Talk Back: FOX's "Virtuality"

I'm really bummed that more people didn't tune in to watch Friday night's broadcast of Ronald D. Moore and Michael Taylor's superlative two-hour pilot for Virtuality, directed by Peter Berg.

You read my advance review of the gripping and haunting two-hour pilot of FOX's Virtuality but, now that it's aired, I am curious to hear what you think. (Missed the two-hour pilot? You can watch the whole thing at Hulu.)

According to Hollywood Reporter's The Live Feed, "The two-hour premiere of Ron Moore's sci-fi pilot drew only 1.8 million viewers and received a 0.5 adult demo rating -- tying ABC's "The Goode Family" as the lowest-rated program on a major broadcast network Friday night and putting Fox into fourth place for the evening."

What I'm wondering is: why didn't more of you tune in to watch what was one of the more original and unique projects to come along in a long time? Were you put off by the twisty subject matter? Or was it the fact that it seemed pretty unlikely that it would go to series? Did you DVR the pilot and save it for later?

For those of you who did tune in, I'm wondering what you thought of Virtuality overall. Were you intrigued by its through-the-looking-glass-and-down-the-rabbit-hole exploration of reality in its various incarnations? Did you spark to the characters and their virtual worlds? Was your interest piqued by the enigmatic Green Eyed Man? Did you pick up that Billie Kashmiri's alter ego was singing a Japanese rock version of The Munsters theme song?

And, most importantly, would you have watched a Virtuality series?

Talk back here.

Exit Planet Dust: An Advance Review of FOX's Gripping Two-Hour Event "Virtuality"

"I'm alive/And I'm alone/And I've never wanted to be either of those." - Chemical Brothers

It's rare that a network ever airs a pilot that it doesn't intend to order to series, much less one that has engendered quite so much support from viewers ahead of its broadcast.

And yet that's just what FOX is doing tonight with the gripping and sensational two-hour pilot for sci-fi drama Virtuality, from creators Ronald D. Moore and Michael Taylor of Battlestar Galactica fame. (You can find an exclusive interview with Michael Taylor here and a write-up of a press call with Ron Moore here.)

Virtuality, gorgeously directed by Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights) is a mind-bending, acid-trip exploration of deepest space and the innermost recesses of the human heart. Deftly combining space-set action with reality television, Virtuality seeks to answer some eternal questions about the nature of reality itself. What is real? What's fantasy? And what happens when we're able to smudge the lines between the two?

The crew of interstellar craft Phaeton is toeing that very line. We meet the motley inhabitants of this metal tube as they approach a major turning point on their ten-year journey to a distant star. Via the reality-show-within-a-show Edge of Never that documents their every move, we're told that their journey of exploration to investigate the possibility of life has become a journey of survival as back on Earth, environmental conditions have deteriorated to the point that the planet will be uninhabitable within a century. This news reaches them just as they arrive at the go/no-go point: the last chance they have to reevaluate their course. Will they turn around and come home? Or, armed with this information, will they continue on a ten-year round-trip journey to Epsilon Eridani and back?

In his play "No Exit," Jean-Paul Sartre posited that hell is other people. Imagine then the hell of being trapped on a space ship with just eleven other people for a decade. Fortunately, the crew of the Phaeton has an escape route of sorts, their virtual reality modules which allow them to step outside the mundane drudgery of their existence and experience, well, anything that they can dream up. Some choose to use this for extreme sports, some for relaxation, others as war games, but some discover that they can use these modules to explore their innermost dreams and fears.

Commander Frank Pike (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) uses his module to play Civil War-era war games. That is, when he's not conducting a virtual affair with microbiologist Rika Goddard (Sienna Guillory), who just happens to be married to the reality show producer/psych officer Dr. Roger Fallon (James D'Arcy). Pilot Sue Parsons (Clea Duvall) escapes the darkness of space for the surf or a bike ride down the side of tree-lined mountain road. Wheelchair-bound second-in-command Dr. Jimmy Johnson uses it to experience ice-climbing and, well, walking. Meek computer scientist Billie Kashmiri (Kerry Bishe) is a rock star/Alias-style superspy. Others still use it as means to come to terms with some hard truths, such as Dr. Jules Braun (Erik Jensen) and Alice Thibadeau (Joy Bryant); the modules offer them the facade of being able to change their circumstances, to erase the past and start again, to achieve the things that life prevented them from holding on to.

But all is not well in outer space.

Besides that one of their number--crew physician Dr. Adin Meyer (Omar Metwally)--has been diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease, there's paranoia brewing among the crew that the information they are being fed from mission control may not be totally true. And there are other pressing issues, such as that affecting their precious virtual reality modules. What appears at first to be a computer glitch is wrecking havoc on their virtual lives, introducing a seemingly autonomous and free-willed character (Jimmi Simpson) into these fictional worlds. Even more troubling is that this green-eyed man seems hell-bent on killing them all, going so far as to rape one them during a virtual session.

What follows is both a taut thriller and a philosophical potboiler as the crew debates whether or not to shut down the virtual modules and whether what happens in these fictional realities qualifies as "real." It's a canny means for Moore and Taylor to explore the fragile definitions we have for reality and each of the characters has a motivation for either wanting to believe or not that their virtual lives are just as real as the ones they experience in the so-called waking world.

The questions that Virtuality asks are ones that affect each and every one of us, who filter our perceptions of the reality of our own world through the prism of the endless streams of cable news networks, so-called reality television series, and our own fallibility. Is shooting someone in a video game actually murder? If you sleep with someone other than your spouse in a dream, has an affair been consummated? The answer is that our realities are so malleable that it's hard to separate physical truth from emotional truth.

These would be merely intriguing themes if they weren't brought to life so skillfully by Virtuality's superlative cast, from Coster-Waldau's epiphany-receiving Commander Pike, D'Arcy's arrogant Roger Fallon, and Duvall's embitted Sue Parsons (who herself conceals a secret to unlocking her brusque demeanor) to supporting characters like Jose Pablo Cantillo and Gene Harber's sparring gay couple Manny and Val and Nelson Lee and Joy Bryant's romantic couple Kenji Yamamoto and Alice Thibadeau. Each member of the cast gets an opportunity to shine brightly in the two-hour pilot and a slew of compelling subplots emerges for each of them.

The jaw-dropping and beautiful direction, by Peter Berg, also has to be commended. There's an awe-inducing scene, in which the crew of the Phaeton engages in a slingshot maneuver, that's set to the Chemical Brothers' haunting song "Alive Alone" (featuring vocals by Beth Orton) that needs to be seen to be believed. It rivals--if not tops-- many of the most cinematic sequences in today's feature films and imbues the action with an innate humanity and passion. (Confession: I watched it five times as I was so completely sucked into the beauty of the scene.)

True, Virtuality isn't flawless. There are some niggling points that stick out when watching the pilot, such as why Roger Fallon, the psych officer on an interstellar crew, would also be a producer of a reality television show with a stake in the series' profitability in lieu of a producer who didn't also have to care for the psychological well-being of the crew of a multi-billion dollar mission for survival. Additionally, it still bothers me why the argument between the crew was whether the VR modules needed to be shut down completely or left the way they are (even with murder and rape occurring against the users' will), rather than someone--like computer genius Billie--also exploring a possible on-site software fix in the meantime.

But these are minor complaints when faced with the sheer pleasure of watching something truly innovative and unique unfold on screen. Virtuality's two-hour pilot gives us a glimpse into a series that might have been. What we see through the looking glass then is a gripping series that's not afraid to ask hard questions, to play with our perceptions, and to challenge its characters--and its audience--to take a leap of faith.

The final five minutes or so set up what looked to be a darkly compelling journey of self-discovery and darkly spellbinding drama. Even if this groundbreaking series doesn't continue past this airing, the trip down the rabbit hole--no matter how brief--is definitely worth it. So do yourself a favor and plug into the riveting Virtuality tonight.



Virtuality airs tonight at 8 pm ET/PT on FOX.

Virtuous Reality: Talking with "Virtuality" Co-Creator Ronald D. Moore

Following up on my recent exclusive (and candid) interview with Michael Taylor, co-writer/executive producer of FOX's Virtuality, which will air its two-hour pilot on Friday night, I participated in a recent press call with Taylor's co-creator on the project, Battlestar Galactica's Ronald D. Moore, to get his take on the project, its viability, and the series' virtual worlds.

So is Virtuality doomed to be a one-off movie or is there still hope that FOX could pick this up to series after airing the two-hour pilot, directed by Peter Berg?

"I think you never say never," said Moore. "They haven’t picked it up to date. Their attitude, I think, is kind of wait and see. I think they want to see what the reaction is going to be. What are the critics going to say? Is it going to get word of mouth? Are fans going to gravitate to it or is the science fiction community really going to turn up for it? Is there going to be a certain buzz and excitement? I think right now it doesn’t look like it’s going to series, but I think if enough people watched and enough people got excited about it anything is possible."

"It certainly does not resolve itself in two hours," he explained. "I mean it sets up for a show, so it’s got some pretty heavy things that go down in it and kind of leaves you going, 'Whoa! Where is that going?' by the end of it."

Moore explained the, er, rather complicated development process that Virtuality underwent between its inception and the airing on Friday of the pilot episode.

"It actually started [with] an unusual situation in that [executive producers] Gail Berman and Lloyd Braun had wanted to have a sit down, a general meeting with me and then separately they wanted to have a sit down meeting with Michael Taylor, who was one of the writers on Battlestar," said Moore. "So I sat down with Lloyd and Gail and in that conversation Lloyd had this idea of I would like to do a show about the first long-range mission to Mars. We kind of talked about that a little bit in just a get-to-know-you meeting and kind of expanded on the idea of what a long-range mission would be."

"They had a similar meeting with Mike Taylor. The same kind of topic came up. He sparked to it from sort of a different angle and then Michael and I started talking about it separately. Then the three of us started talking and it all kind of became this sort of here’s a show. Then we just took it to Fox. We went into Fox and pitched it to Kevin Reilly and his team and they really liked it and it kind of went from there."

However, it wasn't exactly smooth sailing from there.

"This is very complex material," explained Moore. "I think the initial reaction when they saw the two-hour version was 'Wow! If this was just a movie I would say ship it right now. It’s fantastic. But it’s a pilot and it’s a pilot for Fox. I’m not sure. Let’s talk about different ways to go at this.' So we went back in and we worked with Kevin [Reilly] and the network. Any of these sorts of processes when you’re dealing with pilots, it’s a conversation between you and the network to try to figure out how to maintain and sort of show the piece of material that you’ve worked on, that you believe in. You’re also trying to get something that will fit onto their air schedule. It becomes a question of how can each of us accommodate each other into this process."

"As part of that process, Kevin asked us at one point, 'Can you do a one-hour version of it? Can you cut the existing two-hour to a one-hour version? How would that be?' So we went back in and we took a crack at carving a one-hour. Peter Berg really led that charge and tried a whole different kind of style and structure to do what a one-hour piece would have looked like. Ultimately, I don’t think any of us really felt that that was the best version of the show. We didn’t feel that way and neither did the network, so ultimately that didn’t really go anywhere. I think they then judged the show on its own merits as the two-hour version and just decided they weren’t willing to pick it up right then, but they weren’t going to foreclose the possibility if it sparked interest later and that’s kind of where we are."

One element that adds to its innate complexity is the series' blend of sci-fi thriller with reality television.

"When we first started talking about the concept is was about a long-range space mission, which I was intrigued with," Moore explained. "I was interested in the idea of what do you do with twelve people in a metal tube for that long. I thought there were interesting dramatic possibilities right there and, okay, what would they realistically need to do. What would NASA or the space confederation do at that point to keep them from going crazy? They’d probably have a really advanced virtual reality program to help them while away the hours and there’s interaction between those two worlds."

"Somewhere in those discussions we started talking about when they would be broadcasting pieces back to earth, obviously, like astronauts do today, and hey, what if they made a reality show out of that? Then it all kind of started to come together. You had these three layers of storytelling going on in the show where you had what was happening in the real world on the ship, what was happening in the virtual space and then what was the reality show that was seen back on earth. Were the needs of the reality show starting to impact what was happening on the spacecraft? Were people being manipulated in order to make better drama for the reality show? The astronauts themselves would start to wonder about are they telling us the truth about what’s happening back on earth or is that something to just get us to be upset for the cameras. It did sort of become this really interesting sort of psychological crucible that they would all be put in."

Given the multiple layers of reality that Moore and co-creator Michael Taylor were playing with, it definitely did get confusing at times to keep track of but offered a unique challenge for the writers.

"It was a tough thing to juggle," admitted Moore. "It’s a very ambitious piece and I think that was the reaction on the part of Fox when they saw it. It’s a very challenging, very complicated piece of work and there are a lot of moving parts. We knew that sort of going in and writing the script wasn’t easy. There was a lot of sort of trying to decide how much time you spend in any one of these three categories and at what point do you shift from the audience’s point of view from one to the other. What’s the language for that? Where are we going to introduce certain characters? How often do you go to the first person confessionals and the reality show, etc., etc.? So there were a lot of just complicated questions. Then those same questions were there in the editing process. When do you go to which piece of material? I think it was a really interesting challenge."

Still, Moore wasn't exactly a fan of reality television when the genre burst onto the television landscape in a major way. Still, he's come to accept that it fulfills a voyeuristic impulse within its viewers.

"At first I think I was certainly one of the skeptics that reality TV was going to be with us for any great period of time," remembered Moore. "Certainly, that’s been proven wrong. There seems to be a fundamental interest of people watching other real people or at least what they perceive as real people as opposed to watching fictional programming. There’s certainly something. There’s a powerful draw there of us wanting to look in on other people’s lives and seeing them pretty much as they actually exist."

"Why we included it in the show was it just felt like it’s become such a staple of pop culture at this point in time," he continued. "It seemed interesting to then incorporate it into a science fiction setting, which was something that we had never seen before or heard of and thought that’s an interesting sort of spin on it. We’ve all seen video that’s been broadcast back by the astronauts from the Apollo missions to the Space Shuttle, but we’ve never seen it done in a format where it’s trying to be a reality show at the same time. I thought that’s an interesting challenge. It’s kind of a different hook for the audience and it might be kind of a cool angle for the show."

Part of that reality includes a racially diverse cast, like you might see on a contemporary reality television series.

"We set out to create sort of a diverse group of astronauts and we sort of then embraced the idea that given our premise that these astronauts were put together not just for the scientific mission, but also for its own demographic purposes, we kind of embraced the idea that they would be a very diverse group and then that would be part of the story, the show," said Moore. "Was this group assembled for its TVQ sort of attractability, as it were, or were they really all of the best in their selective fields and to use that as sort of tension between them. We just wanted sort of characters that would be interesting to sort of collide against one another, characters that would have problems with one another, all of the sort of standard things that you look for in a dramatic series."

Still, viewers can expect a drastically less dire tone than Moore's last series, Battlestar Galactica.

"It’s a much less serious situation than Battlestar was dealing with," said Moore of Virtuality. "Battlestar was literally a post-apocalyptic show where the future of humanity rode on their every decision and death was stalking them continuously. So it’s not set up in the same way. The crew aboard Phaeton signed up for what just seemed like a very straight-ahead mission of exploration and they were chosen with that in mind. They were also chosen to participate in this sort of reality show that’s being broadcast back to Earth."

"So there was a conscious attempt on the part of the people who put the crew together to sort of have an interesting mix of people," he continued. "There are debates within the crew themselves who was chosen just for sort of their demographic content and who was legitimately supposed to be there. Now you’ve got a groups of 12 people stuck in a metal tube going in a straight line for a decade or so and that’s going to just sort of produce a lot of tensions and frictions and manipulations and sort of cross problems between the characters. It has a stronger element of fun and suspense and sort of interesting plot terms in terms of what characters will do with one another than did Battlestar. Battlestar was very driven by the internal pressures of the huge weight that was on all of their shoulders from the beginning of the miniseries. There’s definitely more humor. There’s more humor probably in the first ten minutes of Virtuality than there was in the run of Battlestar, let’s put it that way."

As for the virtual modules themselves, Moore said that they're vastly different than Star Trek's holodeck.

"Well, it’s a different concept," explained Moore. "The holodeck is a physical space that you would go into and three dimensional forms were actually physically created in front of you that you could feel and touch and interact with, etc. The computer would generate them as long as you were in them. This is truly a virtual space, which is much more akin to putting on contemporary, sort of virtual headsets, but sort of taking it to the next level where you do have an experiential sort of ability to touch and sense and taste and smell things in your mind, so it’s different sort of on the mechanical level."

"In terms of the story level, we’re not playing the idea that if you die in the virtual space you die in the real space. It’s not ... from that sense. It doesn’t have the safety programs like it did in the holodeck where the safety is off and if you get killed in here you get killed. It’s a very different thing."

But, said Moore, you don't die if you're killed inside Virtuality's virtual modules.

"You don’t, no," he said. "It’s more like how gaming is now. You go on-line. You play a game and you get killed and you’re kicked out of the program because you’re dead, but you’re not dead in real life. "

"We’re using these much more psychologically as well," he continued. "It doesn’t sound like you’ve seen the pilot, but essentially the experience is that the astronauts aboard the Phaeton have, in virtual space, are sort of things that just sort of are psychologically motivated. They go in there and they do things for entertainment and to sort of pass the time of day while they’re on this very, very long-range mission, but you’re learning things about them personally and about where did they want to spend their time and when things go wrong in that space how does it then influence them in the real world. That was the thing I was most interested in. The concept was how the virtual space impacted the real story that was going on aboard the spacecraft and vice-versa. What’s the sort of interaction between the two?"

And, yes, Moore is aware of the similarities between Virtuality's virtual modules and the holo-bands used by characters on Moore's other creation Caprica, the Battlestar Galactica prequel spin-off which launches next year on Syfy.

"I was sort of aware of the similarities between the two," he admitted. "They do have different purposes and different sorts of constructs to them. They both involve putting a set of goggles on your face, so they’re similar in sort of that perspective. In Caprica, it’s really much more akin to the Internet where you go out and the virtual spaces are practically infinite and they intersect with one another. On Caprica you can go from the V-Club where we establish in the pilot is sort of a hacked world and then, presumably, there are worlds of war craft type of worlds, etc., etc. It’s all sort of interconnected into their version of the Internet."

"In Virtuality, we’re looking at something much more discrete, much smaller, much more of a gaming type of environment where an astronaut has a specific virtual reality module that they go into and play whatever game or have whatever experience they want, but there is no expectation that you can cross from one module to another."

Still, look for a wide array of virtual worlds just in Virtuality's two-hour pilot alone.

"You’ll see kind of a range of virtual worlds," said Moore. "It opens in the Civil War in an action sort of piece and then there are more pastoral settings. There is a home. There are actually doctor’s offices. There are rock concerts. There is quite a range of areas that we went into, which was a deliberate choice. We wanted to sort of show that we were going to use these worlds in sort of disparate ways and that they would all be sort of tailored to specific characters and what they were interested in going to do, so you’ll see quite a range of virtual worlds when you get in there."

Given FOX's decision to program Virtuality as a two-hour movie on a Friday night during the summer, what is Moore's take on the general climate the networks right now in an era where FOX cancelled Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles due to low ratings (despite a rabid fanbase) and nearly did the same with Joss Whedon's Dollhouse?

"I think it’s a difficult time for the networks in general," mused Moore. "I think that the scheduling kind of reflects that. I think everybody in the business has a sense that television is changing right underneath our feet. While we all say that and we all say, 'Yes, we’re going to be ahead of the curve and we know that TV is changing,' nobody has an idea of what it’s changing to. I think that that sort of anxiety and that sort of lack of knowledge about where you’re going contributes to an atmosphere of panic and fear of saying, 'Oh, my God. It didn’t work. Yank. We can’t afford the time to stick with this show. We gave it four episodes and that’s it.'"

"I think that’s unfortunate, because I think there are many, many shows, many of the greatest shows on TV, many of the most successful shows on TV had rocky starts and they really required networks that believed in the process and were willing to stick by them," continued Moore. "Famously, Seinfeld. They really had to believe in Seinfeld and it turned out to be not only a critical hit and one of the great comedies of all time, but incredibly lucrative, so there is certainly a strong argument for having patience and faith and really trusting your audience and trusting your instincts and going with programming."

"Unfortunately, we’re in an atmosphere where everyone is just afraid and everyone is really worried about what’s going to happen next week and, 'Oh, my God. This show didn’t perform well this week. Let’s yank it.' It’s really tough. I would not want to be in charge of one of these networks because it would be really hard to know where the hell I’m supposed to go, how I’m supposed to program this thing."

If FOX opts not to go ahead with Virtuality after Friday's broadcast of the two-hour pilot, Moore says that he and Taylor and studio Universal Media Studios are exploring a number of options not limited to comic books, other telepics, etc.

"I think all of those are possibilities," Moore said. "We’ve talked about all of those possibilities. It’s just kind of one step at a time. I think it’s really hard to say. It depends on where we go after the broadcast and after the ratings, after they start looking at demographics, after they start looking at word of mouth. Sometimes these things have a bigger life that sort of blossoms a few weeks after the broadcast. There’s a buzz going. People talk and then they start wondering when it’s on DVD [...] and decisions about where we would go with the underlying properties is just really hard to say where we are right now... I mean either way I think Mike and I pretty much have an idea of the direction that we would take the show or the book or whatever it would be. We have an idea of where we would take the story after this, yes."

Virtuality's two-hour pilot airs Friday night at 8 pm ET/PT on FOX.

Edge of Never: FOX Releases "Virtuality" Trailer, Cast Interviews, and Webisodes

What would you take with you into space?

There's just a week to go before FOX airs the two-hour pilot for Ron Moore and Michael Taylor's sci-fi opus Virtuality.

FOX has released official trailers for Virtuality, interviews with the cast, and webisodes based around Virtuality's reality show-within-a-show, entitled "Edge of Never."

Of course, this being a project with two writers involved with Sci Fi's trippy Battlestar Galactica, expect things to be not quite what they seem. With that said, dive into the virtual and not-so-virtual worlds of Virtuality. (And you can read my exclusive interview with co-creator Michael Taylor here.)

Virtuality Preview - Everything's About to Change!



Virtuality Preview - Fantasy vs. Reality!



Virtuality Cast Interview: What would you bring to Space?



Virtuality Preview - Host Intro!



Virtuality Preview - Leap of Faith!



Virtuality Preview - Robot Hand!



Virtuality Preview - Space Painting!



Virtuality Preview - Surfing in Space!



Virtuality Promo – “Edge of Never”!



The two-hour pilot of Virtuality will air Friday, June 26th at 8 pm ET/PT on FOX.

Go/No-Go: Televisionary Talks to "Virtuality" Co-Creator Michael Taylor

One of the most eagerly anticipated series from last season was the sci-fi suspense series Virtuality, created by Battlestar Galactica's Ronald D. Moore and Michael Taylor and directed by Friday Night Lights' Peter Berg, which will finally air its two-hour pilot later this month on FOX.

I caught up with co-creator/executive producer Michael Taylor this morning for a one-on-one interview, in which he discusses the likelihood of FOX picking up Virtuality to series, what his and Ron's ideas were for the first season's storylines, Sci Fi's interest in the series, that jaw-dropping slingshot sequence, and, oh, a punk-rock Japanese version of the theme song from The Munsters.

Televisionary: Can you describe for people who might not be familiar with the series, the overall concept of Virtuality?

Michael Taylor: It's set in a near future, 20-30 years out against a backdrop of an Earth that's experiencing a severe global warming, something that we could well be experiencing by then, though it's really quite dire at this point. And that's the backdrop and the show is about the crew of a space ship, Earth's first interstellar space ship and their first mission to another star in another solar system where scientists have hoped that we can find life. And possibly find something that might help us solve our ecological problems back home. However, because it's a voyage we're not expecting them to be chasing after asteroids or whatever else; it's a straight-line shot, which would be the way a voyage like this would work. So it makes it pretty dull for the crew for most of the time.

And partly to alleviate boredom, to alleviate tension that might start simmering with twelve people cooped up in this tin can all the way over there, they've been equipped with a virtual reality program with allows them to simulate any environment they wish, something they can enjoy in complete privacy or share if they so desire. And the idea is that everything is going swimmingly except at a certain point, just as we join the voyage and they are about to leave our solar system and commit to this long-term five-year trip--ten-year round trip--mission to this star system, something starts to go wrong in these virtual reality environments and it seems innocuous at first but it gets more serious. Meanwhile, serious things start happening in the real world of the ship, serious problems that could jeopardize the mission, the safety of the crew.

Televisionary: Last time we spoke, Peter had cut down the pilot into a one-hour version and then FOX has since committed to airing the two-hour version on June 26th. What is the current status of the project now? Is it still possible that it could be picked up to series? And have there been discussions between you and Ron and Universal Media Studio about following through on this elsewhere potentially?

Taylor: Certainly there have been those sort of discussions about following through... [With FOX publicity,] we've discussed how to approach this. The network has not made a formal announcement about the fate of the show. Peter Berg wasn't asked but he volunteered to make a shorter cut. One of the compromises that is made in getting this show on the air--and it's a way sometimes that networks and sometimes studios hedge their bets it's, all right, maybe it's not a series, let's make it a two-hour back-door pilot and we do it as a movie and we can make some money back, sell it overseas, whatever their marketing thinking is. But at the same time, I feel FOX may have thought, well, maybe it could work better as an hour or more clearly as a pilot and they wanted it shot to recut it that way. However, once you take a show and expand it to two hours, it's very hard to put that genie back in his mullah's bottle and I think Pete [Berg's] cut is very, very cool but it was a somewhat different show. And I think FOX thought six of one, half a dozen of another, and they decided, let's just air the original two-hour version to let people see what the entire project was that they essentially scripted it to be.

All that being said, if I'm being honest here, it does not look good for the show to be picked up by FOX as a series. That's why it's honestly being put on on a night like this and we have had discussions with other discussions, in particular Sci Fi Channel, which I think loves the show. But then there's a financial issue of them affording a show like this and being able to put it on. Honestly, this is probably it. One shot airing of this pilot. The good thing is a lot of pilots that don't make it to series--most of them--never make it onto television. So at least people have a chance to say, okay, this is what these guys did and this is what this great cast we assembled and a talented, amazing director like Pete Berg were able to create. Odds are that will be as far as it goes. And it would take a miracle of enough people watching on a night like this to change that.

Televisionary: Can you speak a little bit about the changes that were made to Virtuality's final act? I don't want to spoil anything but what is going to air is slightly different than what you and Ron originally worked out in the script.

Taylor: Exactly. We took it to two-hours. Ron has a philosophy, you've got something really good, we've got something in mind, an idea that we already envisioned, we could play it now, why hold off? I mean, let's lay all of our cards on the table and show just how weird and twisty this can get in those first two hours and create other, tremendous surprises along the way. In other words, you don't have to hoard your ideas, let's just go for it. I think that was the idea.

And I read one review, I guess, by the guy who does Futon Critic [Brian Ford Sullivan] who was wild about the script and the original script and really liked the two-hour version that he saw--and I don't even know how he saw it or it may have been an earlier cut--but was surprised by the changes as well. To me, it just takes us down the rabbit hole a little earlier, I guess you could say, and sets up a really intriguing situation by the end of the show. Is it as outwardly dire as the picture the pilot seems to paint? Uh, that I can't say. Maybe not, maybe yes. But it certainly opens an even greater mystery by the end of the show and that's what we wanted to do.

Televisionary: On a lighter note, what's with Billie (Kerry Bishé) singing The Munsters' theme?

Taylor (laughs): Oh! Originally in the script, I wanted to use a punk-rock Japanese version of The Mary Tyler Moore theme and I thought this character Billie Kashmiri, who has a virtual alter ego, a sort of Buckaroo Bonzai rock-and-roll superspy, a song like that would be very empowering. And imagine it like Joan Jett doing it. And then I later found out that Joan Jett actually does do a punk-rock version of that song. Mary Tyler Moore would not actually let us use it and didn't idea of it being in Japanese, whatever it was, it made her kind of... she wasn't into it. And beyond that, it was very expensive and this is a show that, as expensive as it is, we had to be really tight with our budget to make it work.

And The Munsters theme just happened to be in the Universal library and [when] I first heard of this, I said, you've got to be kidding. The Munsters? But I checked it out and there actually was a Munsters Christmas special where they wrote lyrics for an expanded version of The Munsters theme and it was super dorky. So by the end, I wrote new lyrics to The Munsters theme, sort of punk rock lyrics, then we translated those into Japanese and I thought it sounded great and I think it's hysterical. Ron and I were watching the taping of this, the filming of it, and thinking, wow, we should have just broken this out as a whole music video. That was fun... it's something worth posting, the new lyrics to The Munsters theme in English.

Televisionary: I was just going to say, will the English translation be available somewhere?

Taylor: Huh, I hadn't even thought of it until now but we certainly can make it available online.

Televisionary: If Virtuality would have (or were) to continue, can you give us a taste as to what the first season's storylines would have been about?

Taylor: I think it would be a very tense mystery, in some ways not unlike Damages, a series that might flash-forward to a point somewhere in the future and then show us how we got there. But we had all sorts of ideas worked out and it would a very tense thriller, kind of suspense piece yet at the same time would be building into some really interesting areas. I think the biggest question we would be asking would be, what is reality? How do you define it? It would be a very trippy, very cool, very suspenseful space adventure.

Televisionary: Obviously, you and Ron were coming off of Battlestar, which has a huge, sprawling cast and Virtuality has twelve physical actors aboard the Phaeton. Was it a challenge to move away from that large-scale cast to a limited one?

Taylor: I was writing a script for these twelve new characters. (Laughs.) Not to limited to me. In fact, mostly what I heard is that it was an ensemble show very much in the mold of Battlestar, so Battlestar was certainly very good training for writing something like this and I didn't see it as a limited show, with a hero and his sidekick and a couple of chums. It really was a pretty large cast and I tried to give every character a real chance to shine. I wanted us to care about all of these people, so I didn't really see if in those sort of terms of a smaller or scaled-down kind of thing. We didn't have a hundred ships or a rag-tag fleet but in the end, in Battlestar even, there's probably about a dozen key characters, right? It's probably not that dissimilar; they're just mixed in with a much bigger crowd but there are still only really about the same number of [main] people.

Televisionary: Could you speak briefly about the pilot's slingshot sequence, which was just absolutely amazing?

Taylor: Hats off to Pete Berg there, who chose the music and created the vibe. I mean one thing we didn't want to go for was a false danger, false threat from this maneuver which gets us out of the solar system but Pete crafted this gorgeous sequence. It's a wonderful musical number--I'm actually spacing on what the tune in the scene is--it is a really fun sequence and that's Pete's doing.

Televisionary: What do you hope that viewers take away from this two-hour?

Taylor: I hope they dig it. It's not perfect. There's stuff we would have loved to have had a chance to adjust, change, even reshoot a little bit. We didn't have that opportunity. I'd like them to think, wow, this is a really cool show and I really wish to hell that I knew what was going to happen next. But I am glad that we got to see this and I do feel a little wistful. Ron and I both think that this would be a great series and I wish the network really shared that enthusiasm and we're very proud of what we accomplished. And not just that but the entire team--our fellow producers, our remarkable director, our amazing cast, so I hope people enjoy the ride... and I hope they wish it was longer!

Televisionary: I'm keeping my fingers crossed that something can happen now that we're at the go/no-go point and hoping there's a way maybe we can keep going.

Taylor: People sent pencils or something to FOX regarding Dollhouse? Or there was an NBC show that they kept on the air. Maybe we can send sunglasses to Peter Rice or something. (Laughs.) Or camp outside Mark Stern's house or send some letters. But it would be fabulous if there was a chance to continue the story of this show because it's a great show.

Virtuality's two-hour pilot airs Friday, June 26th at 8 pm ET/PT on FOX.

FOX Moves Up Ron Moore's Two-Hour Telepic "Virtuality" By a Week

FOX has now shifted the world broadcast premiere of the two-hour sci-fi telepic Virtuality, from Battlestar Galactica's Ronald D. Moore and Michael Taylor and director Peter Berg, from its July 4th airdate to Friday, June 26th at 8 pm ET/PT.

The film, originally meant to be a two-hour backdoor pilot for an ongoing series, stars Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (New Amsterdam) as Commander Frank Pike, the head of the crew of interstellar vessel Phaeton who find escape from the mundanity of their ten-year journey by venturing into virtual worlds, where--thanks to a glitch in the system--they are seemingly attacked by a malevolent figure.

FOX describes Virtuality's themes with the following: "The two-hour movie raises fascinating questions about the lines (or lack thereof) between reality and virtual reality. What would you do if you were faced with the prospect of going on a 10-year space journey to another planet in order to save an Earth ravaged by global warming, food shortages and degradation? Would you be more apt to go if you had a way of slipping away into your own simulated virtual-reality to pass the time? Would you be able to distinguish this new reality from your old one? What if something started going horribly wrong on your voyage – would you turn back, even with a worldwide audience back on Earth anxiously awaiting news of their planet’s salvation? Or would you continue, uncertain of whether your own life, virtual or otherwise, was in imminent danger?"

The official description of Virtuality and the full cast list from FOX can be found below.

**FOX MOVIE OF THE WEEK SPECIAL**
—“VIRTUALITY”—(8:00-10:00 PM ET/PT)
CC-HDTV 720p-Dolby Digital 5.1

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

Channel Surfing: McG "Optimistic" About "Chuck" Renewal, ABC Settles Down with "Modern Family," FOX to Air Two-Hour "Virtuality" Pilot, and More

Welcome to your Friday morning television briefing.

While the fate of NBC's on the bubble action comedy series Chuck is still unknown, executive producer McG--who helmed the pilot episode--is feeling positive about an eleventh hour renewal. "We're optimistic," he told SCI FI Wire. "We're going to find out in a week. But the fans have spoken. People really rallied and articulated their love of the show, but it's a cold-hearted numbers business. And I'm happy to report that the people at NBC like the show." (SCI FI Wire)

ABC has given an early series order of thirteen episodes to single-camera comedy Modern Family, from writer/executive producers Christopher Lloyd and Steven Levitan. The 20th Century Fox Television-producted project, formerly known as My American Family, will track the lives of three American families--one a traditional nuclear family, one a gay couple with an adopted Vietnamese baby, and the last an older man with a young Latina wife--as they are filmed by a Dutch documentary crew. Series stars Ed O'Neil, Ty Burrell, Sofia Vergara, Julie Bowen, Eric Stonestreet, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Sarah Hyland, Nolan Gould, and Ariel Winter. (Variety)

FOX has announced that it will air the two-hour pilot of Virtuality, created by Michael Taylor and Ronald D. Moore, on Saturday, July 4th at 8 pm ET/PT. Virtuality, which stars Clea DuVall, Erik Jensen, Gene Farber, James D'Arcy, Jimmi Simpson, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Joy Bryant, Kerry Bishe, Nelson Lee, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Omar Metwally, Richie Coster, and Sienna Guillory, follows the crew of starship Phaeton on a ten-year journey on which the crew uses virtual reality modules to escape their mundane existence but a virus infects the system and unleashes a virtual killer into the mix. (Futon Critic)

Nikki Finke is reporting that the Gossip Girl spin-off series focusing on the 1980s adventures of a then teenage Lily Rhodes is now dead at CW. The potential series, which would have starred Brittany Snow and Krysten Ritter, will get a backdoor pilot this Monday as Lily flashes back to her teenage years in 1980s California. However, Finke says "Even though I heard Peter Roth loved its yesteryear vibe, the show went from hot, to lukewarm, to 'fading but wouldn't count out,' to now dead, according to my insiders. I'm really surprised." (Deadline Hollywood Daily)

ABC has pulled comedy Surviving Suburbia off of the schedule for the remainder of the season. Scheduling change goes into effect immediately and will see Dancing with the Stars return to a two-hour format. (Variety)

Could Guitar Hero be coming to television? Video game producer Activision Blizzard is said to be looking into developing its array of video games into television or film projects. Guitar Hero is said to be a likely target for a reality television series and/or concert tour, while World of Warcraft and Call of Duty are being looked at for feature film development. (Hollywood Reporter)

VH1 has ordered a second season of reality series Tough Love, with new episodes slated to air towards the end of 2009. (Variety)

BBC Two has ordered six episodes of comedy series Roger And Val Have Just Got In, starring Dawn French (The Vicar of Dibley, French & Saunders). Series, written by Emma and Beth Kilcoyne, will follow the lives of a middle-aged couple after they arrive home after a long day of work. Casting for the male lead is under way. "Roger And Val leapt off the page at me the very first time I saw it," said BBC Head of Comedy Mark Freeland. "There will be nothing like it when it arrives on BBC Two. It's original, intriguing, sweet, funny and full of pathos. And it's only got two people in it." (BBC)

Hulu has acquired online rights to such British series as Green Wing, Doc Martin, Peep Show, and Kingdom. All four titles are already available for streaming viewing on the site, which is offering all episodes from each of the series' freshman seasons. (Twitter)

ABC has ordered a pilot for an untitled talk show to feature host Aisha Tyler which will incorporate elements of social networking, including Tyler interacting with viewers via Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms. While there were rumors swirling that the Tyler talk show, from ABC Media Prods., would take the place of one of ABC's afternoon soaps, sources at the network were quick to clarify, stating that the potential series was being developed for cable or syndication. (Hollywood Reporter)

ITV Global Entertainment has acquired worldwide television and home video distribution rights to multi-platform series Project Chopin, which follows the adventures of two children who discover a magical piano that can fly. Deal encompasses a film, a television docudrama, and 24 two-minute animated shorts, along with online and mobile content. (Variety)

Former RDF executive Martin Rakusen has been hired by ShineReveille International, where he will oversee their day-to-day operations and explore new joint ventures and partnerships. (Hollywood Reporter)

Stay tuned.

Televisionary Exclusive: "Virtuality" Writer Michael Taylor Responds to Kevin Reilly's TCA Comments

At yesterday's Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour press Q&A, Fox Entertainment President Kevin Reilly didn't directly mention drama pilot Virtuality, from Battlestar Galactica's Ronald D. Moore and Michael Taylor, by name but he did speak about the network's commitment to airing programs that are "bold" with a "point of view."

By its very definition, Virtuality, about the crew of interstellar vessel Phaeton who find escape from their mundane existence in virtual reality (where they are seemingly attacked by a glitch in the system), would seem to perfectly fit that description.

The two-hour pilot, directed by Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights) and produced by Universal Media Studios, stars Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, James D'Arcy, Sienna Guillory, Clea DuVall, Kerry Bishe, Joy Bryant, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Erik Jensen, Gene Farber, Omar Metwally, Jimmi Simpson, and Richie Coster.

After the press Q&A, James Hibberd of Hollywood Reporter's The Live Feed (along with several other reporters "in the huddle") asked Reilly for an update on the project. According to Hibberd, "Ron Moore's Virtuality pilot is being recut, possibly from two hours to one" and he quoted Reilly as saying, "It could air as-is and a certain segment of the audience would flip for it. But it's a little dense."

I contacted Virtuality co-writer Michael Taylor to confirm whether or not the pilot was in fact being recut and he confirmed that, yes, director Peter Berg is working on a one-hour version of the pilot for FOX executives to take a look at.

Additionally, he gave me the following exclusive statement about the status of Virtuality and responded to Reilly's comments about the "dense" quality of the produced pilot:

"Ron and I think the show is great as is. A lot of people definitely would dig it, and not just the Battlestar audience; this could have an even wider appeal, and as a network show it should. And we've also already cut it down quite a bit from its original two-hour run time to satisfy network concerns about pace and to prune some storylines.

But at the same time, Reilly's right about it being a little dense. It's dense in the same way Battlestar was/is, in that it introduces a bunch of complex, intriguing characters, along with a compelling sci-fi scenario with several layers to it. In other words, it's dense in the way good science fiction often is. The pilot puts a bunch of balls in the air but I think it does a great job of juggling those balls and setting up the scenario up in a way that makes it easy for the audience to understand without having to be hit over the heads with a lot of heavy-handed exposition. That said, it's definitely challenging material, the kind of story you need and want to pay attention to, especially in the pilot. But to us that's what made it so much fun to create, and what will ultimately pay off in series, by allowing us to tell exciting layered stories in the mold of shows like Lost (and Battlestar, of course).

Pete Berg is confident he can recut the show into a one-hour format, and he certainly has the chops to do it, as well as the experience (Friday Night Lights) of creating network shows that are both emotionally compelling and accessible. So Ron and I are taking a hands-off approach and letting him do his thing. Hopefully, Kevin Reilly and the other execs at Fox will like what he comes up with and we can look forward to seeing this show on the air."

I'm curious to know what you all think: Is this a further sign that complex, character-driven serialized storytelling is on the wane at the broadcast networks?

Stay tuned.