Caprica reminds me of Ghost in the Shell; is Awesome, too

Starting from when I was little, modifying a simple tape player to record voice at different speeds and using it to make stupid skits with my friends, to learning how to type on my first computer - a Macintosh SE, to busting out my first webpage as a teen, the way we use technological advances to entertain and make our everyday lives better has always been a fascinating subject to me.

So when I came across Ghost in the Shell years ago and the subsequent series’ that followed and found it took the subjects of life and technology and smacked them together to explore life as technology, I was hooked.

Main character Motoko Kusanagi’s beautiful looks combined with her bad-ass nature are enough to draw in any anime fan based on fan service potential alone, but the fact her brain and a segment of her spinal cord were all that remained from her original existence - leaving her encased in a cybernetic body – revealed the genius of creator Shirow Masamune’s existentialist character study. Unlike HAL in '2001: A Space Odyssey' – a computer programmed to behave and react like a human being, the idea was twisted around in GitS; by putting a human brain inside a robotic body, it effectively amplified the audience’s awareness of Motoko’s struggles to cope with her identity while fighting crime in a future time.

Caprica, the offspring of acclaimed series Battlestar Galactica, is already showing interesting similarities to Ghost in the Shell even at only two episodes deep.

Warning: spoiler alert.

Without getting too deep into the plot for those unfamiliar with BSG history, a major storyline centers around Zoe, the teen-aged daughter of wealthy technologist Daniel Graystone, the man responsible for development of robots known as Cylons for purposes of armament and security – picture a cross between Robocop and The Terminator. He also created a Matrix-like virtual environment known as the Holoband, where Zoe finds a way to use as a means to upload a ‘copy’ of herself known as an Avatar.

Well, her dad finds out about this after a terrorist attack claims her life, downloads the avatar, and in a desperate attempt to bring his daughter back into the real world, uploads it into his 7-foot-tall, thousand-pound Cylon prototype. An error occurs, he thinks she’s gone, but we soon find out she’s now actually stuck inside this thing.

Much like Motoko’s character in GitS, Zoe is inside an artificial body, a fact not even her father has yet to realize. The second episode cuts between showing Zoe as a giant menacing robot and her true self, illustrating her imprisonment in a larger than life frame. It’s really well done as she attempts to walk a tightrope between staying hidden from those who might try to destroy her, and telling her best friend who may one of only a few voices of reason to help her.

It’s an awesome idea for how to approach a character, and when you package it inside a well-acted, visually stunning prequel to Battlestar, you’ve got the makings of one kickass show.

Although I’ve read the ratings so far haven’t been great early on, here’s hoping word gets out on how awesome Caprica is shaping up to be. If you like crime syndicate drama served with a side of sci fi, Caprica is a dish you’ll want to consume often… without any of the cheesiness of my food metaphors.

Caprica airs Fridays at 9 Eastern on SyFy in the US, and Thursdays at 8 in Canada on SPACE.