.
JA: How much do you remember about the audition process for Caprica and being cast in your role?
MA: I was very hesitant about doing it because I get really nervous in auditions. I also had to get my wisdom teeth pulled in a couple of days. So I was dreading it but also thinking "I have to do this." So I went in and did the audition, and then a couple days later I had my wisdom teeth pulled. I got an infection and my whole face started to swell- for a month I couldn't talk or eat. They wanted to see me for a callback and I wasn't able to go. They had to trust the tape when they hired me, and I couldn't speak until about four days before we started filming the pilot.
JA: Take us through an average work day on the set of Caprica.
MA: Some days you'll come in and do one scene, other days you'll be there for an entire day. The crew works so hard because they are there every single day, and they work very long hours. I usually get there around 6:00AM, get into my trailer and have breakfast, then go and get my hair and makeup done, then get into wardrobe, get your mic, and do the blocking. To get ready for work, I always go to my trailer and put some kind of music on and dance spastically. It's just one of my morning rituals right before I have to do any kind of acting. It's a really boring process when you try to explain it, but it's fun! I love it.
Matt Mitovich talked to Alessandra Torresani. The complete article is on Fancast.
Can any amount of preaching by papa – or gun barrels targeted at loved ones – make Zoe step forth? ‘Caprica’ star Alessandra Torresani is skeptical.
“At this point her father has done so much, she’s not going to let him have [closure],” says the actress. “They’re the same person – and because of that they butt heads – so the more he tries, the more she’s not going to give in.”
Events are unfolding quickly, though, as ‘Caprica’ speeds toward its cliffhanger-filled midseason finale. As such, “It’s almost too late” for Zoe to make her presence known, Torresani admits. That said, she allows for a possible “change of heart” by her alloy-clad alter ego at some point down the road.
Bryan Reesman has an interview with Ron Moore and David Eick here.
How much of an impact do you think that Battlestar Galactica and Caprica have had on modern sci-fi television? Ron Moore: That’s really hard to say. I don’t know. David Eick: We were so busy cribbing from others that it’s been hard to keep track of who we may have begat. Our touchstones were the greats: [Robert] Heinlein, Philip K. Dick and the movies of Ridley Scott, not just the science fiction ones. I think we were fortunate to figure out a way to apply some of that aesthetic to a modern TV show. I haven’t been able to pay attention enough to what else is on out there to see what we may have inspired. Ron Moore: To me, the biggest and most important impact is that Salma Hayek had a “Frak” T-shirt when she was on 30 Rock. That was a major score because that’s the one they put in the time capsule.
And here is another interview with the cast at The Paley Center that contains a few interesting details about the rest of the season.
Both Esai and Sasha (who plays Sam Adama, brother to Esai's Joseph Adama on the show), were taken aback after reading the script to the finale of "Caprica's" first season.
"Our finale is unbeliable," Sasha revealed. "It's so powerful that I remember me and Esai calling each other after reading the script. We were both absolutely floored by how it ends."
Esai said the season finale script made him emotional.
"The finale drove me to tears on various occasions," he said. "What happens is so profound and out of the blue. [It was] so unexpected it took my breath away."
SCI FI Wire has a new interview with Ron Moore, probably the only person in recent days to say anything concrete about the show's renewal odds and when the decision will be made.
In case the report from Variety (and now Blogcritics too) caused any confusion: no, season two isn't in the bag yet. None of the gazillion press releases SyFy put out at Paley this week mentioned anything about the show getting picked up for a second season.
SCI FI Wire pulled Moore aside last night at Syfy's upfront session in New York City and asked him what it will take to bring about a Caprica renewal. His reply? It boils down to the same two things to which it always boils down, ratings and money.
"It's an expensive show for Syfy, for a basic cable show, and the ratings are not gangbusters, but the ratings have been ticking up and we're building momentum," he said. "It's been critically well received, so there's a good buzz on the show. It adds a lot of prestige to the network, but the network also has its own business people that have to figure out a cost analysis on it. I feel like we're gonna get it. I always felt like we were gonna get it on Battlestar. We'll just have wait and see."
When must the decision be reached?
"I think ultimately it comes down to when the actors' contracts come due," Moore replied. "That's the real trigger, and I don't think those are due until August. However, I think that the other factor is [the network's] schedule and when they'd want the show to be on the air. So they would probably pull the trigger before that in order to start production in time to get the show on the air for their schedule."
This just in (with big thanks to Dids for the link):
(SPOILER warning for the second question, concerning the evolution of the Cylons and Zoe in particular, and watch out for possible Willie Adama spoilers after the clip.)
In case you haven't caught this on Twitter, Ron Moore also addressed the issue of Willie Adama's eyes being the wrong colour and sort of implied if not said that it will be explained on the show. Hit the link above for clarification if you've missed all the Willie/Evelyn speculation in the last couple of months.
For more tidbits from the Madrid event, read Dids' post here.
Caprica premieres in Spain on April 5 and if you're in the U.S./Canada, don't forget to tune in for the new episode, "The Imperfections of Memory," tonight at 9/8c on SyFy.
This blog reports that Ron Moore and Alessandra Torresani will appear at an event in Madrid on March 11. They will do a Q & A session and the pilot will be screened in HD.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
6:30 pm ET
New York
In Person
Ronald D. Moore, Cocreator and Executive Producer
David Eick, Executive Producer
Paula Malcomson, "Amanda Graystone"
Polly Walker, "Sister Clarice Willow"
Alessandra Torresani, "Zoe Graystone"
Magda Apanowicz, "Lacy Rand"
Sasha Roiz, "Sam Adama"
Syfy’s new Battlestar Galactica prequel—more futuristic family saga than space opera—is a provocative, superbly crafted drama that, like its predecessor, tackles complex, highly resonant themes, such as religion, race, terrorism, technology, love, and the very nature of humanity. Like all quality drama, Caprica is not just emotionally and intellectually gripping, but also compels viewers to confront their own reality, even as they are swept up in this visually arresting, preapocalyptic world of sentient robots, avatars, and interplanetary travel.
The Paley Center will preview an upcoming episode from Caprica’s first season, followed by a discussion with members of the cast and creative team.
Paley Center Members: $15, tickets on sale now.
General Public: $25, tickets on sale Wednesday, February 24 at noon.
Los Angeles Times talked to Ron Moore about Caprica and has a lengthy article up here.
Some have called "Caprica" a science-fiction soap opera. Is that a fair description and was that the plan?
Well, the intention was to go in that direction. To just do a drama that wasn't set in space. It was kind of important to David [Eick] and I that the show not be about just another "Battlestar" or yet another war series, but to really be different on a fundamental level to what "Battlestar" was. We had always tried to pitch "Battlestar" to the audience as a character drama first, then a sci-fi drama second. There were segments of the audience that we could never convince -- the female audience for instance -- to try the show. They were held back by the hardware and the really sci-fi trappings of the show, but I always felt like science fiction could accommodate different kinds of storytelling that were character-oriented and more grounded, for lack of a better term. So we decided that this show would be very much based on a planet and character-oriented. And the shorthand for that would be primetime soap.
I asked David Eick what his fears were going into production, and he mentioned casting. What were yours?
Mostly it was the budget -- not having enough money to do what we wanted to do. Trying to get enough funds to really realize the world of Caprica and tell the stories that we wanted to tell in the scope that we wanted to do.
The religious aspects are certainly heightened in "Caprica." Did you research religion for the show?
Somewhat. Remi [Aubuchon] really had done more research into that because it was a particular interest of his. A lot of the conversations and initial research on that was done by Remi.
Scorpia will be mentioned more frequently, and Sagittaron we know will eventually become a hotbed of terrorist activity. ... Gemenon is also a very important planet, probably the most important besides Tauron and Caprica, because it's the homebase for the monotheism movement and is the most religiously-oriented of the colonies and a lot of the conflict in the colonies is coming out of Gemenon. Keep reading
L.A. Times has a new interview with Alessandra Torresani. Nine days to go until the premiere, two episodes left to film this season.
As Zoe Graystone, viewers don't get to bond a whole lot with you in the pilot for obvious, explosive reasons. How will we really get to know her?
Well I play five different people from the pilot to the season finale -- which I'm assuming five 'cause it may be more, I mean, we haven't shot the season finale or seen the script yet. So, yeah, you'll see, literally, five different young, 15-year-old girls.
I spoke to Eliza Dushku ("Dollhouse") about playing different characters on a show. Is each one of the roles you play a different personality at all?
They're all based on the same idea, but they're all very, very different. People will definitely know the differences between them all.
Was there a favorite?
Hmmm ... I don't know. Probably the robot cause she's a kick-ass [character]!
With Taurons, Capricans and such helping bridge the mythology of the "Battlestar Galactica" universe, did you feel any pressure?
Not so much. Yeah we're following in their footsteps, but we're a completely different show and we're a different style of show. We're not battleships fighting each other running away from the Cylons. Yeah, you want to keep all of their fans, and you want more, but you can't guarantee that. We're our own show -- it's fresh and new and we're going to base it on a completely new idea.
What do you think about the Cylon technology itself? Are we going that way as a society?
Absolutely! I'm convinced that Ron Moore is actually an alien and he knows these ideas already -- what's going to happen. He's just giving us little hints and little clues. I absolutely think so, I mean, why not?
Wow. Well, would you be into it? Would you do it, especially knowing what could possibly happen as a result?
Oh yeah, I'm a science nerd. I love this.
So you watched a lot of sci-fi and "Battlestar" before you got the role?
I never saw "Battlestar" before, but then I watched it after we shot our pilot because I wanted the first Cylon to be completely different than how Tricia [Helfer] portrayed it or Grace [Park] or any of the girls. I watched it and became completely obsessed. But yeah, I'm into "Star Trek" and stuff ... I'm more into "Aliens," but yeah it's all fun! Keep reading
The Daily Beast has a lengthy new article about Capricahere. They talked to the show's executive producers Ron Moore, Jane Espenson and David Eick. Here is some of what they had to say:
“[Caprica] continues on the thematic aspects of Battlestar in terms of what it means to be human, how our personal, familiar, emotional decisions can have sociological or political impact, and that… the greatest wrinkles in our culture and our history can be boiled down to an emotional response to something,” said Eick. “It’s an ironic sort of commentary that small, personal motivations are what contribute to the biggest changes in society.”
“It’s got a very different flavor,” said Moore of Caprica. “It’s setting out to tell a very different story… It’s planet-based, instead of space-based, it’s not action-adventure, it’s much more centered on two families than a military environment. We wanted it to be much more about contemporary society and problems that are coming up on a social front as well as a technological front.”
The main distinction between the two shows, said Eick, is that Battlestar was a war story while Caprica is set during times of peace. “It’s more personal,” he said. “It’s how those very universal feelings that we all have, feeling ostracized from our families, feeling misunderstood by our loved ones, not feeling like our potential is being realized or appreciated, lead to these enormous sort of technological avalanches of discovery… and huge cultural shifts.”
Espenson agrees. “The conflicts come more from the clashing of people from different cultures and representing different life-philosophies—capitalists, technocrats, mobsters, polytheists, monotheists, terrorists, federal agents,” she said. “It’s a portrait of a culture in transition, trying to find its moral footing. It feels contemporary without being in any way a literal reflection of today’s headlines.”
“It doesn’t really have the sense of a new dawn, which is the guiding idea of the Obama administration,” said Moore. “[That’s] about new beginnings, hope, and change. These are people who think that they are making things better, who think that they have a handle on what their society wants, but they are watching it fly apart at the seams without even realizing it.”
Eick said: “We never sat down on Battlestar and still don’t… with The New York Times and say, what episode should we write this week? To whatever extent there is an infusion of suggestive, allegorical current events in the show, it’s very slight and oftentimes subconscious… and rarely if ever do we go to any great lengths to remark or wink or comment on some current event.”
“If there’s a fine line… we’re trampling all over it,” wrote Espenson in an email. “This is the glory of doing a sci-fi show. You can say what you want to about extreme polytheists and (pre- or non-Christian) monotheists and really say some stuff about religion without saying anything about any particular living religion. It’s amazingly freeing.”
Additionally, the difference in perspectives between generations is an important distinction between Caprica and its forebear, stressed Moore. Battlestar’s characters were all adults; Caprica purposefully has strong teen characters. “Where’s the youth culture leading this society, because ultimately that is where societies go,” Moore said. “And there was this idea at the heart of the show that we were very intrigued with, which was that this apocalypse is born from an angry, 16-year-old girl.”
“One of the frustrations we found on Battlestar was just getting people to sample it,” said Moore. “There was a barrier to particularly female viewers, who just wouldn’t tune in to a show that was about people on spaceships.... I always felt that that was a really artificial barrier to entry. We wanted to create a piece that was definitely a science-fiction piece but make entry easier: Make a society that looks like our society, let people talk more like us, make it much more contemporary-feeling.”
Those who can put aside preconceived notions will find Caprica to be a complex family-driven drama as well as an exploration of many contemporary themes.
Or as Espenson tartly sums up the show’s first season focus: “Robots, religion, sex, torture, late-night talk shows, murder, robot-abuse, virtual crime lords, virtual drugs, and robot-fondling.”
