The first half of Caprica season one was about setting things in motion. But the second half, airing January, will be all action, the producers told us. And James Marsters talked about playing a religious fundamentalist who uses his sex-appeal.
There are some spoilers for season 1.5 ahead, so be warned!
In the second half of the first season, “the show finds its focus,” said executive producer David Eick, in the roundtables on Caprica. “The show finds its footing.” Added executive producer Ronald D. Moore, “The first half was a lot of setup, and the second half pays off a lot of that setup.” Both producers said the first half of the season was pretty short on suspense, ticking clocks and high-stakes action, but all of the exploration of the characters freed the producers up to have tons of that stuff in the second half of the season.
Moore said the first half of the season might have had too many arcs going at once. “There were definitely times in the first half of the season when the story got too confusing. There were times we were confusing ourselves.” Oftentimes, episodes would run too long in the editing room, and the producers would be forced to cut scenes, and even whole storylines, out of episodes, hoping the end result would still make sense. Sometimes, the episodes didn’t pay off the way they were supposed to, Moore admits. “We gained confidence as we went along.”
And here’s a bit more of Eick talking about the new half-season, via BuzzFocus.com:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEcu8GINhZo
The midseason finale ended with a huge cliffhanger, with multiple characters in jeopardy, and Moore said the whole show changes as a result of that cliffhanger. “It’s an important turning point in the life of the show.”
And some of the stuff that the producers let slip about the rest of the season does sound fantastic. Eick told the roundtables that the show will deepen the mythology of the virtual worlds, including New Cap City. And Zoe Graystone will use New Cap City as a means of expressing her “heartfelt belief that the society, if it remains immoral or fails to live up to a certain ethic, will crumble and die.” She wages war against the decadence of Caprican society – starting in New Cap City itself. “It’s a pretty delightful thing to watch,” says Eick.
Also, the producers told the panel earlier in the day that the planet Gemenon will be featuring very heavily in the second half of the season. And we’ll also be learning more about Tauron society. We’ll meet a lot of new versions of Zoe too.
Moore said the idea of showing a group marriage, like Sister Clarice’s, was something the writers always discussed doing on Battlestar Galactica, but they never found the right character to do it with.
And I asked James Marsters whether he thinks it’s true that his character, Barnabas, is a religious fundamentalist who uses his own sex appeal to get what he wants. Marsters pretty much admitted it:
Yeah, we’re trying to step on that, but it just comes through. It’s like gravity, man. You just can’t fight it. (Makes sexy face.) Yeah, yeah, he uses [sex] to further his ends. And I think he enjoys sex too. Around the set he’s got tequila, all this sinful stuff. He’s still learning the Christian thing.
Oh, and Marsters told the Caprica panel he’ll be back for the 200th episode of Smallville, this fall.
