The Sci Fi Channel’s President Dave Howe today announced they have “greenlit production on the new original series Caprica, ordering 20 hours of the drama including the two-hour pilot.” The series will be a prequel to the current incarnation of Battlestar Galactica. It will star Eric Stoltz (Milk, Chicago Hope), Esai Morales (Jericho, NYPD Blue), Paula Malcomson (Deadwood, ER) and Polly Walker (Cane, Rome).
Caprica will be set fifty years before Battlestar Galactica, which is gearing up to air its fourth and final season. “Caprica follows two rival families—the Graystones and the Adamas—as they grow, compete, and thrive in the vibrant world of the 12 Colonies, a society recognizably close to our own. Enmeshed in the burgeoning technology of artificial intelligence and robotics that will eventually lead to the creation of the Cylons, the two houses go toe-to-toe blending action with corporate conspiracy and sexual politics.” Production is scheduled to begin this coming summer in Vancouver, in preparation for a premiere in 2010.
Executive Vice President Mark Stern said “It’s definitely not as dark as Battlestar, but like that show, this series has smart, dimensional characters who grapple with issues of love, sex and politics from a world in transition.”
Publicist Courtney White described the show: “As the series begins, a startling development is about to occur—the creation of the first cybernetic life-form node or ‘Cylon’—the ability to marry artificial intelligence with mechanical bodies. Joseph Adama (Esai Morales)—father of future Battlestar commander William Adama (Sina Najafi)—a renowned civil liberties lawyer, becomes an opponent of the experiments undertaken by the Graystones (Eric Stoltz), owners of a large computer corporation that is spearheading the development of these living robots: the Cylons.”
Caprica is produced by Universal Cable Productions and executive produced by Ronald D. Moore and David Eick (Battlestar Galactica) and Remi Aubuchon (24). It is co-written by Aubuchon and Moore and directed by Jeffrey Reiner (Friday Night Lights). There’s a lot more information available from this page.