Just when I was recovering faith in television, Syfy announces the cancellation of Caprica. Annalee Newitz supplies a fitting paean to a show that doesn’t deserve such an ignominious end.

Although Caprica was occasionally uneven, it truly was brilliant at times and it tackled topics like virtual worlds and religious fanaticism that are rarely treated with any subtlety on television.

It separated itself from the standard scifi television fare in other ways too. The series depicted a retro-futurist world, blending 1950s styles with far-future technologies. And it had a female mad scientist as its protagonist: Zoe, the young woman whose inventions helped create both the cylons and the possibility of virtual life after death. I think in a decade, we may look back at Caprica as a show that was ahead of its time – and cut down before it had a chance to fully realize its dark, weird vision of a world on the edge of inventing artificial life.

I would add that the budding exploration of the monotheist cult and its terrorist cell was the show’s sweet indulgence. But, even more worrying than what the network’s wimpy flight from theological apostasy might mean, I’m troubled by the network’s decision to produce a “military SF/space opera” prequel to the original “military SF/space opera”, Battlestar Galactica. Can’t even geeks do without creeping militarization in their entertainment?

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Filed under: TV, USA Tagged: battlestar galactica, caprica, science fiction, syfy