The new BSG had a new religion with just some very slight vestiges of Glen Larson’s BSG. I know because I watched for them and they were practically nonexistent. As far as I can tell Ron Moore made up his religious backdrop wholecloth and actually did a much better job of it than Larson. I never finished Caprica, but felt like it meshed with Ron Moore’s BSG quite well.

AS for the ending. I hated it. I didn’t feel so much that it came out of no where just that it was sloppily done. I’ve come to terms with it though and hate is too strong a word. Ron Moore tied himself into a knot, because he never had a plan. “…and they have a plan.” was always a lie. There was never a plan and when it became clear to me, the whole thing felt like a cheat.

Ron cut himself out of the knot he tied for himself. It was inelegant, but it was an ending. At least we got an ending that tried, unlike LOST.

I was totally infatuated with the Zoe character and paid close attention to every scene she appeared in. Now I do agree that much can be done with lighting, makeup, wigs, airbrushes and Photoshop; but after all, she IS an actor. Remember how Lee Adama gained, and then lost, all that weight? Sure, you can pad a uniform, but how did they change his face? Good actors can do remarkable things with the most subtle changes in posture and expression, as witness Caprica No 6.

As for the mono/poly theism subtext of the series, I’m not so sure that really matters all that much. Neither alternative is appealing to me, and frankly, I don’t see much fundamental difference between the two. I know in our own planet that duality has played an enormous historical and cultural role, but the only conclusion we can draw from just one example (the Judaeo-Christian-Muslim triad are really just variations on one theme)is that monotheism is much more intolerant and exclusive than polytheism.

In pagan cultures, it was widely assumed the same gods were worshiped by all nations, and that religious diversity was merely a variation in local custom and ritual. The Greeks and Romans actually wrote about this, identifying certain deities in their pantheon with counterparts in other civilizations they were familiar with. Religious wars, bigotry and persecution were, alas, invented by monotheists. The Jews had their conquest and occupation of Canaan, the Christians gave us the Crusades, Inquisition and Southern Baptists, and Islam has spawned ISIS and the Ayatollahs. Even the Roman Empire allowed freedom of religion as long as you paid your taxes.

I was most sympathetic to the philosophical position of John Cavill, the Dean Stockwell character. As they say, the Devil always gets the best lines, and he nailed that role.

Since then I’ve streamed it twice, and I find that I like it more, and I’ve even become reconciled to the ending. The ending actually wasn’t a non-sequiter and the religious element hadn’t appeared from nowhere–in fact, the religious denouement had been foreshadowed from the very beginning.

I think I refused to see it, not wanting religion to “pollute” a show I was enjoying. But it was there all along.

Caprica brought the religious theme into the foreground–it was all about the struggle of monotheistic radicals against the polytheistic establishment.

Production notes: I’m pretty sure that Caprica was cut off early, but Moore had produced it in such a way that he had a huge amount of footage for a second season already shot. That would have been the story line on Geminid, I think it was, the hotbed of the monos. So he cobbled together the last few episodes to try to tell more of the story than was originally to have been in the first season.

Another one: That poster you used has always bothered me:

Because I’m pretty sure that that is not the actress (Alessandra Torresani) who ended up playing the whole first season in a little cocktail dress:

Nope. Not the same girl at all.