VR.5

Archived from the former firedocs blog. 19 March 2006

A friend of mine (without whom I might never enter the modern media world outside the internet) sent me some great shows on DVD. One was a TV/VCR capture of an old show called VR.5 (stands for Virtual Reality). Lori Singer stars, she does a great job. (Remember her in Falcon and the Snowman and Footloose?). Adam Baldwin co-stars, though I admit I can never tell all those Baldwin brothers apart. Too bad the series didn't last longer, his character was heavy on the longhaired pretty-boy (and damn he sure was...) with a Bill&Ted Dimwit overtone, that character could have been written into something way better. Anyway, some other neat people co-starring now and then as well.

The first one was a bit heavy as it was setting the series up. As the episodes went on I was so enthralled I actually sat and watched 13 episodes back to back. I can't believe I did that. Hell, being off the computer that long when I'm not working, sleeping, showing or driving is a miracle in itself. But I watch very little in the way of movies (and we don't even have local/cable on the TV's) so that was a big deal for me. That show was so ahead of its time. This was in like 1997 they aired (which means concept/build happened before that). The Matrix, Sliders, Millennium, to some degree owe little pieces of thanks to this show exploring some concepts they picked up and ran with.

What was coolest--and this may have been its doom (it was on the SciFi Channel) was that after the rather implausible hardware connect, from that point on, it is all about 'the subconscious'. Tying heavily into peoples' past, present and future, it managed to sort of include dreams, archetypes and symbolism, issues with memory, identity, reality, and a hefty dose of psychology 101.... all mixed up, which is basically a viewer's cocktail.

Because of that, every experience is like a whole set/reality of its own; Lori proves you can dress her in any imaginable way and she carries it off. Some very interesting psyche stuff there and some unexpected ideas as well. I super highly recommend it. What a great way to spend my saturday night. To think I was going to work on everyone else's websites. Not happening! It's morning now and I'm ready for sleep.