Cool News
Ron Moore’s Pilot For Spaceship Series VIRTUALITY Rocketing To Fox’s Friday Death Slot!!
I am – Hercules!!
Fox just announced that it will broadcast the two-hour sci-fi pilot for “Virtuality,” co-created by “Battlestar Galactica” mastermind Ronald D. Moore, in its June 26 Friday Death Slot.
The move does not bode well for the prospects of a resulting series, which was not mentioned during the netlet’s 2009-2010 schedule announcements last month.
Look! Press release!
THE CREW OF THE PHAETON EMBARKS ON A 10-YEAR JOURNEY THROUGH OUTER SPACE TO SAVE THE EARTH IN THE ORIGINAL SCIENCE-FICTION THRILLER "VIRTUALITY" FRIDAY, JUNE 26, ON FOX
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau ("New Amsterdam") stars
The crew of the Phaeton is approaching the go/no-go point of their epic 10-year journey through outer space. With the fate of Earth in their hands, the pressure is intense. The best bet for helping the crew members maintain their sanity is the cutting-edge virtual reality technology installed on the ship. It's the perfect stress-reliever until they realize a glitch in the system has unleashed a virus on to the ship. Tensions mount as the crew decides how to contain the virus and complete their mission. Meanwhile, their lives are being taped for a reality show back on Earth in the World Broadcast Premiere of VIRTUALITY airing Friday, June 26 (8:00-10:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX. (FM-0904) (TV-TBA)
Cast: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Commander Frank Pike; Sienna Guillory as Rika Goddard; James D'Arcy as Dr. Roger Fallon; Ritchie Coster as Dr. Jimmy Johnson; Erik Jensen as Dr. Jules Braun; Omar Metwally as Dr. Adin Meyer; Kerry Bishe as Billie Kashmiri; Joy Bryant as Alice Thibadeau; Nelson Lee as Kenji Yamamoto; Jose Pablo Cantillo as Manny Rodriguez; Gene Farber as Val Orlovsky; Clea Duvall as Sue Parsons; Jimmi Simpson as Virtual Man
That’s right: The crew that holds the fate of Earth in their hands are also reality stars!
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Readers Talkback
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Wonder what he thought of the new Trek?
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shitty-looking Stargate Universe...doesn't it? Well, I guess Fox will kill another new sci-fi series before we can find out.
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All I can think of is that he is rehashing the one plot that never died during his and future Star Trek Post TNG days, and that is stories revolving around the Holo-Deck and how it threatens the ship. Come ON Mr. Moore, you can do better than that!? If not, TALK to me, I will help :-P
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I'm just sayin'...
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... because it was due to air on 4 July, so NOBODY would have watched it on Independence Day. Moving it forward gives it more of a chance, so hopefully everyone will tune in. I've heard good things about the script.
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Neat trick. How does it get out of the computer?
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Reality stars to save the earth?! fuck. that. <p> I'd rather send some experinced oil drillers then trust the stars of MTVs The Hills to save our planet.
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It won't be on for long.
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and could've sworn it said Tek Jansen...DAMN!
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I hope we get to see one gratuitous nekkid scene with Sienna.
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Also didn't Picard foil a holodeck villain by tricking them to step out onto the Enterprise where they disappeared? Was that Al Capone?
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What's the point of even watching this show? It could be brilliant, like Terminator. They'll still fuck it over.
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the reality show concept. It feels like Moore is leaning to heavily, on the "holding a mirror, up to society" device.<p> What ever happened to the escapist brand of science fiction? The planet saving mission, of the series description, reminded me of the first series, of Starblazers. I'd love to see something new done, in that style, of serious but fun.<p> The way this series is described, I can already predict the aimless filler episodes. They would involve VR sequences that go nowhere; as well as whole episodes where the ratings (and/or) running of the show, within the show are discussed. The debates would rage about how to make the show better while the "scumbag" network execs (read: dirty, no good republicans) ignore the crew's peril. All of this, of course would be set to a "totally hipper than thou" emo soundtrack... zzzzzzzzzz<p> I'd rather rewatch Alien or Bladerunner or the previously mentioned episodes of Starblazers. If I want to see more angst-y, overwrought melodrama-in-space, I'll put in the BSG discs. Sorry, Ron, I'll pass, on this show.
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I was really enjoying that movie till it ended up being a fucked up dude killing people on a ship. <p>
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Seriously. WTF? Fox just whips out it's raging full-on and has-at-it with any prospective sci-fi show by shafting it within two weeks of airing. Fringe pretty much got lucky, because it was really, really, good, and had the J.J name on it to give it a chance.
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June 26th is still better than July 4th. I do wish they'd stop programming their best series on Friday nights though. Oh well, at least they renewed Dollhouse. That was an unexpected surprise.
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why not run the filmed episodes of Drive.
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I really don't know what Ron has in mind, but unless this show has a huge budget I can't see the weekly holodeck adventures being particularly exciting.<br><br> Still, bonus points to Moore for hiring Sienna Guillory.
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....PSEUDO RELIGIOUS BULLSHIT LIKE BSG? OR WILL FOX KILL IT BEFORE WE PUT OURSELVES OUT OF OUR MISERY?
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Sounds pretty dumb. Besides I think Fox's corporate mission statement is "Death to Genre Programming".
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I'm always up for some sci-fi, but judging from the concept, not my cup of tea.
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Booooooooooooooooo ! Fuck Herc!
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Uh, yeah, RDM has a lot to be envious of, considering he's responsible for the best Trek series ever. Also, I'm not surprised there was someone ignorant enough to latch onto that reference first rather than the other numerous references in the character list. Do a little research and you might find that the Rika Goddard character shares her last name with Robert Goddard, the father of modern rocketry, for whom NASA's Space Flight Center in Maryland is named. Or how about Dr. Jules Braun being a reference to Wernher von Braun, the leader of the team that designed the Saturn V rocket? And then there's Sue Parsons, a reference to Jack Parsons, co-founder of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. How about Dr. Jimmy Johnson as a reference to Lyndon B. Johnson (Space Center, in Houston). Those are just the examples I can think of off the top of my head. I can see some tenuous links on a couple of the other names too, and I've probably missed more than that! So, please, try to learn a little about something that actually matters before opening your ignorant fucking mouth.
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why bother watching
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for the bullshit that was the BSG finale.
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The only names I recognized were Clea Duvall and Sienna Guillory. I guess it doesn't matter. It'll be canceled after four episodes anyway.
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Well said, man.
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"Ah-HAH, you thought you could keep Professor Moriarty on a box on a desk but I have returned!!" I'll buy it.
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"Remember the holodeck episodes of The Next Generation? And how something would go wrong any time they focused on it? What if we made a show where that happened every week!"
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AW HELL NAW. I can't stand her.
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The reason why I gave up on Next Gen was because every other episode centered around the holodeck going awry. This sounds like the same recycled shit. Can't blame Fox for this one; this is damaged right out of the gate.
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Moore is continually referenced in these Virtuality threads - never Peter Berg. Herc, share the love.
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You mean like one or two episodes a year? Yeah real excessive.
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Truly one of the worst, yet predictable "twist" endings ever. The show had become so repetitive and retreaded it was pathetic. In many respects it actually ended up making the original BSG look better. That series was 30 years old and camp, but still more imaginative. As for this one, sounds like a mash-up (ripoff) of Star Trek, the Lost in Space movie, Vituosity (the Denzel Washington/Russell Crow flick) and reality TV. What a hack job. Good riddance. Does Moore have an original idea in his head? Nope.
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As for cast names . . . nobody in sci-fi movies can have a better name than . . . Moon Bloodgood. <P>
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I heard the script was great. Oh well, I like Moore and the cast, so I'll watch, and lament what could have been.
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But some people might have called it Hello Deck.
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Maybe the pilot itself will answer that question. I'll make sure to watch it (but then, I'd watch Sienna Guillory read the nutrition facts off a box of Toaster Strudel).
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Can we have Speidi blast off into deep space as well?<p> Sending those two wastes of DNA to a cold dark doom would pretty much save Earth on it's own.
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Spencer and Heidi in unison...<P>We're DOUCHEBAGS. get us out of here!!
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Instead of placing their most expensive, effects-filled shows on Fridays. While they're at it, they should move NFL games to 3am and put Idol on Sunday mornings.
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and that actor. Being one of the two 'immortal' shows of the 07/08 season, it beat the hell out of Moonlight. And pretty good use of Decemberists songs as well. Wish it could have continued for at least another season. So between that guy and Ron Moore, and Clea Duvall (still miss Carnivale, sniff), I'll probably catch it. And the next night's the American premiere of the Doctor Who Christmas movie on BBCA.
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BSG's finale was one of the most emotionally satisfying series finales I can remember since MASH. Loved. Every. Fucking. Minute. So there.
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it can move into the slot next to Dollhouse instead of those stupid sitcoms.
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Didn't this turn out to be the plot of ABC's LIFE ON MARS remake?
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There are dozens of us! Dozens!
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Yeah, that was shit. But on re-watch, I always stop it on the final scene with Adama, so it's *almost* like it was never there.
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I think the Starbuck episode that season should have been the final. Damn, that was cool. How many times did we hear that shitty song, but it still sounded cool?
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<p>i liked the next gen holodeck episodes, you all seem to think it happened every week, when in actuality it was a rare occurrence. well rarer then "coolant leak!" and the Geordie roll.</p> <p> BSG was getting tedious, but the final episode was actually well done. i dont particaularly like the concept for this show. giving the friday death slot, makes it harder to like.</p>
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Moore's BSG was consistently one of the best shows on TV, period.<P> Anyone who attempts to pretend it wasn't now that it is over is a revisionist fucktard.
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The other half of the time he's brilliant. Something tells me this pilot is the half that sucks.
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Last week I watched the pilot for another show called Defying Gravity being jointly produced by BBC and Fox. It has almost the EXACT same plot as this. Except their mission is only 6 years so there's that. Why is Fox ripping off itself?
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If the script is as food as it was reported to be, they ought to have made it into a feature film or pitched it to Skiffy -- as a 'bottle' show, it wouldn't have been difficult to finance episodes with the no-name cast.<p>(I guess this also means that Moore's golden-boy status at NBC-U has reached it's expiration date... Oh, Bonnie...)</p>
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Never to be heard from again. Hopefully landing on a planet infested with Aliens... and we would get to see them impregnated by facehuggers or torn apart by drones. Oh what a world that would be...
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GIANT PIG!!!
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Can we get Wil Smith interested in this? I think it needs to be more "ghetto".
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A very good story until it introduced the crazed killer at the end. You know, in real life, as opposed to movie life, people are selected for space flight partially on their ability to work well with other people, not on the basis of how crazy shit bonkers they'll go at the first opportunity. Just a pointer for aspiring screen writers out there.
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Not a big a leap. Some of the first "minicams" where developed for the space program. NASA has been broadcasting mission coverage for decades. The networks seem to consider it too boring for prime-time. Integrating the conventions of 'Reality TV' to attract a wider audience (and supplement a shrining budget) might appeal to a desperate space program. Could be a great premise for dark satire or tedious pretentious mess. All depends on the execution of the idea.
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June 4, 2009, 8:23 a.m. CST
And if Virtuality is what's taking the place of Terminator:Sarah
by johnnyangelheart
I already hate it.
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Will Smith is now ashamed to be a part of Wild Wild West or what ever it was called. The spider was put in there because the head of the studio wanted it. The head of the studio wanted to put the spider in kevin smiths treatment of superman if I remember.
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I wanted to see a future Earth ... and see the humans fuck up some Cylons in an epic battle above earth... still, the final battle was fucking awesome.
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This will last as long as that steaming pile of virtual reality poo Chris Carter pushed out. This is just a gimmick writers like because nothing has to make sense as far as the overall story its just lazy
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"Sorry, Lee...I know I'm your father and all, but I have to go off and bury my dead girlfriend and hide out in a cabin next to her grave for the rest of my life, so I'm afraid you'll never see me ever again." <p>RIGHT.</p>
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HAVING VISIONS OF BUGGERY? FFS. THIS IS THE BEST IDEA THAT THIS TOOL CAN COME UP WITH? OH YEAH. FORGOT. IT'S RON MOORE - WHO ONCE SAW SOMETHING THAT BERMAN DID AND HAS BEEN TRYING TO CRAWL UP HIS ARSE EVER SINCE.
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annoy me. It wasn't the single best episode the series ever produced, but it was a decent, emotionally satisfying conclusion to the characters' journey. Sure, I could have done without the coda and with a better preparation of the whole contrived "we just beat the shit out of each other for the past few years, now let's be friends" plot point, but on the whole, I liked it. <br> I especially like the fact that the audience doesn't get the series' mythology handed to us, all neatly wrapped up and fully explained. You want to believe "God did it," and hate Moore for it, fine, but there are other explanations, and you're free to take your pick; Moore certainly left it open enough. It's like Star Wars before the prequels (and unless I'm misjudging Moore, CAPRICA won't be the lame explain-o-fest the Star Wars prequels were).
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It's exactly what BSG was before the fourth season mythology catch-up: a mirror for 21st century society with some really fascinating characters. You don't like it, you're free to disregard the whole thing. Sure, there are not going to be any macro-level surprises, because we already know what happens with the Cylons, but so what? Story was never the main point of Moore's BSG, either. No wonder people who're so focused on getting a riveting story with twists and turns and HUGE REVELATIONS disliked the BSG finale (and let's face it, those HUGE REVELATIONS were never handled particularly well even in the early seasons; what made them interesting was the change they produced in the characters they affected). <br><br> So, if VIRTUALITY is anything like CAPRICA, bring it on (and frack you Fox for basically cancelling it already).
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about this since I doubt it will ever be picked up as a series. It was not even mentioned during Fox's announcements for next year. Take it for what it is, possibly a decent Sci-Fi TV movie and maybe you will not be too disappointed. I am kinda skeptical of this show since Moore really ran out of ideas towards the end of BSG. I recently watched the first 3 seasons of BSG on DVD again and it is insane how great these seasons are and how much the series got frakked up. And of course the finale, yuck. First hour was good, but then RDM just diarrhead all over it what with the angels, and giving up ALL their technology and yada, yada, yada. I'll DVR Virtuality and watch it whenever.
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This is the man who introduced religion into a series created by the proudest atheist in the history of series TV. This is the man who decided Nog was a more interesting character than James T. Kirk. He's never had an original idea, which makes him perfect for Hollywood in the oughts.
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I also think Moore's stuff is half and half. Half the time exciting and thoughtful, the other half over-ponderous and self important. It's still got to be better than that Sarah Connor Chronicles shit. That show made me wish Sarah Connor had cancer and died already.
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... that crappy American version of Life On Mars? Is that what this is?
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After BSG, the man is on my death list.
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... is the only series finale in the entire history of television that managed to ruin the ENTIRE series. It will go down in history as the most insane act of premeditated career suicide or the only instance of last-minute, apocalyptic shark-jumping ever, or both.
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The 2-hour pilot was supposed to have been directed by Peter Berg, which means it could be pretty damn cool. I like the troupe of actors Moore assembled too.<p> I'm expecting "Virtuality" to be markedly different from "Battlestar Galactica" in terms of storytelling. More near-future, though still tripped out. I also expect heavy doses of reality show bitch-slapping (thank you!), anxious humor, and claustrophobia.<p> Despite the Friday night death slot, this show could be really good. I'll be watching with friends.
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I think everyone on this thread who wrote that "Virtuality" will be like a Star Trek holodeck episode needs to pull their heads out of their asses. Seriously, is that the only reference to virtual reality you know? Because that's pretty limited and kind of pathetic.<p> What if Moore's story pushes cyberpunk or Rudy Rucker-ish themes of post-singularity? What if the show examines virtual reality from a practical, thus infinitely more fucked-up perspective? Because Star Trek didn't do shit with the concept. There was never an episode that dealt with pathological addiction to fantasy, mind-wiping, lucidly brutal virtual sex or... anything, really. It was just "simulation this" and "simulation that." Fucking boring.<p> I choose to think Moore will veer as far away from Star Trek as possible, thank god. He's likely digging much deeper than that, pulling influence from luminaries such as Neil Stephenson and Bruce Sterling, to name a few.<p> It's a mistake to think this will be like Star Trek. It won't, so get over yourselves.
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... and that most of Season 4 was some of the worst. <p> I think that the series finale was one of the worst I've ever seen even at the time that I saw it. Even Dean Stockwell couldn't save it. <p> So does that make me a revisionist then?
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Those are a lot of "what if's" in there, my friend. Anything is possible, I suppose. As far as exploring the obsession with virtual reality, I think the new Bruce Willis flick just may cover that...like I said, it's recycled material. And yes, I think Next Gen doing a malfunctioning holodeck twice a season is excessive. If I were captain I would have pulled the plug on it after the first failure.
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Actually, while I didn't really enjoy the Holodeck-run-amok episodes of TNG either, I think they did touch on (with felt-lined kid gloves) improper holodeck addiction with the Reg Barclay character played by Dwight Schultz. He was found to be engaging in far too much holodeck play and improperly using other crew members in implied romantic situations (didn't they show him wooing a holodeck Troi?). I just checked; it was the episode Hollow Pursuits. If I remember correctly, they even touched on his narcissism and megalomania portrayed in that episode as being the reason behind his conduct later when his intelligence was artificially enhanced by an alien civilization whereupon he took over the ship by force. <BR><BR>Admittedly, as said earlier, they touched on the issue of holodeck addiction very gently, but they still did it in at least one case, and they did it with a character that became a fan-favorite (who was later seen in one of the movies, First Contact, and even used in half a dozen episodes of Voyager, as well as being name-dropped in DS9).
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June 5, 2009, 12:56 a.m. CST
GOOD! You know why? Because Ron Moore's work SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!
by Citizen Sane
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Fucking Fox-douche baggery at its best....wonder why he didn't shop this to Stify..I mean Scify or whatever that channel's name is now...looking for the bigger bucks??? Canceled in 5 episodes, especially if the lead in is that fuckup Dollhouse horse shit
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... God & his angels did it. Another poster said it best: the BSG finale managed to ruin *the entire* series.
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IT will OWN all ya. yea SPACE MONKEY yea!
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I hope the DVD extended cut is a better. Oh, and the Caprica pilot was kind of shit.
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Rhuragh and Logan_1973. I remember that "Star Trek" Barclay episode too, and you're right, it did deal with virtual reality addiction.<p> In my opinion, though, it kind of downplayed the more degenerate aspects of what could've happened, but that's just me. Dwight Schultz did a great job with the role, however. I think his tweaker neuroses made him one of the more compelling characters in that universe.<p> But back to (virtual) reality...<p> It's true my listed possibilities constitute a lot of what-ifs, but I just think there are hundreds of amazing science fiction novels, short stories, movies, shows, and other media to draw on for "Virtuality" influences. "Star Trek" is just one of the hundreds, if not thousands, of virtual reality progenitors.<p> What about the first "Matrix"? That's a much more disturbing and kickass portrayal of virtual reality. Richard K. Morgan's "Altered Carbon" is another popular novel dealing with the more brutal aspects of virtual reality, including non-stop torture that you can't wake up from. This is the kind of push "Star Trek" stayed as far away from as possible. Not that I disagree, of course, since it was made for PG audiences, but I'm saying there's A LOT of shit "Star Trek" avoided in its portrayal of VR.<p> I'm hoping "Virtuality" draws on vastly different influences than "Star Trek" did for ongoing drama, and like "Battlestar Galactica," goes for the jugular.
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BSG sucked ass. I'd rather ensure that this idiot doesn't TOUCH another potentially great SF franchise, thank you. <p> Let Virtuality crash and burn.
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When Tuvok plays a particular holodeck war game it sets loose a computer virus. When you steal from Brannon Braga you may as well put the gun in your mouth and pull the trigger
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