Caprica, 'Know Thy Enemy': Graystone meets his rival

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on March 05, 2010 at 10:00 PM, updated March 13, 2010 at 6:49 AM
caprica-know-they-enemy.jpgPaula Malcomson and Eric Stoltz on "Caprica."
A quick review of tonight's "Caprica" coming up just as soon as I struggle to open vacuum-sealed packaging...
"It's your dream. My dream is to tear up your dream." -Vergis
Once upon a time, Ron Moore talked about "Caprica" as a kind of "sci-fi version of 'Dallas.'" The show has since evolved from that, but an episode like "Know They Enemy" felt very much like the original space-opera-turned-soap-opera pitch with the arrival of Tomas Vergis to fill the role of the corporate arch-rival determined to crush Daniel Graystone at any cost.

That's a character type familiar to countless daytime and primetime soaps. I appreciate that he was written, and played by John Pyper-Ferguson(*), in a much quieter, forthright manner - like Sam Adama and the other Tauran tough guys we've seen, his menace is spoken softly but directly - but he definitely owed a debt to any business rival who went against JR Ewing or Blake Carrington.

(*) The appearance by Pyper-Ferguson (who played an officer on the Pegasus in several episodes of "Battlestar Galactica") prompts me to ask a question I probably should have raised when Luciana Carro (aka Kat) turned up as Graystone's publicst: how do you feel about the show dipping into the pool of "BSG" actors to fill guest roles? This isn't quite like how "NYPD Blue" (or "Law & Order") would often recycle the same actors into different roles, as these are two separate series that, while they share a continuity, are set decades apart. For those of you who watched "BSG," is it a distraction, or do you feel they've done a good enough job of making these people look different that it's okay?

The Sister Clarice/Amanda scenes also had a bit of a soap-y tinge, even though Clarice is starting to develop more nuance than she had in earlier episodes, where she was just the manipulative queen bee. It's now clear that there are different factions among the monotheists, and Clarice is trying to keep the movement peaceful, while Barnabas (played by James Marsters, making the rounds of every sci-fi/cult series he can hit) is content to kill as many as he can and let the one true God sort it out. That distinction makes me much more interested in Clarice, even as she's preying on a drunk Amanda's grief to get access to Daniel's private computers.

At first, I was wondering what Zoe was up to when she responded to Philomon the lab geek's dating website profile, but then it made sense: not only does she have some affection for the guy (the only person in the real world, other than Lacy, who treats her like a girl and not a hulking machine), but she gets to have a V-world romance with someone who likely will never object if she insists on keeping the relationship entirely virtual.

(Plus, it gives the costume department an excuse to keep giving Alessandra Torresani new outfits, when for a while it looked like she'd be in the purple dress for the life of the series.)

In all, "Know They Enemy" was a more sedate episode than we've had so far, and one I had some trouble engaging with at times. But there are always these little moments - like Zoe's reaction to hearing Cyrus and her father discuss the the theft of the MCP, or Joseph's frustration at having to deal with the welcome menu to the holo-band = that keep me interested in the larger world and the characters, and curious to see what's coming next.

What did everybody else think?