Planet of the Damned Obnoxious
Watching Caprica tonight helped me absorb a favorite dictum of my improv teacher: “People do not want to watch unpleasant people for very long.” Indeed, I found “Caprica: Planet of Assholes” wearying. Most of the characters struck me as literally repellant: I wanted to get away from them. (Not Paula Malcolmson, of course. She should write me care of the blog.) I should be grateful that Moore and Remi Aubuchon are following up on hints in Battlestar Galactica that the colonies had it coming – that there was some cosmic rot at the core of Colonial society. But I would’ve hoped for a more insidious, subtle original sin. These pricks, you wonder how they could keep a monkeysphere together let alone an interstellar civilization. Also, why would the monotheists go to Gemenon? In BSG, Gemenon is the home planet of the most devout, ecstatic polytheists.
That said, the pilot ends in a situation that could be gonzo-entertaining if elaborated in a spirit completely alien to the first two hours of the show! So maybe we’ll get lucky.
Comment by Ray —
January 23, 2010 @ 4:53 am
You’re watching Caprica? The BSG team blew all their credit with me in the last couple of seasons, and Caprica seems designed to bring out their worst qualities…
Comment by Gene Callahan —
January 23, 2010 @ 2:11 pm
“People do not want to watch unpleasant people for very long.”
That was the exact feeling I had watching Paul Giamatti in Sideways. “OK, this guy steals from his mom and I’m supposed to feel anything except, “I hope he has a horrible car accident as soon as he leaves.”
Comment by Jennifer —
January 23, 2010 @ 2:28 pm
a favorite dictum of my improv teacher: “People do not want to watch unpleasant people for very long.”
I take it these words were uttered before the popularity of reality TV?
I’m not watching Caprica for the same reason Ray isn’t. BSG’s final episodes were so bad, they retroactively removed any good points the previous seasons had.
Comment by TJ —
January 23, 2010 @ 4:08 pm
Well, the one unanswered question from Battlestar Galactica that I had zero interest in (Why are the Cylons monotheistic?) is apparently the entire basis for Caprica. Oh well.
Comment by Blackwater LLC, Assassination Division —
January 23, 2010 @ 8:03 pm
“(Not Paula Malcolmson, of course. She should write me care of the blog.)”
You might wish to know that we’ve had a deposit placed on an ‘account’ to be possibly ‘activated’ at your address; the ‘account placer’ was a ‘Mrs. Highclearing’.
Comment by bbartlog —
January 23, 2010 @ 11:21 pm
.
Generally true. But occasionally you get someone with enough talent for scriptwriting that they can make it work. See: Glengarry Glen Ross (by David Mamet) for example..
Comment by Jim Henley —
January 24, 2010 @ 12:02 am
I’ll allow it.
Actually, Gary does say that brilliant writing can trump any general rule, but he reminds us that we don’t have that luxury. In this case, neither do Moore and Aubuchon.
Comment by Seward —
January 24, 2010 @ 12:33 am
Saw it some months ago on DVD; it neither thrilled me nor repulsed me. Sort of blaise and predictable. As I understand it they are going for multiple seasons on this one; so I guess the entirety of the first human-cylon war will be dealt with.
Comment by Glaivester —
January 24, 2010 @ 2:55 am
“People do not want to watch unpleasant people for very long.”
In high school (mid-90s) Comedy Central was running episodes of Absolutely Fabulous. I watched a few and then this principle began to sink in. After a certain point I couldn’t stand Patsy and Edie anymore.
Comment by mds —
January 25, 2010 @ 10:27 am
Which is a shame, because I kinda enjoyed Profit, even if virtually no one else did. And I presume that Dexter doesn’t count because the protagonist is actually such a generally pleasant fellow.
(Note that I didn’t apply the dictum in question to politics. I’m rather proud of myself.)
Oh, come now. *SPOILERS* When the Promised Land they were chasing turned out to be a hellhole, and they had to find a reason to carry on without the crutch of airy-fairy mysticism? When they truly realized how pernicious an influence religion had been on both human and Cylon society, and tried to use that fact to build a bridge to “the enemy”? When we were finally left hanging, uncertain if humanity’s long-term survival had actually been assured, with no deus ex machina in sight? Those final episodes were awesome.
Comment by B —
January 25, 2010 @ 11:28 am
I’m with MDS. The gutting of mysticism at the end of BSG was very, very satisfying.
I also saw Caprica on DVD months ago…my main complaint was that the Adama storyline was unnecessary, and just clumsily grafted on.
Comment by IOZ —
January 25, 2010 @ 12:19 pm
Additional Proposition: Teenage actors = No.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
January 25, 2010 @ 2:48 pm
I had heard discussion to the effect that Caprica was a re-tooling of a pilot wholly unrelated to BSG. I wonder how thoroughly it’s been altered to fit.
Comment by Jim Henley —
January 25, 2010 @ 2:49 pm
Particularly teenage actors in baby-doll fashions. Creepy!
Comment by Derek Copold —
January 25, 2010 @ 5:12 pm
The fashions were supposed to creep you out. That was the point. Still, the gratuitous club scenes became something of a self-parody. I mean, Okay, Ron, we get it: DECADENCE!
Still, despite the show’s horribly inartful preachiness, it is the story Moore wanted to tell. It’ll be interesting to see if he pulls telling a pushing a somewhat socially conservative message in something that’s become seen as a conventionally liberal vehicle.
My wife watched the show with me. She didn’t watch any BSG. She liked the show, but I had to catch her up to speed. The writers could included a 30-second screen text sketching the outlines of the BSG universe for those unfamiliar with the first series.
Comment by The Medium Lobster —
January 25, 2010 @ 5:47 pm
It’ll be interesting to see if he pulls telling a pushing a somewhat socially conservative message in something that’s become seen as a conventionally liberal vehicle
History teaches us that Americans are happy to swallow any amount of social conservatism as long as it’s accompanied by plenty of frontal nudity.
Comment by Derek Copold —
January 25, 2010 @ 6:08 pm
True.
It’s like anti-war flicks that feature all sorts of gun porn.
Comment by Jennifer —
January 25, 2010 @ 6:49 pm
When the Promised Land they were chasing turned out to be a hellhole, and they had to find a reason to carry on without the crutch of airy-fairy mysticism? …. [etc.]
Yeah, when you want to get away from airy-fairy mysticism, there’s no better way to do that than have a major plot point hinge on one of the show’s main characters dying and turning into a ghost whose magic ghost knowledge helps the fleet find Earth Mark II.
Comment by mds —
January 25, 2010 @ 8:21 pm
Just to be clear(er), I was being sarcastic, Jennifer. I decided to describe how things should have ended, though perhaps the suicide rate amongst viewers would have ticked upward slightly as a result. Sigh. I had such high hopes that they had successfully broken with the source material’s Mormon roots, too.
Comment by Derek Copold —
January 26, 2010 @ 1:13 am
Actually, the source material wasn’t all that religious. You had some “angelic” beings, but their status was explained in material terms; they had “evolved.” The wooiest thing in the old series was Adama bending a spoon a la Uri Geller with his mind–and even that was intended as a debunking gesture.
Comment by mds —
January 26, 2010 @ 9:39 am
Yeah, that’s why I said “Mormon,” not just “religious.” “As man is, God once was; as God is, man may become.” Now, Glen Larson was criticized from some quarters (such as Orson Scott Card) for being so superficial about the LDS elements, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t there.
Mormonism is actually not too bad a source of sci-fi ideas (e.g., Kolob, the star nearest to the “Throne of God”). I just dared hope that the new BSG would be willing to take the religion thing in a direction that explored the end of faith. Instead: deus ex deus.
Comment by Derek Copold —
January 26, 2010 @ 10:37 am
Nahh, I didn’t see any phasing out of God once the first season got going. If anything, the sense I got was that the colonies were thumped because of they had phased out god, rightly so. Of course, Moore would probably deny that, but they Cylon arguments were given a bit too much sympathy. Moore’s silly god certainly didn’t feel the colonies and their billions of souls were worth a bit of divine intervention.
You’re right about the Mormon source material. Good point. What I should have written is that the original series was “actually less religious” than the newer series.
In a lot of ways it was more “progressive”, too. You didn’t have people running around taking malicious glee in throwing their fellow men out an airlock, and Lorne Greene’s Adama was horrified at the thought of a military coup and chewed out his own kid for even entertaining the idea.
Comment by Mr. Obscura —
January 26, 2010 @ 11:05 am
I haven’t re-watched the original series since the the new BSG aired, but I never thought the original series played on anything but a fantasy level a la “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century”.
But maybe I was too young then. I remember watching the “Batman” tv show in the 80’s and being struck with the thought, “Wait a minute. This was camp?” Totally missed that the first time, when i was 6.
Comment by mds —
January 26, 2010 @ 12:21 pm
Well, the new guys did have Bill Adama refuse to look the other way at election shenanigans, even though it was obviously going to land everyone in a pile of crap. But yes, they did make Greene more obviously “Washingtonian.”
Yeah, the 60’s live action “Batman” went totallly overboard with the source material’s Assembly of God roots.
Comment by Derek Copold —
January 26, 2010 @ 12:32 pm
Well, the new guys did have Bill Adama refuse to look the other way at election shenanigans, even though it was obviously going to land everyone in a pile of crap.
Sure, but the season before he launched a coup.
Comment by Derek Copold —
January 26, 2010 @ 12:39 pm
I haven’t re-watched the original series since the the new BSG aired, but I never thought the original series played on anything but a fantasy level a la “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century”.
I was in the same boat until I got a copy of the series on DVD. I was pleasantly surprised.
To be sure, there are plenty of plot holes and eye-rolling moments, but for a scifi show made in the 70s and trying to appeal to wide demographic, it was pretty good. I was surprised by how much the new series wound up pulling from the older series.