Axiom's Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy

While not regaining the heights of its first two season, the fourth season of Eureka has elevated the show out of the slump it experienced last year.

By John J. Joex

Airs Syfy, Fridays 9 PM EST

Rating: 3 out of 5 Stars

Syfy’s Eureka has returned for its fourth season and I can at least report that it appears to have climbed out of the slump that it experienced last year. For those unfamiliar with the show, it takes place in a town you won’t find on a map called Eureka which houses a top secret government facility in which the greatest minds on the planet try to expand the bounds of our scientific knowledge and technical achievements. Sheriff Jack Carter keeps things from getting out of control, though, as he applies his down-to-earth approach to predicaments that often befall the scientists who, though brilliant, seem to have a debilitating deficiency of common-sense. During its first two seasons, Eureka delivered a good helping of witty tales that mostly avoided heavy story-arcs and the dark recesses that have dominated the genre lately and it succeeded in making Science Fiction fun again.

Last season, though, the series seamed to run out of steam as its necessarily formulaic premise just became redundant and rarely delivered much in the way of wit or fresh ideas. Across the first four episodes of the Season 4, though, the fun seems to be back and Eureka appears somewhat re-energized even if it has not quite managed to achieve the level of quality of its first two seasons.

Season 4 gives us a bit of twist from earlier seasons with the story-arc it establishes that will guide the episodes for a while, but still allow for the standalone experiment-out-of-control tales. In the season opener, Sheriff Carter along with Alison, Henry, Joe, and Fargo get pulled into the past to Eureka’s beginnings when it was just a military base. With the help of a scientist from that era (Dr. Trevor Grant played by James Callis) they manage to return to the present but find several very slight changes in the timeline that are still significant to each of the leads (and Grant follows them into the future as well). They decide that they must find a way to return and undo what they have done, even though some of them prefer the new version of the present.

This has made for an interesting set of episodes so far, but I have a feeling that this is heading to an all to typical resolution. Television shows for the most part abhor change and tend toward returning everything to the status quo, and Eureka has definitely followed this pattern more often than not through its first three seasons. So I imagine that each of our leads will become more and more attached to the current state affairs (even those like Jo who are unhappy with the altered timeline) but then they will arrive at the point where they repair the time travel device and must stand by their decision to undo the changes to history. Several heart-wrenching scenes will follow in which each must tear themselves from a timeline that they may prefer but was never meant to be and the status quo will ultimately be restored. If the fourth season does follow this track, I will be disappointed unless they manage to place a decent enough Eureka spin on it (as they would have during its nascent years). But at least they have done well enough with it so far.

James Callis gives us a good addition to the cast as the 40’s era Dr. Grant and he demonstrates his range as an actor after his four-season long portrayal of the morally ambiguous Gaius Baltar on Battlestar Galactica and his short stint as the autistic Gabriel McDow on FlashForward this past season. He’s definitely worth keeping around, though I’m guessing he will depart at the end of the current story arc. I also heard that the always enjoyable Matt Frewer will return this season as the mad-Aussie Taggert, though we haven’t seen him yet. And next week will deliver a cross-over with Syfy’s ersatz Warehouse 13 in which Claudia will stop buy and apparently become a romantic interest for Fargo.

As in past seasons, Eureka continues to deliver strong ratings for Syfy meaning that it should remain a fixture on that channel’s schedule for a least a few more years. And while it may never regain the heights of its first two seasons, it still manages to provide at least a decent diversion and a sufficient number of laughs as well as a needed respite from the darker, more serialized genre entries of late.

Watch Full Episodes of Eureka Online at Hulu.com

Go to TV.com for more info on Eureka including Episode guides and Cast bios

Buy Previous Seasons of Eureka on DVD from Amazon.com:

Syfy’s new series Haven covers some familiar ground but manages to avoid descending into pure retread territory.

By John J. Joex

Airs Syfy, Fridays 10 PM

Rating: 2 ½ out of 5 Stars

Haven is the latest original series offering from Syfy and it treads some very familiar ground. Based on the Stephen King novella The Colorado Kid, it follows an FBI agent (Audrey Parker played by Emily Rose) who comes to a small New England town during an investigation and finds evidence of paranormal activity amongst its inhabitants. She also discovers that she may have roots in this town (she was orphaned at an early age) and decides to stay here to find out the truth about her family. She partners up with the local detective and he tells her about “the troubles” that Haven experience back in the early 80’s when people’s paranormal abilities began to manifest themselves and he warns her that these bad times might be back to stay. So basically, this one delivers yet another cop-show/paranormal amalgam with male and female detectives investigating strange happenings. And on top of the spook-of-the-week yarns we have the potential story arcs surrounding “the troubles” and the mystery of Audrey’s family (which almost certainly will ultimately be linked together).

Haven definitely has the been-there-done-that feel about it, but it manages to at least rise above pure retread territory. Maybe it’s the atmospheric New England setting or maybe they managed to blend the familiar ingredients just right to give it its own unique flavor. Still, that flavor barely rises above bland and the show rides pretty close to the line of the cable filler-fodder that we find amongst so much of the “original programming” across the spectrum of channels. Interestingly, the opening credits hearkens back a bit to Daniel Knauf’s wonderful Carnivale that ran on HBO for two seasons and Haven could definitely use some of the intricate plottings and colorful, substantial characters that graced that series. Instead, it chooses to play it safe too often and never really engages the viewer or delves more deeply in its threadbare stories.

The show’s two leads have also done little to engage viewers thus far. Both Rose and Lucas Bryant (as Nathan Wournos) are likeable in their roles and don’t fade into the background as easily as the anemic leads of Warehouse 13, Syfy’s other series about a male and female detective investigating paranormal activities (and you can read my recent review of that show at this link). But neither do they make much of a statement in their roles and the more charismatic Eric Balfour (playing local scoundrel Duke Crocker) quickly overshadows them every time he steps into the shot. In fact, his character is one of the main things that gives the series some sort of a pulse (along with the hilarious duo from the local paper), but as with any supporting character they have to use him judiciously otherwise he could derail the show.

Ratings-wise, the series has delivered yet another successful launch for Syfy as it has pulled decent numbers thus far in its Eureka lead-out slot. So expect to see it stick around for a while and continue to deliver familiar, though at least not mind-numbing, stories for a few more reasons. And I may tune in from time to time to check on its progress, but I really would have preferred to see Syfy use the resources it spent on this show or Warehouse 13 on something more engaging (and that fans really wanted) like a continuation of Jericho or Moonlight.

Watch Full Episodes of Haven Online at Hulu.com

Go to TV.com for more info on Haven including Episode guides and Cast bios

In its second season, Syfy’s Warehouse 13 continues to fall short of living up to its potential while drudging out mediocre episodes.

By John J. Joex

Airs: Syfy, Tuesdays, 9 PM EST

Rating: 2 out of 5 Stars (after 3 episodes)

Warehouse 13 is a Syfy original series that kicked off last summer with a successful inaugural run and returns this year for its second season. It follows a group of agents that work at the titular warehouse which stores supernatural and/or scientific artifacts of great power that could pose of threat if they got into the proverbial wrong hands. The agents must keep this facility secure while also investigating incidents around the world that may involve unsecured artifacts. As the description suggests, the show gives us basically The X-Files characters watching over the warehouse we saw at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark and also hearkens back a bit to Friday the 13th: The Series, for those who remember that one. In its first season, the show was a great ratings success for Syfy and received pretty decent accolades, which means that I must be missing something because it did not register very well with me in its first season nor has it done much to sway me this year.

The show has potential, a great deal in fact. But it falls well short of reaching that. Each of the episodes, which blend comedy and drama, have a germ of a good idea somewhere at their core, but the creative staff fails to develop them or simply takes the formulaic way out. And while they often try to inject a fair amount of wit and humor into the scripts, too often it just rolls on by or falls flat. It also doesn’t help that the show’s leads, its version of Scully and Mulder, have little screen presence. Each of the actors are passable in their roles, but they seem too much like a distillation of characters we have seen many times before and never really standout as distinct, new, original faces. And they quickly get overshadowed by the more dominating supporting characters played by Saul Rubineck, Allison Scagliotti, and CCH Pounder. In fact, it is actually the secondary players that draw me to the show the most, which is never a good sign. You can’t have Lost with Hurley as the lead or Fringe with Walter as the lead, but neither can you have either show without them. For a show to work, the supporting roles should compliment the leads, not swallow them up.

Warehouse 13 continues to be a success for Syfy, so I would expect that it will stick around for several more years and I expect it to pretty much stay close to the same formula that has plodded out some rather mediocre episodes so far. I may check in on it from time to time to see if they generate any ideas of interest, because this show could really be good if it would strive for top notch status like Eureka (which seems to have bounced back from its third season slump) rather than just cable Summer Prime Time filler-fodder. Definitely not a show on my must-watch list, though.

Watch Full Episodes of Warehouse 13 Online at Hulu.com

Go to TV.com for more info on Warehouse 13 including Episode guides and Cast bios

Buy Warehouse 13 and other Syfy Originals on DVD from Amazon.com:

The family-oriented The Jensen Project mostly succeeds in what it sets out to do.

NBC Television Movie

By Paul S. White

Rating: 3 out of 5 Stars

The Jensen Project which aired last night on NBC is part of an initiative from sponsors Walmart and P&G to provide quality family-friendly viewing in Prime Time which they previously tried out with the Indiana Jones-like Secrets of the Mountain this last Spring. The Jensen Project gives us a spy fi film that focuses on the secret community of the title which comprises geniuses from around the world who work on various projects to better humanity. One of the scientists, the son of the man who started the project, goes rogue and steels dangerous nano-technology that could threaten the world and a former member of the project who had helped create this technology, though her work had been disgraced, is called in with her family to assist with the crisis.

The Jensen Project aims at delivering an action/adventure with broad appeal geared at bringing more families together in front of the TV set, and ultimately delivers an inoffensive film that mostly accomplishes what it sets out to do. Fortunately, it avoids the super-smart, cute kid angle, giving us a couple of super-smart nerdy-but-attractive teenagers instead who jump into the middle of the action to save the day, but who still mesh well with and fall short of overshadowing the rest of the cast, ultimately giving us an ensemble piece. It helps that the movie sets a sense of urgency early on that it keeps this going at a fast pace through to the end. It also helps that it mostly avoids teen angst melodrama as well as the frenetic, quasi-farce angle of Nickelodeon shows like iCarly. Though I would say that it could use an infusion of Sponge Bob-style subversiveness.

The actors are competent in their roles, with Justin Kelly and Alyssa Diaz standing out the most as the teen leads. The film is also peppered with other familiar faces that you will likely recognize from past TV series like Patricia Richardson (Home Improvement) and sci fi vet LeVar Burton (Star Trek: The Next Generation). Unfortunately, Burton does not get the chance to shine as he is relegated to a mostly supporting role, though you sense that he could easily dominate the show.

The Jensen Project does have a bit of the expository awkwardness you expect from a pilot episode of a series and this one definitely sets the stage for continuation. The concept shows some promise as a series that could appeal to the whole family, though it seems like it would be more at home on a network like ABC Family (having a similar feel to that network’s Kyle XY) than one of the broadcast channels. Whether it gets a chance to continue is in question, though, seeing as NBC relegated it to a Friday night slot during the Summer and it averaged less than 4 million viewers across its two hours last night. Still, should this one manage to find a home in a family targeted time slot, it could grow into a potentially respectable show for the audience it targets.

Win The Jensen Project DVD/Soundtrack

ABC’s The Gates tries to deliver a cross-genre program with broad appeal but falls flat in its delivery.

ABC, Sundays, 10 PM EST

By John J. Joex

Rating: 1 ½ out of 5 Stars (after 3 episodes)

Scripted Summer shows on the broadcast networks quite often deliver a crapshoot as these usually find themselves on the schedule this time of year because network execs have little faith in their chances of success or just don’t know what to do with them. The latter case probably led to the Summer scheduling of NBC’s Persons Unknown because of its dense, and at times uneven, storyline (and you can see my review of that one at this link). With ABC’s The Gates, the former is most likely what led to this one landing on the Summer calendar. The series focuses on a suburban upscale gated community that holds a sinister secret within its walls: among its inhabitants are various supernatural creatures like vampires, wolves, witches, etc. And while this premise may have sounded like a winner in the pitch meeting, considering how lucrative the supernatural has been of late what with the Twilight movies, Vampire Diaries, True Blood, Being Human, and so on, The Gates stumbles when delivering its final product. It probably sounded great to network decision makers when the producers told them they would deliver a series that combined various television friendly genres like the procedural, the teen drama, and the soap opera. But instead of providing any new twists to these well worn formats, they wallow in all of the expected clichés from each, i.e., the chief of police is too dedicated to his job to the detriment of his family, the girlfriend of the star football player is attracted to the new kid in town, and competing divas trying to out-vamp each other through various rivalries. And the supernatural elements are just there to add some Twilight-style window-dressing with the upsell of a grown up twist. Throw in a more sinister facsimile of the mayor from Jaws and you have the mess of a television show that is The Gates.

The series does nothing to give us a fresh spin on any of the genres it cobbles together, nor does it try to cater to any particular fanbase. Instead it uses a spaghetti-against-the-wall strategy, hoping something will stick, but ends up delivering a bland, un-engaging, and at times schizophrenic television show. Nor do the characters, a mixed bag of standard-issue television caricatures, elicit much empathy from the audience as we have no idea of how to identify with their obscure issues, i.e., a female vampire trying to avoid drinking fresh blood, a teen werewolf banned from running with others of his ilk, a father struggling with how to break the news to his daughter that she is a Succubus. The creative team does little to draw parallels between the issues the characters face and more real experiences that viewers can relate to. If they had infused this with a sufficient helping of wit and gone the route of a supernatural Desperate Housewives (as ABC’s promotional campaign hinted at), this one would have had a chance. Instead, it strives for broad appeal but falls flat by missing the mark on all the genres it touches. And the ratings results have reflected this as the show debuted to mediocre numbers, despite a decent promotional campaign, and has dropped each week since then. Expect this one to get the boot from the schedule or get banished to Fridays or Saturdays (like NBC’s Persons Unknown) and expect not too many people to care.

Watch Full Episodes of The Gates Online at Hulu.com

Go to TV.com for more info on The Gates including Episode guides and Cast bios

NBC’s Persons Unknown has plenty of plot holes and leaps of logic, but it also has an addicting quality that keeps you coming back for more.

NBC, Mondays, 8 PM EST

By John J. Joex

Rating: 3 out of 5 Stars (after 4 episodes)

The Summer season is usually a time of low viewership for the broadcast networks and they try to fill these interim months with low-cost reality shows, repeats, and cast-offs that got yanked from the schedule during the regular season. They also tend to work in some original scripted shows, but you have to wonder about these since the network execs did not have enough confidence in them to schedule the shows during a time when more viewers might encounter them. Persons Unknown from NBC is one of these shows (as is ABC’s The Gates which airs on Sunday nights) and after viewing four episodes I can see where the NBC brass might have been scratching their heads over this one and wondering what to do with it.

The series follows seven strangers who wake in a town they have never seen before not knowing how they arrived there. They find the place mostly vacant, but also discover that they cannot leave it because several visible and not so visible barriers block their exit. They also find an extensive network of cameras monitoring their every move. The only other inhabitants are a handful of people working at a Chinese restaurant preparing food for the seven new arrivals and the night manager of the hotel where they are staying. The seven people question these other inhabitants, but get little information and eventually just accept their presence. They then go about trying to find some means of escape while also pondering about the identity and motives of their captors and also casting a suspicious eye at their fellow abductees.

Persons Unknown is a mystery series created and written by Academy Award winning screenwriter Christopher McQuarie (The Usual Suspects) that harkens back at times to genre entries like The Prisoner, Cube, and even Lost. It has not displayed any overt Science Fiction elements yet, but it definitely would appeal to fans of the genre. It is heavily serialized like Lost and definitely demands much of the viewers’ attention as they try to sort out the details and unlock the mystery.

So far, the series has presented a mostly intriguing and engaging story that continues to string the viewer along and draw them into the overall mystery. However, the series is marred by plenty of leaps of logic, plot holes, and challenges to our suspension of disbelief. And the abductees seem to concede to their fate a bit too easily and their reactions seem more like those of characters in a TV series reacting the way the writers find it convenient to further the story as opposed to actual people demonstrating more plausible responses to their predicaments. A few examples: the abductees seemed to accept the presence of the night manager and the restaurant workers too quickly whereas I would have expected them to grill them with more questions. I have a hard time believing they would have considered as a viable course of action a plan to tunnel out of a town where their actions are constantly monitored (and would have spent a full week at this task). When they only received three gas masks among the seven of them, I believe this would have sparked a more severe reaction and would have quickly descended into violence. It really bothered me that the others, especially Bill and Charlie, did not try harder to get into the taxi in the last episode.

The series has any of a number of lapses like this that just make you cringe as you watch it leaves you wishing they had addressed the loose ends a little better. In fact, one simple addition could have helped frame the situation better. If they had added a few security people to the town with tazers or something like that whose job is was to keep the abductees in line, I could accept their reactions better. Without something along those lines, it continues to bug me just how easily they acquiesce to the dilemmas presented. Still, I find the show at least mildly captivating and somewhat addicting. The plot holes have not undone my interest in unraveling the mystery just yet and the final scene of episode four may have presented a potential explanation to some of those loose ends currently gnawing at me. In addition, the actors have done more than a bang-up job at bringing their characters to life and soliciting just enough sympathy that you hope at least some of them survive.

But I have to admit that right now the series is at a pivotal point where it could go either way and could start losing me pretty quickly or really pulling me in and keeping me on board until the end. The end of the last episode showed some promise and they could start unfolding some of the mysteries over the next few weeks. Or this one could go completely into left field and leave me less than interested in sticking it through to the end. At least we know the story will have a definite ending as it is planned as a thirteen episode limited series with a conclusion (that will almost certainly leave plenty of options open for a sequel series).

The main question at this point is whether the show will get the chance to air out all thirteen of those episodes. It has not done great in the ratings so far, pulling around a 1.2 rating and less than three and a half million viewers. It’s last airing saw a significant drop, though, when the network moved the show from 10 PM to 8 PM, apparently catching a lot of viewers off guard. NBC has not had much success with genre shows in the Summer with Fear Itself in 2008 and The Listener in 2009 both disappearing from the schedule after poor early-Summer ratings performances. Person Unknown could be on that same track and may not get the chance to finish airing its thirteen episodes. Fans can take some solace in knowing that last year NBC finally allowed The Listener to air its remaining episodes on Hulu, but I believe they did not make it there until sometime in Fall. In the mean time, we can just hope that Persons Unknown ekes out enough viewers to stay on the air until its finale. [Update 7/1: NBC announced that they will move the show to Saturdays after the July 5th broadcast]

Watch Full Episodes of Persons Unkown Online at Hulu.com

Go to TV.com for more info on Persons Unkown including Episode guides and Cast bios

Only the involvement of Daniel Knauf (Carnivale) keeps this Syfy production from collapsing under the weight of its hackneyed, cliched storyline.

Syfy 4-Hour Mini-Series

By John J. Joex

Rating: 2 out of 5 Stars

I realize this review is a bit late as the mini-series aired a week and a half ago, but it took me a while to drudge through it on my DVR and I considered giving up on it at several points, though I finally made it through the full four hours. For the uninitiated, The Phantom is a comic strip hero that first appeared in the newspapers back in the 1930’s written and drawn by Lee Falk who also created Mandrake the Magician. According to the strip, the character of the Phantom first came into existence back in the 16th century when the sole survivor of a pirate attack swore to wage a war against piracy, greed, cruelty, and injustice in the world. He donned the purple suit and black mask and set up base in the fictitious African country Bengalla. Each of his descendents assumed the mantle of the Phantom throughout the ages thus giving him the illusion of immortality and the designation as “the ghost who walks”. He has no actual superpowers but is more of a Batman-like, well-trained, dedicated crime-fighter. This character, a personal favorite of mine, has run continually as a newspaper strip since 1936 and has also appeared in comic books, novels, movie serials, two animated television shows, and a big screen adaptation in 1996 starring Billy Zane. And now Syfy gives us a 21st century updating of the character in this mini-series intended as a back-door pilot for an ongoing series.

On the good side, I can say that I like the approach they took to prepping the character for modern day adventures. This gives us a reinvention of sorts of the Phantom but not the same style of re-imagining of a concept that we saw with Battlestar Galactica. Instead, they stay true to the history of the character, to the point of showing an authentic reproduction of the comic strip character’s costume (which, harkening back to Wolverines’s “yellow tights” line in the first X-Men movie, the young Kit Walker scoffs at and refused to wear). But then they provide a very believable explanation for the Phantom’s new look, high-tech gear, and the full-blown organization that has built up to help him. Plus, Ryan Carnes gives us an excellent Kit Walker/Phantom even if he does seem to dive into the Phantom role and become a bit too bad-ass a bit too quickly.

On the bad side, this production comes from the Halmi clan, Robert Halmi Sr. and Robert Halmi Jr., the schlock mini-series moguls who have delivered such previous clunkers to Syfy as this year’s Riverworld, Tin Man in 2007, and the absolutely horrid Legend of Earthsea in 2005. Their name is across any of a number of other mini-series that have appeared on the broadcast networks and other cable channels as well. Their modus operandi is to deliver a product with some name recognition, whether it is from a work of literature or like Wizard of Oz or a well know character like the Phantom, which typically has high production values but is almost always artistically vapid. I can think of no better example of this than their Legend of Earthsea mini-series which took Ursula K. LeGuin’s rich, thoughtful, and well-developed novels and turned them into cliché-ridden television hackwork (to the point that Le Guin publicly denounced their adaptation of her books). I can say that The Phantom did not fall quite to that level and I credit that mostly to the writing chops of Daniel Knauf who penned the script with his son Charles Knauf. Daniel created the stellar supernatural series Carnivale for HBO, and while The Phantom never shows the depth and intricacy of that show, I believe that Knauf at least kept it from descending too far into cliché and from collapsing upon itself. Still, the writer alone can only do so much and with the Halmis involved, so I think the odds were too high against him in the end.

That said, I still see some potential in the concept that could develop and grow if this went series and if Knauf stuck with it. If Syfy were to greenlight this one as a weekly series I would hold out some hope for it and would at least check it out, unlike Riverworld which aired in Spring also as a back-door pilot (and you can see my review of that one at this link). I’m thinking a series is doubtful, though, because I have heard nothing about the ratings for the mini-series and I’m sure Syfy would have been pounding their chest if it had pulled in a decent number of viewers (plus, they did very little to promote it and I can’t even find anything about it on syfy.com anymore). And while I would not call it a huge loss, I would like to have seen what Knauf could have done with the character if given the chance to guide the show. In the mean time, we can just wait for the upcoming big screen restart, The Phantom: Legacy, which is currently in the works or just go back and revisit the two seasons of Knauf’s Carnivale (currently on sale for only $17 per season) to recall what an accomplishment that series was.

By John J. Joex

Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

Virtuality is a television series pilot written and produced by Ronald D. Moore (Battlestar Galactica) that aired last Summer on FOX though never received a pickup for series.  It follows the crew of a deep space mission headed to the Epsilon Eridani star system on a journey that will take ten years. Their day to day activities on the ship are recorded and transmitted back to Earth where viewers watch them on television, reality series-style. In addition, each crew member has a virtual reality module that they can use as an escape from the rigors of deep space travel. However, a glitch in the programming has lead to several bad experiences in the virtual world, and they consider switching off the system for the duration of the mission. This glitch seems to extend beyond that, though, and ultimately leads to the death of one of the crew members which points toward a potentially subversive plot unfolding on the ship. So essentially, Virtuality gives us hard science fiction meets reality television meets the Star Trek holodecks meets murder mystery meets a conspiracy story arc.

If that description makes this two hour movie sound like an odd mish-mash of ideas and genres, then you are following right along with me. Ronald D. Moore did a good job of turning the iconic Battlestar Galactica franchise upside down and he apparently wanted to keep heads spinning with this venture as well. I have to admit that half way through Virtuality I felt like his eclectic, genre-splicing movie was a bit more than I could stomach, though I stuck it out and by the end he had finally won me over.

It is filmed very much like a realty series, with the jerky, hand-held camera flitting about trying to catch the quibbles among each of the crew members along with separate “confessional” pieces directed at the camera. And really, the characters seem like some of the standard Reality TV types that  producers cobble together to generate the required amount of friction that draws viewers to the shows (and for that matter, parts of the interior of the ship resemble those super-sleek apartments where MTV’s The Real World often boards its participants). This aspect of the series can be a bit disconcerting to non-Reality TV fans, but at the same time you have to admit that there is a hint of authenticity to the way that the people interact with one another.

Adding the virtual reality system to the mix of course draws immediate comparisons to the holodecks of the Star Trek franchise (right down to its tendency toward malfunction). However, Virtuality takes a very different approach with this gimmick. Each person wears a virtual reality visor that lets them see and experience this cyber-world, though it is not physically “real” like Trek’s holodecks. And to what extent this virtual reality engages all five senses is not made completely clear in the pilot. The participants seem to fully experience the situations in their mind, including sexual encounters, but we don’t know just how real it feels to them. Still, having such a system on a long, daunting voyage makes a lot of sense.

Which leads to the next part of this movie that I really appreciate. Moore takes a very realistic, scientifically accurate approach toward space travel (including no sound in space!). So often, space travel in television and movies follows whichever physical laws that the writers feel like acknowledging at any given point in time (or simply no laws at all). Virtuality on the other hand tries to portray life and travel in space as accurately as possible. So even if you dislike all of the other aspects of this movie, you have to at least appreciate this rare attempt to give viewers a more accurate portrayal of what it would be like to travel in deep space (last Summer’s failed Science Fiction series Defying Gravity also did a good job with this).

As far as the cast, they all seem to fit quite well in each of their respective roles. Nikolaj Coster Waldau (of 2008’s New Amsterdam), stands out as the captain of the ship and the one person who can keep this collection of oddballs from ending up at each other’s throats. The rest of the cast include an assortment of actors that you’ve seen in guest slots or supporting roles in various television shows and movies and will have you saying “where did I see that person before”? Among the standouts we have Clea Duvall from Carnivale and James D’Arcy from Master and Commander.

Ultimately, this movie seems somewhat unapproachable at first and a bit difficult to digest. But if you think about it, that could easily describe Battlestar Galactica at times. As I mentioned, at first I didn’t like it, then I did, then after re-watching it on DVD I liked it even more.

Virtuality was intended to proceed into a series, but unfortunately FOX chose to pass on it.  To some extent I might understand their thinking because of the density of the movie, but I really would have loved to have seen a follow-up movie or two.  Now that it has made it to DVD, those who missed it on its original airing (which was quite a lot as it barely managed to attract 2 million viewers) have a chance to finally catch it.  Those looking for intelligent, engaging, hard Science Fiction should definitely find something to like in this movie.  And any fan of the genre should at least give it a look to enjoy its unique, radical departure from the more standard, mundane fare delivered by the broadcast networks.

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By John J. Joex

Last week, with almost no fanfare, NBC’s summer series Persons Unknown debuted.  At first I wasn’t certain what to make of it, but by the second episode I’ve become hooked.  Seven people, none of which know each other, are abducted and find themselves in a ghost town that they cannot escape from.  At first they are unsure of their fellow abductees, but ultimately decide that they have to work together to find some means of escape from their prison.  The show presents a mystery which hearkens back at times to The Prisoner (the original, not the AMC snooze-fest) with maybe a few traces of Cube as well.  It also has an air of Twilight Zone style creepiness about it as well.  I would not call it straight up Science Fiction at this point, but fans of the genre will definitely find plenty to like about the show.  The first episode was a bit shaky with several plot-holes and gaps in logic which have continued into the second episode, but then these could actually be part of the overall mystery.  The series was created by Christopher McQuarrie who wrote the Academy Award winning The Usual Suspects and it also has Remi Aubuchon onboard as the showrunner who has also worked on Caprica and Stargate: Universe.  Allegedly, they plan on wrapping up the main story arcs by the end of its thirteen episode run, so it won’t leave viewers hanging or string them along for several years (though I’m certain they will leave enough loose ends for a potential Season 2). Why NBC hasn’t promoted this better or given it a decent timeslot (it currently airs on Mondays at 10 PM EST) I don’t know.  If it manages to stick around, it could become a real sleeper for the genre.  You can catch up with the first two episodes on Hulu.com and be sure to tune in over the coming weeks as the mystery continues to unfold.  Also, a Reddit page has already sprung up where people are debating the mysteries and clues presented in the show, so be sure to check that out as well.  But watch the episodes first because there are plenty of spoilers on the sub-reddit.

By John J. Joex

Okay, I have given it a few weeks since the finale aired to see how the ending sits with me and to peruse over the reaction across the Internet. I recall last year after the Battlestar Galactica finale I actually convinced myself that I liked the conclusion right after I watched it. I’ll just right that off as being in a state of shock and denial because of just how bad the BSG finale actually was, though. For Lost, I liked the conclusion when I first watched and my opinion has not changed in the two and a half weeks since.

I do admit that I was initially a bit confused while watching the last fifteen minutes of the finale. At first I thought they were suggesting as true the old theory that the survivors were in some sort of Purgatory. Then I went back and re-watched the final scenes and understood what they were getting at. The sideways universe was an alternate reality that they all created together where each would come to after they died so that they could go into the afterlife together. I’m sure many hated that ending, but I was okay with it. Sure, they didn’t wrap up all the loose ends, but then I never expected that they would. A good story does not have to answer every question, it has to raise questions and make you think, and Lost definitely did that through its six-year run. And while many looked at it as a mystery story that needed to be solved, it simply used that as a framing device to expand on its central them of science vs. faith.

Think back to The Prisoner for a similar sort of semi-resolution to a series (referring of course to the 60’s original, not the recent AMC snooze-fest). The Prisoner raised any of a number of questions about society, morality, our responsibilities, and more but never really provided many concrete answers. Then it delivered a completely surreal final episode that did more to enrage fans of the show than settle any debates (though I personally loved the ending). But ultimately The Prisoner infers that the answers lie within ourselves, not in any pat story endings delivered by a television show. The series raised some difficult questions then left it to the viewers to provide the answers on how to reconcile the moral quandaries raised. Lost did much the same thing even if it did not get quite as heady as The Prisoner.

Still, across six seasons Lost delivered an engaging drama populated by well-developed, believable characters dealing with the ghosts of their past along with the difficult decisions they faced trying to survive in a harsh situation. Sure, the series meandered some and felt padded at times, but what do you expect from series television? When Lost hit on all cylinders, it really soared like few other shows have ever done on television. And the fact is that it achieved these heights more often than not and went out as strong as it came in, still at the top of its game. It also managed to re-invent itself on a regular basis and to avoid recycling the same old formula each week. Sure, it just kept tweaking that formula, but it did it in such a way as to not feel like retreading old ground. It always seemed to move forward (though maybe not as quickly as some would have preferred) as it advanced the story to its final conclusion. And I also had the feeling that the creative team knew from the beginning where they were going (even if they had not fully fleshed out the resolution) unlike BSG where they were just stringing us along and making it up as they went along. And that ultimately led to a better sense of closure with the conclusion because most of the threads throughout the six years had some meaning and direction (even if they did not all receive a wrap-up). Most importantly, they did not throw any sort of half-assed, nonsensical “Starbuck is an angel” crap at us like BSG did.

And you also have to recognize the economics in how they resolved the series, even if you don’t like them. Lost is a product of network television, a corporate system that needs to make money to survive. And network execs are not only looking to turn a profit but also to milk a property for everything they can. So you can’t convince me that ABC did not prod the creative team toward leaving enough unresolved threads that could potentially carry on the story in another format. No, I’m not looking forward to any Lost spin-offs, but you know the network will keep that wild-card stashed away considering that the show still continued to pull decent ratings through its final season. Whether they try a sequel/spin-off series (Hurley’s Island maybe, or Sawyer and Miles On the Beat), one or more television movies, or even a big screen adaptation, I’d bet good money ABC will not let this series ride off into television history like it should. And any move in that direction would almost certainly degrade the quality of the show (though you know we will still tune in). But at least the series managed maneuver through this artistically vapid corporate system for the six seasons of its original run and maintain its quality, integrity, and sense of wonder.

Lost took us all by surprise back in 2004 when it first debuted, and it took us a on journey through a tropical Wonderland that impacted the medium of television and has become part of our modern culture. And it did so by delivering a superior viewing experience that will continue to resonate with viewers for years to come and will stand up to multiple viewings. I just want to say thank you to the cast and crew for inviting us along for the ride and for caring enough to deliver a high level of quality through six seasons and 121 episodes. We will miss you on the Prime Time schedule but will continue to relive the adventure in repeats and on DVD and continue to try and unlock all the intricacies and mysteries and ponder the questions and challenges you have raised.

Also see: With Lost Gone, What Will be the Next “Big Thing” for Science Fiction and Fantasy Television?

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