AirLockAlpha.com

Believe it or not, "Caprica" has taken at least one break in its production schedule as it gears up for a January release.

Mark Stern, the head of original programming for Syfy, told that to a small group of journalists and Web site writers, including Airlock Alpha, that on the set of "Caprica" Tuesday in Vancouver.

While production pauses are commonplace among shows that are starting out their first season, and have plenty of time until premiere, one fan site continues to try and drum up more drama than exists.

The site CinemaSpy, a site based in Canada that had a couple of its writers at the event, had previously reported in mid-September under the headline "Is 'Caprica' on the verge of cancellation?" that "a trusted industry insider" had told the site that production "faces suspension on 'Caprica' due to serious script problems/shortfalls, and that the future of the series may well be in jeopardy."

The site added that "from what we've been told, the producers haven't been altogether happy with the caliber of the stories."

A cancellation before a show even premieres? That might sound like NBC (see "Southland"), but hasn't really ever been the modus operandi of its sister cable network Syfy, which usually prefers to air episodes in production and seeing how they track with audiences before making decisions on a series' fate. While "Caprica" was released on DVD earlier this year to less-than-stellar numbers, the show has yet to air on Syfy, due to make its premiere Jan. 22, so it's not yet clear how audiences will react to the "Battlestar Galactica" spinoff.

Following CinemaSpy's story in September, Airlock Alpha did something the fan site didn't bother to do: contact "Caprica's" showrunner.

"I'm one of the producers and I'm absolutely thrilled with the work my writers have done," Executive Producer Jane Espenson told Airlock Alpha at the time. "The Olympics might require a couple schedule adjustments. Those are probably being misunderstood."

Espenson is, of course, referring to the Winter Olympics that Vancouver -- where "Caprica" is filmed -- will host.

CinemaSpy, however, said that if it weren't for at least one confirmed earlier delay in production, "Caprica's" schedule wouldn't have run up against the Olympics in the first place, something at least partially suggested by Stern at the press tour.

"Trying to find that journey with these characters has been really interesting," Stern said. "I know that afar from the writers from where you think you're going to go turns out to not exactly be where ... things were pitched out."

Stern said that in Episode 8, there were plans to do a torture scene on another planet, but for whatever reasons, there was a decision made creatively that such a scene wasn't going to work.

"We actually took a break, shut down for a few weeks, so that we could at the mid-point regroup and say, 'OK, what have we learned from the first 10, and where do we want to go from here," Stern said.

Shortly after the press tour, a studio source described better detail of what happened around the stoppage, including the fact that "Caprica" had been working on an accelerated production schedule from the start. Where most other Syfy shows get a decent-sized hiatus during the mid-point of its production schedule, "Caprica" didn't get that luxury because of the Olympics, and had been pushing work at break-neck speed to be done ahead of the Olympics.

"That's tough enough to do with an established show, let alone one that's still looking for its sea legs," the source told Airlock Alpha. "Jane had to pump out scripts faster than she ever had before. It was almost like prepping for the writers strike all over again."

Even with the mid-season break, which simply went longer than expected, the hiatus at mid-season for "Caprica" still was nowhere as long as other shows like "Stargate: Universe" that took a sizeable mid-season production break, which allowed some of its stars like Lou Diamond Phillips to work on other projects like "I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here" for NBC.

"Some people want to make more out of this than what it is," the source said. "We're talking about a brand-new series with a concept we've never really tried before. It's something that would normally be worked out slowly, but 'Caprica' never got that luxury. Even with the break, this show has burned through production far faster than most other 20-episode orders, and breaks are sometimes part of the game.

"Syfy isn't even dreaming about canceling this show yet, not before they even have a chance to air a single episode."

Stern, not known to mince words, backed that up when talking about "Caprica" during the press tour, even implying that the existence of the Olympics was one of the causes for the break in the first place.

"Production in general is really just laying track ahead of a train," he said. "What you see in this show is something that's really working and special. If it weren't for the Olympics, there wouldn't even be a discussion. But because of the Olympics, we have been really up against that, and we really have to be out of production [by then]. What would be an easy decision of 'let's take a hiatus' became a very difficult and expensive proposition, but we did it anyway because it was worth it."