hnpcc | Caprica

Caprica's back on TV, both locally on free-to-air and having re-started again in the US.

I have to say that after having quite a few friends drop out because "it was too slow", holy crap did they speed it up in the last three episodes. I personally didn't find it slow to start with anyway - they packed an awful lot of character development and different threads into the early episodes - but now there's action a-plenty and I'm actually starting to warm in a very, very perverse way to Clarice.

I'm also finding the BG version of monotheism fascinating - I keep having to remind myself that this isn't one of the monotheistic religions that I'm aware of, this is a different one. Like the BG polytheism, no matter how many features it shares with the Greco-Roman version, it's still a different planetary system, and a different culture. (Yeah, being written by people from my planet and from a reasonably similar culture to my own, and therefore sharing quite a few characteristics with cultures and religions that I'm aware of. I still love the Tauron tattoos, and the backstory there though.)

From reading

dalmeny's post yesterday I realised last night that probably one of the reasons I like it and BG is partly because, well, it completely passes the Bechdel-Wallace test[0]. In fact I was having trouble thinking of a conversation between two women that was about a man, for Caprica at least - I can think of a couple for BG[1]. I'd be surprised if in four seasons worth of show there wasn't at least one. It's just that there were more conversations - particularly featuring Starbuck - that were along the lines of either "get out there and shoot it", "what the hell is wrong with you, learn to fly/shoot/fix a Viper properly", "no I don't care, suck it up princess" or mechanical/political/strategic in nature. (And now I'm trying to imagine a conversation between Starbuck and Admiral Cain that was about a man other than William Adama... and for romantic reasons, rather than political necessities or personnel requirements. Because there are so many other facets to men than just "romance", like "are they going to be any good at this job and should I promote them?" OK, the romance angle is not happening here. Worst. Shipper. Ever.)

Part of it is because Zoe is such a central and strong character - and I can't think of many shows featuring a strong teenage girl talking to her best friend where the conversation wasn't about a boy. Veronica Mars, perhaps, although given her best friend was male that's not helpful to start with. (Did she have a female friend who wasn't dead?) Buffy. Press Gang, although Lynda and Sarah did have their fair share of conversations which were about Spike. Then again, they also had their fair share of conversations which were about work too.

I guess you could say that Zoe is constantly talking to Lacey about God[2], and God could be assumed to be male[3] - but I'm also not sure that that's necessarily the case in this monotheistic religion (the English language being what it is, pronouns are difficult and they probably need to work on that).

Ah Zoe. My current favourite dead teenage religious fundamentalist militant. With Lacey right up there, except on the dead bit (so far).

Even with the new changes, I'm really enjoying this series.

[0] Shortest version: two women having a conversation about something other than a man. I have to admit I've always taken it as being "romantic relationship about a man", rather than "should we fire/shoot this guy?", although I suppose that is still about a man. We were coming up with films that pass last night (using the romantic relationship definition), and so far I think Resident Evil is my favourite passing film. Which is disturbing on a number of levels actually, and possibly only passes the non-romantic definition depending on whether male zombies are defined as men or not.
[1] Although the first one I thought of was actually from the between S2 and S3 webisodes, so hm. It was about a man though, mostly bitching about him not wanting to go to Temple for the dedication (I think) ceremony of a friend's child. The conversation did also involve shopping and celery. The conversations between women about men in Caprica (now that I've had more time to get specific) have pretty much all been about Daniel Graystone - whether he's aware of Zoe in the Cylon, whether he's going to kill her by reformatting the chip, whether he love(s/d) her. They're about Daniel... but they're actually about Zoe's insecurities, more than anything else. Oh and there is one conversation between Zoe and Lacey about a boy - and at least part of it is actually romantic. The other part is "how can I use him to get me to Gemenon?"
[2] Thinking about it I'm not actually sure that that's the case. She's constantly talking about getting to Gemenon to Aid The Cause, which is not really the same thing. Oh and they've talked about her being dead a bit too.
[3] Although thinking about it and without having re-watched to confirm I have the feeling that God has been pretty much referred to as "God" with no pronoun so far. The STO's Monotheistic God is scary as hell though. At least as seen through Clarice's eyes. Then again, Clarice is Scary.