Lower Decks

The main problem with Virtuality, and it was a big one, was the size of the cast. The crew of the Phaeton is twelve strong and I couldn’t for the life of me keep track of them all. That wouldn’t have been an issue if this was actually the first episode of a weekly series. After watching the first episode of Heroes, for example, I couldn’t remember who all the characters were. But as a standalone movie, twelve characters is really too many.

There was the captain, who starred in FOX’s New Amsterdam a few years back. I think he was the one with a wife, who was a blonde woman. Then there was the psychiatrist or psychologist, who was British, two bearded men who looked alike, a man in a wheelchair, an African-American woman, a Hispanic man, an Asian man (those last two, I think, were in a relationship) and at least two other women who at least superficially resembled one another. That’s eleven so I’m obviously missing someone.

Even those recurring interview segments that included the names of the characters and their positions on the Phaeton didn’t help much. It’s just impossible to both follow the action of the story and commit all the characters and their names to memory in two hours. Plus, due to the virtual reality modules, many of the characters were shown in other environments — a Civil War soldier, a rock artist, a mountain climber — that only added to the confusion.

Aside from the size of the cast, I can’t say the mystery and drama of the pilot ever pulled me in. Something was going wrong with the virtual reality modules and a strange man (a thirteenth character!) kept popping up and shooting people. They didn’t die but they all knew there was something amiss. It wasn’t until one of the female characters was raped in the virtual environment that serious consideration was given to turning off the modules.

But by then the pilot was almost over. In terms of action it was only during the last twenty minutes that things picked up. An airlock door shut, another opened, and the captain (I think) was exposed to the ravages of space. I’m pretty sure I saw his eyes boiling and/or bleeding internally and there was what looked like ice forming on his lip. That’s scientifically accurate, I think. He didn’t look good when they got him back into the safety of the ship and shortly thereafter died.

Or did he? In the closing minutes of the pilot, the character of Rika (the captain’s wife, I believe) enters his virtual reality module and finds him there. Or at least someone who looks just like him and knows her name and tells her nothing is real. That was an interesting twist. And it set the stage for future episodes that now, it seems, will never be made. The Phaeton has passed the point of no return, its captain is dead, at least one member of the crew believes the captain was murdered, and nobody seems to know what is going to happen.

Also, I believe one of the characters was shown to have known the mysterious man who kept appearing in virtual reality and shooting/raping other characters. It was the African-American woman whose virtual reality module was an OB/GYN appointment. She stormed into her OB/GYN’s office and sitting behind the desk was the killer/rapist. I think.

So things did come together came in an interesting way in the last twenty minutes. And I suppose the groundwork was laid in the opening hour and forty minutes, showing the characters in their virtual reality modules, introducing relationships between characters and explaining how the mission was approaching the go/no go mark.

Still, I was left unconvinced that Virtuality could sustain itself for the long haul. As a miniseries it might work, with these first two hours making up the first third of a six-hour epic story. As a weekly series, though? There’s just not enough substance.