VR.5: The Wind of the Mind
Welcome To The Game
Virtual Reality is real. Really? No, not really. But once upon a time, that was the tag-line of a most excellent TV show, VR.5. It was hyped to the computer geek set, and completely turned off the anal-retentive portion of same, because of technical handwaving, such as the 300-baud acoustic modem through which this VR was apparently piped.
But VR.5 wasn't about Virtual Reality. It was about seeing into the subconscious; the VR stuff was just the lever with which they moved the world. Toss in recurring nightmares, angst, love, danger, and a ruthless secret society, and you sort of get Alfred Hitchcock meets Dreamscape (only better).
The original reason I watched VR.5 was because I was a fan of David McCallum, (ever since I saw him as Steel in Sapphire & Steel) and I had heard he played the part of Sydney's dead father. (see here for play review) I figured it couldn't be much of a part, seeing as he was dead, but I watched it anyway. Boy, was I blown away!
And then Oliver Sampson came along... Played by Anthony Steward Head (who then went on to play Rupert Giles in Buffy: The Vampire Slayer) here was just the kind of character that I really like. Ambiguous, dark, brooding, handsome (Englishman), he reminds me of Kerr Avon...
To whet your appetite, here are selected quotes from the series. They are in Fortune format.
It's Not What You Think
Obsessive details about episodes of VR.5, thanks to a good freeze-frame on my VCR. No point in looking at any of these unless you've already seen the episodes in question - they won't mean anything to you. First, the file that Morgan sent to Sydney in "Love and Death". Also, extra evidence about the crash of flight 503 mentioned in "Control Freak".
Links and Rings
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