Jane Espenson

Caprica gets another chance to survive after all

Good news: the rest of Caprica’s first season will start airing next month, instead of January as originally planned. That means that the episodes will air before Syfy has to decide whether to pull the plug on the BSG prequel.

The second half of the first season has been in the can for a long time, but Syfy was planning on saving it for next year. Thank goodness they changed their minds. Caprica writer and former show-runner Jane Espenson just tweeted:

Ooh! #Caprica second half airing in Oct — I think that was the original plan! Nice.

According to Syfy’s Twitter stream, the show comes back October 5, at 10 PM. And here’s a sneak peek of the new episodes, that appeared over at Blastr:

This is really good news for the embattled Syfy show, which has a chance to show improved ratings for the second half of the season, before its fate gets decided. Originally, co-creator David Eick told reporters that the actors’ contracts were expiring in mid-August, after which Syfy probably wouldn’t be able to order more episodes. Then Fancast reported that Syfy had paid to extend the actors’ contracts into November, giving the channel more time to make a decision.

But it doesn’t make sense to keep delaying the decision without actually airing the already-filmed episodes, giving the show a chance to show that it can pick up a bigger audience. At San Diego Comic Con, Eick and everyone else involved with the show stressed that season 1.5 picks up the pace and includes more action and fewer confusing subplots. So it’s definitely great news that the show will get another chance to strut its stuff before the final decision point.