Month: October 2012

In this day and age, when everyone has so little time and shows can be cancelled within just a few episodes, most shows put all their cards on the table straight away, leaving the viewer an easy decision – to watch or not to watch, based purely on that first episode, which should be representative of all subsequent episodes.

But there is a reason for the existence on this blog of first The Carusometer and then The Barrometer: shows may be bad or even completely different in their first episode and then get much better and/or change scenario after a few episodes. VR5 was one such show, a show considerably ahead of its time that dared to have a story arc, to fool the audience and expect them to be observant, to kill regulars and to introduce much loved characters only after the fifth episode.

It starred Lori Singer (Fame) as telephone engineer Sydney Bloom. Sydney’s had a crappy life. Her computer scientist father, Dr Joseph Bloom (David McCallum), was killed, along with her sister, Samantha, in a car accident when she was just a child. Her mother, Dr Nora Bloom (Louise Fletcher), a neuroscientist, ended up in a vegetative state after overdosing on pills.

Sydney’s a bit of a nerd. She likes playing with this new fangled virtual reality equipment that’s all the rage in the mid-90s (remember Oliver Stone’s Wild Palms, anyone?). One day, while taking a phone call from someone, she accidentally connects to her virtual reality equipment at the same time and finds herself entering the mind of the person she’s talking to. There, her subconscious is able to interact with the subconscious of the other person and change their behaviour when they leave this shared experience.

Troubled and wondering how on earth this could possibly have happened, she seeks guidance from noted scientist Dr Frank Morgan (Will Patton), who tells her she’s achieved VR.5 – virtual reality level 5. After failing to convince her not to use VR, he offers her a job with an organisation called ‘The Committee’, doing spy-like work. To keep herself grounded, she confides in her Zen-master like childhood friend Duncan (Michael Easton) who guides her both inside and outside of VR.5.

And that’s the first episode.

So you might assume that that’s the show: a slightly touchy feely show in which a nerdy woman goes around helping strangers get over their traumatic emotions while wearing much sexier clothes in a Cell-like virtual reality, guided by her craggy, uninteresting scientist mentor.

And you might have switched off as a result because it sounds a bit like complete bobbins.

Mistake.

Because it’s not long before you discover that all is not what it seems in VR5. Will Patton’s character gets killed in the fourth episode, to be replaced by the much sexier, somewhat morally ambivalent Oliver Sampson (Anthony Head – Giles from Buffy). There are problems with story continuity that at first seem like poor writing, but turn out to be planned – to be clues that not everything is what it seems, as you might expect with a show about different realities.

Because there are other levels of VR, including VR8 – the ability to transplant or implant personalities and life experiences in another person. And someone has done just that to Sydney. Here’s the title sequence.

Continue reading “Nostalgia Corner: VR5 (1995)”