TVSquad

I really wish I could have liked the pilot for Virtuality. It was Ron Moore's first new series since the end of his Battlestar Galactica relaunch that wasn't related to that series. Unfortunately, the pilot seems to fall flat and is unlikely to lead into a series.

The concept is solid. It's about a group of 12 space travellers (each of whom could be mistaken for an underwear model) who are on Earth's first interstellar spacecraft, the Phaeton. Earth has become all but unlivable and they are traveling to a nearby star for ten years (five there, five back) and try to save the planet.

To keep themselves from going nuts, they use a virtual reality system via their ship's computer, named Jean (forgive me if I misspelled the name). This could be a tribute to (or a dig against) Gene Roddenberry whose franchise launched the careers of co-writers Ronald Moore and Michael Taylor. Jean develops a glitch and the fun begins. It's very 2001. Jean itself looks like Hal's love-child.

Unfortunately, the plot, while seeming straightforward, is confusing and the characters are difficult to empathize with. Some of the characters even seemed contradictory, such as a television producer that was also the ship's psychologist or the host that was also a computer scientist. On a positive note there were a few cool scenes (one of the VR fantasies involved a rocker chick singing The Munsters theme in Japanese).

The show itself seemed contradictory since part of the concept is that it's a reality television program about the astronauts being sent to Earth in an effort to defray costs. As a result, it seemed mixed between pseudo-documentary and drama without a clear line in between (movies like Cloverfield executed the concept better). If the series lasts, Moore and Taylor would likely be using one of the themes of The Matrix in which life is what you make of it.

I'm sorry I couldn't give a better review, particularly since I'm such a fan of Moore's work. If you want to catch the pilot (and likely only episode), check out Fox this Friday night at 8 PM ET.