From io9: "BSG spinoff Caprica launches next Friday, but as good as its opening episodes may be (And they are), we're still worried. Why? Because it's a prequel, and if science fiction has taught us one thing, it's that prequels generally suck. The real problem with prequels is that, in almost every instance, they're never really stories in their own right. They're "How did we get to the point we started at in the story you already know about," whether it's in the form of character backstory, societal/cultural/technological history or whatever, and that immediately robs them of any real way of surprising us with their outcome without resorting to gimmicky variations on "A HA! Things weren't the way you thought they were before! Everything you know is wrong!" (which is, you know, annoying)." - Mark Trapp from Bookmarklet

"There's a way of getting around this, mind you, and it's the route that Caprica seems to be taking: Essentially telling a new story only tangentally connected to the original story. Caprica features no Battlestars, post-apocalyptic adventures of the survivors of the human race and no robotic badguys trying to kill us all off. Yes, it's involved with the (an?) origin of the cylons in one sense, but the series, the story, is - from what we've seen - so disconnected from Battlestar Galactica in so many ways that it feels like something new. Which is good for Caprica the show, but begs the question, Why not just make it its own show, unconnected to any existing mythology at all? Is the branding advantage that big?" - Mark Trapp

My thoughts almost exactly! - Jonathan Hardesty