What’s your pleasure, sword-and-sandals epic or sci-fi space opera?
There’s one of each premiering tonight, both eye-popping new cable TV originals: “Caprica” debuts at 7 on SyFy, and “Spartacus” bows at 8 on Starz.
Both are escapist fantasies, uninhibited journeys out of time with all the adult trappings cable TV allows/requires. “Spartacus” will titillate the young male audience; “Caprica” is more female- friendly and less war-obsessed than the famed series to which it is a prequel, “Battlestar Galactica.”
“Caprica” has a rich intellectual basis, even though it is fiction, while “Spartacus” leans on in-your-face gore and nudity for shock value, despite being rooted in history.
“Spartacus” is about the sex. Also the violence, the blood spurting in slow-motion, the pseudo-artistic graphic novel style and the use of green-screen — the computer graphic enhanced background filmmaking style. Visually stunning (think “300”) and boasting a gorgeous cast, it’s subtitled “Blood and Sand,” but there’s much more of the former than the latter.
“Caprica,” the prequel to “Battlestar Galactica” but accessible to newcomers, concerns the nature of humanity, the role of religion and what makes us human in a world of perfectly crafted avatars.
“Spartacus,” starring Andy Whitfield in the title role and Lucy Lawless as Lucretia, got the go-ahead for a second season even before this one debuted. Ancient Rome means lots of skin and waves of gladiator blood and more sex than fans of the old Kirk Douglas film ever imagined.
“Virtual backgrounds work better in some arenas than others, no pun intended,” said “Spartacus” writer Steven DeKnight (“Buffy the Vampire Slayer”). “For sword-and-sandals it works perfect. It lends itself to those vast vistas, not to mention the blood effects,” DeKnight said. “Our show was vastly less expensive than (HBO’s) ‘Rome,’ which used outdoor locations. We could not afford that epic scale.”
While the huge budget of “Rome” ended up killing that series, “Spartacus” cost “way below half” the reported $100 million of “Rome’s” first season. DeKnight says “Spartacus” looks more expensive than it is.
I’m not sure it looks all that expensive. In fact it seems more comic book than graphic novel, complete with cheesy gushing, gurgling blood audio effects.
“With the operatic style of the blood and violence, we didn’t want to go 100 percent horror show,” DeKnight said. It’s still more than enough.
“Spartacus,” he allows, is not for everyone.
Clearly, I’m in the “Caprica” camp.
“Caprica,” premiering 7 to 9 tonight on SyFy, is set 60 years before “BSG” and, while it will have extra meaning for fans of that show, it’s accessible to newcomers. Some 1.5 million people have already seen the pilot, due to a clever DVD and digital download advance-marketing campaign.
For those who resisted the multiple Emmy-winning “BSG,” now is a good time to learn what the fuss was about.
As “Caprica” begins, two prominent families, the Greystones and the Adamas, living in the peaceful world of the 12 Colonies, are brought together by an act of terrorism.
In the pilot, Daniel Graystone (Eric Stoltz) and Joseph Adama (Esai Morales) meet after the deaths of their daughters. Eventually they’ll take up the work of Graystone’s computer-genius daughter to perfect a lifelike avatar. The pilot concludes with Graystone coining the term “Cylon — cybernetic life-form node.” It’s an “Aha!” moment to make fans smile.
The travel inside the computer affords plenty of risque visuals (imagine a virtual fantasy nightclub where any impulse is possible). The wardrobe, set design, technical gizmos and sensibility of the show are an irresistible mix of 1940s “moderne” and science fiction.
But it’s the emotional interplay that drives the story. The world of Caprica could be read as parallel to our own, an affluent, omnipotent superpower obsessed with the promise of technology, on the brink of a decline and fall.
The first season’s 20 episodes will extend the allegory, with the modern society ruptured by conflicting beliefs of minority groups, notably a tiny sect known as the monotheists.
If “Battlestar Galactica” was about machines becoming human and lording it over the human race, then “Caprica” essentially is about humans inhabiting machines and all the sticky moral questions that artificial intelligence entails.
“BSG” was post-apocalyptic and dark; “Caprica”is “a different animal,” said creator Ronald D. Moore. “Caprica” is about a vibrant society at the height of its power and decadence that’s going to come apart as we watch.
Alessandra Torresani is a winning presence as Daniel’s daughter Zoe Graystone, who unwittingly assumes robotic form. And Stolz and Morales are well cast as the patriarchs.
You don’t have to be a sci-fi fan to get the point: Technology is tricky, beware the next bright and shiny machine, and figure out what being human really means.
Joanne Ostrow: 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com
