# wow, Caprica stinks! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 20, 2010, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-caprica-stinks/529774 "2010-02-20T16:32:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2010, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-caprica-stinks/529774/41 "2010-03-02T15:24:07Z")
> [@Alan\_Smithee](#): > > It is a bit much isn’t it? > > Still, as I said earlier, I hate the characterization of Zoe and I like Tamara, so I’d much rather the story focus on her. Fiction is always built on these coincidences to some extant, and really, so is life. If they planned it that way from the beginning, I think molten CDs might be needed, but I wouldn’t want them to turn down a good storyline that presents itself just because it involves the Adamas. Yeah - it might have been better if the Tamara character wasn’t an Adama. Maybe a third storyline, and have Joseph represent her father. I dunno - I’m willing to look past the coincidence. The one thing I’m disappointed in is that Joseph Adama doesn’t appear to be the “brilliant litigator” that he was touted as in BSG. I was really picturing a character akin to Martin Landau in “Crimes and Misdemeanors”. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2010, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-caprica-stinks/529774/42 "2010-03-02T15:27:40Z")
> [@Munch](#): > > The one thing I’m disappointed in is that Joseph Adama doesn’t appear to be the “brilliant litigator” that he was touted as in BSG. I was really picturing a character akin to Martin Landau in “Crimes and Misdemeanors”. What are you talking about? He never loses! 😃 Ok, ok. I get your point. I think that we’ll see that side of him develop over the course of the show. ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2010, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-caprica-stinks/529774/43 "2010-03-02T16:19:54Z")
Joseph Adama has already shown himself to be a dirty lawyer. He’s bribed Judges. He’s brought dishonor to himself and the profession. There is no redemption for that. He should be disbarred, and then shoot himself in the head. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2010, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-caprica-stinks/529774/44 "2010-03-02T17:37:56Z")
> [@muldoonthief](#): > > Wait, so it’s going to turn out that Bill Adama’s _older sister_ is the original sentient Cylon and instigator of the war? As much as I enjoyed all 4 seasons of BSG and the finale, I may just have to join **Cervaise** in RDM’s molten CD nasal irrigation. And if you remember from the show, Bill helped initiate the return of the Cylons and the impending annihilation. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2010, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-caprica-stinks/529774/45 "2010-03-02T18:01:00Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > Joseph Adama has already shown himself to be a dirty lawyer. He’s bribed Judges. He’s brought dishonor to himself and the profession. There is no redemption for that. He should be disbarred, and then shoot himself in the head. Not a fan of nuance, I take it? Dramatically, I 'd rather see an attempt at redemption, however incomplete (or even unsuccesful. Unsuccesful redemption makes great drama!) In real life, I wouldn’t really care about the state of his soul. What does more to make the world a better place? A dead lawyer who did horrible things with a bereved son even more likely to follow a path of crime or a lawyer who did horrible things fighting for civil rights thereby improving the lives of everyone in society while teaching his son to live honestly and honorably? I’d rather live in a world with the latter, given that neither one makes up for the corruption and bribery that has already happened. ---
**Author:** ![jacquilynne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/67e7ee/32.png) [@jacquilynne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jacquilynne)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2010, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-caprica-stinks/529774/46 "2010-03-02T18:08:19Z")
I’ve only watched the first two episodes so far, and I’m both bored and annoyed. Bored because it’s really not very interesting and annoyed because a) people trapped in the holodeck is a lame, overdone cliche and b) they keep hanging lampshades on the smug references to BSG. I’ll probably watch the rest of the episodes I have DVRed, but if it’s not considerably better by then, I’m giving up. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2010, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-caprica-stinks/529774/47 "2010-03-02T18:08:31Z")
Didn’t BSG portray Joseph as a crusading civil-rights lawyer who worked on behalf of the Cylons? He may or may not have been brilliant in the conventional sense, but we only know that from Bill’s reminiscences about his father. And even if he started as scum, he does have time to reform - perhaps to honor the memory of Tamara. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2010, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-caprica-stinks/529774/48 "2010-03-02T19:10:43Z")
> [@jacquilynne](#): > > b) they keep hanging lampshades on the smug references to BSG. They do? As I recall, they had the “By your command” line in the pilot, but other than that, I think they’ve been remarkably subtle and low key about it. No scenes of young Will playing with a model battlestar and wondering what happened to the lost colony of Earth, for example. No Kennedyesque political family named Adar with a young son. Not even a street preacher proclaiming the end is nigh. It’s the same universe, with the same twelve colonies and Greco-Roman polytheism and pyramid games, but other than that, it seems to be very much its own show, when it would be very easy and tempting to fill every scene to the rafters with gimicky fanboy shoutouts. (If it was _me_ running the show, I’d have everybody wearing quilted tunics and capes, since that’s what Capricans of a generation ago wore! I’d _at least_ slip them into the background of every scene.) ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2010, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-caprica-stinks/529774/49 "2010-03-02T19:11:40Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Didn’t BSG portray Joseph as a crusading civil-rights lawyer who worked on behalf of the Cylons? > > He may or may not have been brilliant in the conventional sense, but we only know that from Bill’s reminiscences about his father. And even if he started as scum, he does have time to reform - perhaps to honor the memory of Tamara. I don’t remember the “who worked on behalf of the Cylons” bit - you may be right. But we do know he was considered brilliant by more than just Bill (who hated him) - Romo Lampkin idolized him, and Joseph had published a series of extremely well-known books on the law. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2010, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-caprica-stinks/529774/50 "2010-03-02T19:13:17Z")
> [@Alan\_Smithee](#): > > (If it was _me_ running the show, I’d have everybody wearing quilted tunics and capes, since that’s what Capricans of a generation ago wore! I’d _at least_ slip them into the background of every scene.) They did have the original Battlestar Galactica theme on the radio last week. But I believed it was used in the mini-series as a political anthem of sorts. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2010, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-caprica-stinks/529774/51 "2010-03-02T19:17:23Z")
Yeah, it’s the Caprican (or possibly Colonial) national anthem. Isn’t that what people were singing at the pyramid game a couple of weeks ago? “So saaay we aaaaaaall! So saaay we aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall!” ---
**Author:** ![jacquilynne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/67e7ee/32.png) [@jacquilynne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jacquilynne)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2010, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-caprica-stinks/529774/52 "2010-03-02T19:27:05Z")
> [@Alan\_Smithee](#): > > They do? As I recall, they had the “By your command” line in the pilot, but other than that, I think they’ve been remarkably subtle and low key about it. Rough quote from the new Minister of Defense: “By the way, what do you call this new technology, the research into which my department has been funding to the tune of millions of cubits, and which I have apparently traveled all the way here to your facility to see without ever having been given an oddly octagonal briefing paper?” Rough quote from Greystone: “Blah, blah, blah … dramatic pause while he finds his lampshade … CYLON!” I will give them some credit, though. As BSG-derived entertainment goes, it’s about 90 times less boring than The Plan. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2010, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-caprica-stinks/529774/53 "2010-03-02T19:41:08Z")
> [@jacquilynne](#): > > Rough quote from the new Minister of Defense: “By the way, what do you call this new technology, the research into which my department has been funding to the tune of millions of cubits, and which I have apparently traveled all the way here to your facility to see without ever having been given an oddly octagonal briefing paper?” > > Rough quote from Greystone: “Blah, blah, blah … dramatic pause while he finds his lampshade … CYLON!” > > I will give them some credit, though. As BSG-derived entertainment goes, it’s about 90 times less boring than The Plan. Yeah, there was that. But they kind of HAD to have that somewhere, especially so non-BSG viewers whould know what they were talking about. But I didn’t think they made it that over-dramatic, and since they’ve gotten it out of the way, they’ve used the word maybe once. They’ve even started saying “robot,” which was scrupulously avoided on BSG. They seem to be going out of their way _not_ to hang lampshades on anything. But if you’ve just seen the pilot or the pilot and one other episode, then yeah, it might seem that way. ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2010, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-caprica-stinks/529774/54 "2010-03-02T20:50:33Z")
> [@Alan\_Smithee](#): > > Not a fan of nuance, I take it? > > Dramatically, I 'd rather see an attempt at redemption, however incomplete (or even unsuccesful. Unsuccesful redemption makes great drama!) > > In real life, I wouldn’t really care about the state of his soul. What does more to make the world a better place? A dead lawyer who did horrible things with a bereved son even more likely to follow a path of crime or a lawyer who did horrible things fighting for civil rights thereby improving the lives of everyone in society while teaching his son to live honestly and honorably? I’d rather live in a world with the latter, given that neither one makes up for the corruption and bribery that has already happened. It’s the real life consideration that leads me to come down as harshly as I do. A dishonest lawyer…particularly one who participates knowingly and willfully in bribing judges…is utterly irredeemable in my book. He’s betrayed his Oath. Nothing he ever does is going to make that right. Yes, I know I’m an extremist on the point. Then again, I actually am a defender of the lowly and downtrodden, and have spent the majority of my career tilting at windmills. Honor & Ethics are more than mere mantras. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2010, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-caprica-stinks/529774/55 "2010-03-02T21:10:05Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > He’s betrayed his Oath. Nothing he ever does is going to make that right. Real familiar with the ins and outs of the judicial system in fictional universes? ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2010, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-caprica-stinks/529774/56 "2010-03-02T21:37:16Z")
> [@Munch](#): > > Real familiar with the ins and outs of the judicial system in fictional universes? :rolleyes: Some things are universal. Not bribing judges is one of those things. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2010, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-caprica-stinks/529774/57 "2010-03-02T21:49:28Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > Some things are universal. Not bribing judges is one of those things. Eh, not really. For all we know, the judicial system on Caprica is rampant with corruption, and it expected by most people - making it value-neutral for that culture. Either way, your reaction is a bit of a stretch. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2010, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-caprica-stinks/529774/58 "2010-03-02T22:00:43Z")
> [@Munch](#): > > Real familiar with the ins and outs of the judicial system in fictional universes? I am. Well, with what’s been presented about them in the series I follow, anyway. It’s pretty clear that the legal system of Caprica/the Colonies is very closely analogous to our own with similar underlying legal principles, similar rights, and similar roles for lawyers and judges. Adama’s bribery is pretty clearly presented in the show as the act of a corrupt mafia lawyer. They _could_ show something later that changes that, but based on what’s been shown so far, that is clearly the intentional implication. I kind of like it and I hope to see more about hoe Adama sees himself and his role as a lawyer. I hope we get some real legal drama at some point too. I’m sure we will; it’s a cliche for shows without lawyers, I don’t see how this one could avoid it. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2010, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-caprica-stinks/529774/59 "2010-03-02T23:08:05Z")
> [@Alan\_Smithee](#): > > Yeah, it’s the Caprican (or possibly Colonial) national anthem. Isn’t that what people were singing at the pyramid game a couple of weeks ago? “So saaay we aaaaaaall! So saaay we aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall!” No, they’re seperate anthems. The theme from TOS was recylcled as the “Colonial Anthem” (that is the anthem of the Union of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol) on TNS. The Caprican anthem we heard at the pyramid game is a new score for this series. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-caprica-stinks/529774.md?page=2)