Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/5219
69 www.hplusmagazine.com and caprica city's teen populace, for instance, even that much of an exaggeration for effect? JE: One of Caprica's underlying assumptions — which I adore — is that not every culture undergoes the same steps in the same order. There are ways in which Caprica is more advanced than our current world and ways in which it is very much behind us. And others in which it is just different. The v-world, as depicted, is more technically advanced than our internet, but fills the same role... and our internet certainly creates a lot of those same illusions of lack of moral consequences. h+: even for the arguably mature, sophisticated Bg fanbase, those opening scenes in The club were certainly attention getting — immediate, compressed sex and violence and rock 'n' roll (in a scene portrayed, in no uncertain terms, as teen populated) to a degree that made some of us early viewers look at each other in front of our TVs... like "Did you just see that too?" Wasn't any of that an issue for the Sci-Fi (excuse me, Syfy) network? JE: I don't think there was any problem with it from the network side — certainly nothing that I heard about! h+: Please talk a little about the casting. Were these roles written with one or several of the principals already in mind? Did you have any casting surprises along the way? had Stoltz [eric Stoltz stars as Daniel graystone] or any of the other actors expressed previous interest in Galactica, or in other potential science-fiction/drama projects? JE: All of this happened before I came on board. But new roles have been created since the pilot — some of them written with certain actors in mind, others altered after casting to accommodate the actor who was cast. We write a lot of our roles with no gender assigned — or rather, we pick one but tell casting to bring in everyone, and then rewrite if needed to fit the performer. I love doing that, since it ensures that you're not writing to any subconscious gender expectations. I know that Scott Porter (Friday Night Lights), who plays a role in the series, is a huge Battlestar fan. He is very pleased to be involved in the show. And James Marsters, of course, is someone I have a previous — and delightful — working relationship with. We have an amazing core cast and we've been lucky to be able to augment it with some really strong additional casting. h+: It seems that, on the personal level, the technology in everyday caprican life seems higher, slicker and cleaner than most of that in BSg. Is this a deliberate reference to the need for low-tech later on to thwart the cylons, or just a consequence of escaping en masse from a nuclear holocaust in whatever ships come to hand? Both? neither? JE: I think you're seeing the tech in the world of Daniel Graystone, the Bill Gates of Caprica. If you look at the tech that ordinary people have access to in the shows, you'll see rotary phones, console radios, big CRT monitors, clunky answering machines... one of the things that's happening on Caprica is this inequity of access to the latest advancements. And yes, Galactica was also a very old ship. But a good 'un. Chris Hudak (gametheory@mindspring.com) is a former San Francisco Zoo penguin recorder, a marginal Japanese-language student, and protagonist of the Harlan Ellison short story 'Keyboard' — no, really. resources Caprica DvD http://www.capricadvd.com/ Jane Espenson http://www.janeespenson.com/