Virtuality was an idea that Universal Media Studios shopped around. After communicating with several writers, they hit on Ronald D. Moore’s take on their idea. They shopped the idea to NBC, but in all its wisdom, NBC said it was too much “science fiction” for their network. It was right after this that Fox snatched up the project. The rest is history. Sort of.
As we’ve mentioned before, this was going to originally be a pilot episode for on ongoing series but Fox backed out on the series idea and turned the effort into a 2-hour movie instead.
So what if Ronald D. Moore and Michael Taylor just brought us the most intense space drama ever put together called Battlestar Galactica. Fox just didn’t have the faith. Much like the first half of season one of Dollhouse. Need I say more?
So for the moment they’re going with this as a 2-hour movie.
Virtuality is about 12 people on Earth’s first ever spaceship called the Phaeton. It was originally on a 10-year journey of exploration but when scientists on Earth discover that at best Earth has about a century of time left before it becomes uninhabitable, they convert the trip to one of hope. Hope at finding another inhabitable planet. To keep the crew occupied, the ship has a virtual-reality system installed.
As things would have it, the virtual-reality (VR) system gets itself a virus and things just get fun from there.
Another aspect of the story is that everything that happens on the Phaeton is filmed and aired back on Earth like a reality show.
Ha! They even have reality TV on scripted TV.
The 12-minute video preview included below is not a continuous scene, but of multiple scenes stitched together. Knowing that going in helps it make some sense.
In The Preview
We see an issue where one space traveler blames the other for messing with the VR system to generate better ratings for the show back on Earth.
In another scene, we see a VR user ask the computer who the other person is in his VR environment and the computer says there is no one there. Hmm.
We also see how they use the VR interface to run shipboard equipment.
12-Minute Preview
My Initial Take
I’m mixed. It’s refreshing to see a new space based drama, but the angle on the reality television presence adds a certain amount of tension on my part. It’s Big Brother in space. Great. If I see one hair of Julie Chen, I’m outta here!
Interestingly, it’s a fast 12 minutes as the different scenes are played out. As odd as it sounds, when time flies on a video that usually means I was somehow engaged by it (even if I didn’t realize it!).
Check it out and let us know if this preview video is helping you get on board to want to watch the movie or if it generates a different opinion.
Virtuality will be airing on Fox on June 26th at 8 p.m..
Source: Sci Fi Wire
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