"Caprica" 1.01 Recap: "Pilot"

If you liked the philosophical quandaries and mind-fraks of Battlestar Galactica, you're going to love Caprica — unless you need the spaceships. BSG took place among the stars, while Caprica's feet are planted firmly on the ground. The show doesn't open in space (except the title sequence above, but bupkus after that) or on land, though, but in a nightclub where a raucous group of teenagers is engaged in every kind of hooligan debauchery: fisticuffs! drug abuse! lesbian kissing!

But the club is only an illusion, a hacked virtual world created by Zoe Graystone (Alessandra Torresani), the teenage daughter of Daniel Graystone (Eric Stoltz), a bazillionaire scientist who owns Spacely Sprockets and is trying to create a Cyber Combat Unit to sell to the Caprican government. The thing is, he can't figure out how to make a Meta-Cognitive Processor. (Artificial brain.) His daughter's actual cognitive processor is almost as good as his: she's created a Copy Zoe who lives in the club.

Avatar Zoe and her BFF Lacy and her boyfriend Ben are above all the club's teenage shenanigans — literally and figuratively. The three of them stand together on a balcony and talk about how they are going to use Copy Zoe to show people the way to the One True God. They watch as Copy Zoe de-rezes (freaks out) during a human sacrifice, but before Avatar Zoe can go check on her, Real Zoe gets busted for playing with her holoband at school.

Frakking mean girls, always harshing your virtual buzz.

At home, Zoe's mom, Amanda (Paula Malcomson), harshes it even further, telling Zoe that she's grounded for a month and not allowed to use her holoband and that she doesn't know what it's like to build anything because she's never worked a day in her life. Zoe fires back that she'll just have to marry into money (apparent zing!), so Amanda slaps her in the face. Zoe does that thing teenagers do, where she stiffens her jaw and narrows her eyes and says, "You will regret that for the rest of your life!" Only Zoe is telling the honest truth; they just don't know it yet.

The next morning, Amanda drops Zoe off at school, where she and Lacy and Ben immediately bounce and head to the train station, talking about passports while Ben teases them about how they didn't pack light — which, in light of what is going to happen in ten minutes, is kind of weird.

At the train station, we meet the second family in this two-family drama series. Shannon and Tamara Adams are Tauron immigrants. On the phone, they make Joseph (Esai Morales) promise he'll leave work early to be home in time for Willie's 11th birthday party. After much coaxing he agrees, and the women board the train. So do Zoe and Ben. But Lacy can't bring herself to do it.