William Bibbiani Reviews Virtuality!
Fox’s new television series Virtuality was created by Ronald D. Moore, the creator of Battlestar Galactica, a television series about a group of people travelling through outer space to save humanity by finding a new planet to live on, with robots. In contrast, Virtuality is a television series about a group of people travelling through outer space to save humanity by finding a new planet to live on, without robots. Whether you’re a casual observer or a diehard BSG fan, your eyes are probably rolling right now, but Virtuality is also about virtual reality (sigh…) and reality television (double sigh…), meaning that your eyes are probably rolling so fast right now that they’ve broken the sound barrier and shattered your ear drums as well. But when you get back from the optometrist and otolaryngologist*, you should watch Virtuality anyway because the two-hour premiere directed by Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights) stands alongside Battlestar Galactica and Lost as one of the best television pilots of the last decade.
31 years in the future, scientists have officially confirmed that thanks to global warming, pollution and all the rest of man’s hubris, Earth will be completely uninhabitable in just 100 years. With natural disasters already on the rise and life as we know it already nearing an end, mankind has pooled all of its resources to build a ship capable of travelling at 1/15th the speed of light which will travel to Epsilon Eridani, the nearest star system which might – just might – be capable of sustaining human life. The pilot picks up just as the starship Phaeton approaches Neptune, the “Go or No Go” point. If Commander Frank Pike (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) believes both his ship and his crew are up to the task then they will commit to their 10 year mission. If not, they will return home and an entire year will be wasted. It should be an easy decision, except for the fact that the ship’s doctor (Omar Wetwally) has just diagnosed himself with Parkinson’s disease… and that’s just the first monkey wrench of many.
It may be familiar, but Compelling Cast of Characters + Compelling Situation = Great television.
Science fiction fans will notice when Virtuality falls back on familiar territory. The virtual reality sequences (we’ll get to those in a moment) are extremely reminiscent of Star Trek’s Holodecks, the ship’s artificially intelligent computer is represented by circles of light scattered throughout the ship and yes, there is a sequence in which a prominent character gets stuck in the airlock with an ever-so-suspenseful timer counting down the last few seconds of their life. But the most intrinsically problematic element of the series – reality television – is surprisingly one of the most organic. The mission to Epsilon Eridani is so incredibly expensive that in order to recoup the cost the entire mission is being recorded and sent back to Earth as a television series entitled “The Edge of Never” …and yes, it’s being broadcast on Fox. Unlike Virtuality, the pilot of which was condemned to Fox’s legendary Friday Night Timeslot of Certain Doom, The Edge of Never has over 6 billion viewers, adding to what should be an incredibly cloying premise a surprising amount of tension: despite their extreme isolation, everyone on the ship knows that they are being watched – and judged – by all of humanity, and that no matter what they say or do it’s being edited without their consent.
The crew can only escape the confines of the ship and television series via virtual reality simulations designed to help maintain their sanity. In these simulations Captain Pike can run Civil War simulations, First Officer and paraplegic Dr. Jimmy Johnson (Ritchie Coster), the series’ breakout character, can use his legs again, and computer technician Billie Kashmiri can headline a Japanese TV theme song cover band in between saving the world as a secret agent. But recently an unknown “Virtual Man” (the very creepy Jimmi Simpson) has been appearing in all of their simulations and murdering each character in turn. At first the crew scoffs – it’s a computer glitch, incapable of doing any actual harm – but when the Virtual Man sexually assaults one of the crew’s female members the psychological damage is very, very real indeed, making a potentially silly conceit one of Virtuality’s most intriguing plotlines (of course, if the entire expedition turns out to be a simulation then every kind word I’m saying about the series will be thrown out the window).
Criminally underappreciated actress Clea DuVall gets her best role since Carnivale
(also produced by Ronald D. Moore).
Who is The Virtual Man? Is he an error, or has someone programmed him into the system? Is the culprit on the Phaeton themselves, or was he always part of the mission parameters, his true purpose as yet unrevealed? Are their virtual lives being transmitted back to Earth without the crew’s consent, and have the producers decided to add some more conflict to the series? And when a vital member of the crew actually does die by the end of the two-hour series premiere, how will the mission be able to proceed without them? With a cast of highly involving characters and a series of unanswered and very intriguing questions asked by the end of the first episode, Virtuality proves a captivating start to a series we may never get to see.
Rather than produce the first few episodes of the (admittedly probably very expensive) series, Fox has instead decided to air the open-ended pilot at the start of the summer with practically no fanfare on a Friday night. Basically, they’re ensuring low ratings for a series which has the chops to be television’s new breakout hit. Supposedly the reviews have been strong (at least this one is – I haven’t read the others for fear of losing objectivity), so if you missed Virtuality last Friday then Geekscape urges you to watch the pilot on Hulu to show Fox that, indeed, there is an audience for the most promising new show in years.
*Look it up.
