Wesley Britton's Blog - Posts Tagged "virtual-reality"

After my post on David McCallum’s Invisible Man on Monday, several folks let me know they appreciated the short reference to another “Spy-Fi” series, VR.5. Because of their interest, I decided to dive into my files and share my notes on that show:

VR.5
(Fox) March 10--May 12, 1995

For Samoset Productions, John Sacret Young and Jeannine Renshaw created VR.5, a “Spy-fi” series crafted for adult audiences. The depth of the show has been compared with that of The Prisoner, notably the themes of mind-games and deceptive realities.
The central character was Sydney Bloom (Lori Singer), a telephone lines operator and computer hacker drawn into the convoluted and conflicting games of the secret “Committee” when she discovered how to enter and manipulate the subconscious dream-world of virtual reality. Sydney could type out a desired destination on her screen, use her phone to call someone she wanted to take along on a journey to another dimension, and when the caller answered, she slammed the phone into the computer modem. A swooch of special effects sent them into the fifth realm of virtual reality. In the dream-like VR5 world, Bloom could alter physical reality, the halfway point to VR.10 where mental powers wouldn’t need computers.
In the early episodes, Bloom believed her father, Dr. Joseph Bloom (David McCallum), a neurobiolotist pioneer, and her twin-sister were killed in a car accident. The mysterious circumstances left her mother (Louise Fletcher) in a catatonic state. Sydney was counseled by childhood friend Duncan (Michael Easton) who draws from Zen and other philosophical systems to help ground Sydney as she explored her abilities.
For the first four episodes, Sydney was also helped by VR guru Dr. Frank Morgan (Will Patton). But after Sydney attracted the interest of the invisible security organization called "the Committee," Morgan disappeared and Oliver Sampson (Anthony Head) was assigned to be her controller. He became a manipulative love interest in a relationship similar to that of Nikita and Michael in Le Femme Nikita.
Eventually Sydney learned her father and sister were alive and under the power of one faction of the “Committee” who'd placed false memories of the accident in her mind. In the end, she learned her father achieved VR.8 consciousness with The ability to transplant or implant personalities from one mind to another.
The creative team was noted for its then cutting-edge high-quality special-effects as in digitally altering colors when scenes took place inside the virtual reality system. But this process took four weeks to complete at a cost of up to $1.5 million per episode. For this reason, a poor time-slot, and apparently considerable behind-the-scenes arguing among the participants, the uneasy network only ordered ten episodes and only broadcast nine before dropping a show with minimal ratings.
It can be said VR5 was The Prisoner of the 1990s. “The Committee” is similar to the watchers of Number Six, omnipresent and frightening, using the alternating guises of toughness and tenderness. Like one episode of The Prisoner in which Number Six endured a personality transfer from one body to another, Sydney’s father had apparently done the same. Nods to other earlier spy dramas were evident in details such as the names of Sydney’s goldfish--Steed and Mrs. Peel. Drawing explicit connections to the popularity of The X-Files, executive producer Thania St. John stated that "VR will try to capture that same, creepy feeling."
VR5 had a second-life on the Sci-Fi channel in 1997 including first airings of three episodes not broadcast on the original Fox run. Because of the show’s focus on mind-games, secret governmental duplicity, and alternate realities, the show gained a fan base generating detailed WebPages, notably Virtual Storm, a group dedicated to keeping VR.5 alive. For a short time, this group raised interest in having a two-hour movie produced based on the series, but production never took place.
The series was broadcast on CBS Drama in Europe in early 2014.
 

Here’s alink to the opening credits:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fXK8...

Also at Youtube, the pilot episode is at the same link.


Here’s the Amazon link to purchase the show on DVD:
https://www.amazon.com/VR-5-1995-Seri...

And here’s a 2011 review of the series, from a “looking back to the ‘90s” perspective:
http://www.denofgeek.com/us/tv/20799/...

Infinite Tuesday: Autobiographical Riffs
Michael Nesmith
Publisher: Crown Archetype; First Edition first Printing edition (April 18, 2017)
ISBN-13: 978-1101907504
https://www.amazon.com/Infinite-Tuesd...

Reviewed for BookPleasures.com by Dr. Wesley Britton

I’m not sure what inspired me to sit down and listen to the audiobook edition of ex—Monkee Michael Nesmith’s new autobiography. I suppose I remain a sucker for ‘60s nostalgia, even if Nesmith has long maintained a very understandable and quiet distance from his short Monkee past. I expected to learn much more about his decades since his pop stardom years and, mostly, I wasn’t disappointed even if a number of projects get little or no mention.

In fact, we never hear the names Mickey Dolenz, Davey Jones, or Peter Tork mentioned more than one passing note on their pre-Monkee years. When Nesmith starts name dropping, we first hear about his encounters with Timothy Leary and author Douglas Adams, the latter to play an even more important role in the book’s final chapters. Yes, we get perhaps two chapters of Monkee business including Nesmith admitting he was thrust into the limelight of show business in a way he didn’t like and didn’t understand. In his view, Headquarters is the only real Monkees record. I didn’t know their movie, Head, was designed to be a suicide project intended to torpedo the entire Monkee parade.

But the bulk of the book looks at Nesmith’s formative years when he tried to be a California based songwriter, and the decades after his Monkee stardom when he shaped his own musical trajectory, especially with the country rock pioneers, the First National Band and their unexpected 1970 hit, “Joanne.” Nesmith has much to say about the music business of the ‘70s which he repeatedly describes as corrupt and machine-like. He virtually invented music videos (winning a Grammy for his 1982 Elephant Parts), producing “Pop Clips”, which evolved into MTV. Nesmmith also successfully tried his hand at movie production (notably Repo Man), and ultimately dived into virtual reality which is something he’s still working on.

Along the way, Nesmith is very candid about his failures, missteps, and misunderstandings, especially when he repeatedly discusses what he calls “celebrity psychosis.” He shares his spiritual odyssey, notably his lifelong connections to Christian Science. I must admit, I don’t know that I’ll ever contribute a dime to PBS again unless I hear a good defense for their attempts to steal his Pacific Arts video catalogue, even if they lost big in court in 1999.

Naturally, I was curious about a few matters glossed over or not mentioned in the story. I’d have thought he’d have said more about the songs that he wrote which the Monkees did record like “Mary Mary.” Speaking of songwriting, I was surprised to see nothing about “Different Drum” or “Some of Shelley’s Blues” that were recorded by Linda Ronstadt. He says nothing about the Monkee reunions he participated in or mentions the passing of Davey Jones. Perhaps these are all topics he’s addressed too many times before and has no interest in retreading what, for him, must be overly tilled territory.

For serious Monkee fans, the way to go is read the audiobook edition as read aloud by the author. For everyone else, check out the book if you’re interested in learning more about a man who has been far more than the guy in the “wool hat.” In this book, you get a bit of rock and roll, a bit of country, a lot of the entertainment business, and even more exploration into spiritual healing.

Reviewed for BookPleasures.com on June 5, 2017:
goo.gl/NTPeSY