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fabrisseI saw this first at ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
madlori's Journal, but several people have picked it up since then. I'm not sure I'll make it through all thirty days, but my answer to this one is sufficiently different that I'm going to start the calendar.
Anyone who knows anything about computers knows VR.5 was not accurate about technology. Not even a little tiny bit. Not even by accident.
But if you take it as a fantasy or a supernatural ability show, the premise and all the permutations were fascinating. The idea was that a researcher in the 1970s by the name of Bloom had begun to research ideas and programs which would be precursors to virtual reality. This level was called VR.1 and Bloom was so good at what he did that the university for which he worked gave him a very early personal computer to keep in his home. On the night the box is opened, he and his family (wife and twin daughters) go for ice cream. They are in a car accident where they end up in a lake. Bloom and one twin die. Mother goes catatonic and young Sydney (she's somewhere between seven and twelve) is left to fend for herself in this world.
In the present day, Sydney works as a telephone repairman and works on her home brew computer -- which still has all the components of the 1970s model. By accident, she crosswires something when hanging up the phone (I KNOW! I said it was fantasy. *G*) and ends up in a virtual reality encompassed in someone else's mind. She's self aware, but the person at the other end of the telephone isn't. She's able to influence the other person's behavior at a subconscious level. By the end of the first episode, the requisite shadowy agency has done a "be recruited or die" spiel on her, and she's learning more about her family history, her father's research, and the inner workings of the human mind than anyone would have thought possible.
Lori Singer, who played Sydney, was something of a blank slate as an actress, but for this show that was perfect. Other characters underestimated Sydney, and since the VR.5 sequences are all about projections and questions, she can be perceived as a neutral therapist -- the one who asks the right thing when the patient is in the right frame of mind to make the change.
David McCallum played her father in the flashbacks. Louise Fletcher played her mother with whom she's now able to communicate. The character remained catatonic in her waking life, but they began to develop a relationship inside Mrs. Bloom's mind.
This show was also my first introduction to Anthony Stewart Head who played her jailer or protector Oliver Sampson.
Thirteen episodes were filmed. Fox in its infinite wisdom chose only to show six (first two, one midseason, last three) which meant the intricately laid out arching plot didn't make much sense to US viewers. Then they cancelled it. Yes, I have been cursing Fox longer than you have. *G*
madlori's Journal, but several people have picked it up since then. I'm not sure I'll make it through all thirty days, but my answer to this one is sufficiently different that I'm going to start the calendar.Anyone who knows anything about computers knows VR.5 was not accurate about technology. Not even a little tiny bit. Not even by accident.
But if you take it as a fantasy or a supernatural ability show, the premise and all the permutations were fascinating. The idea was that a researcher in the 1970s by the name of Bloom had begun to research ideas and programs which would be precursors to virtual reality. This level was called VR.1 and Bloom was so good at what he did that the university for which he worked gave him a very early personal computer to keep in his home. On the night the box is opened, he and his family (wife and twin daughters) go for ice cream. They are in a car accident where they end up in a lake. Bloom and one twin die. Mother goes catatonic and young Sydney (she's somewhere between seven and twelve) is left to fend for herself in this world.
In the present day, Sydney works as a telephone repairman and works on her home brew computer -- which still has all the components of the 1970s model. By accident, she crosswires something when hanging up the phone (I KNOW! I said it was fantasy. *G*) and ends up in a virtual reality encompassed in someone else's mind. She's self aware, but the person at the other end of the telephone isn't. She's able to influence the other person's behavior at a subconscious level. By the end of the first episode, the requisite shadowy agency has done a "be recruited or die" spiel on her, and she's learning more about her family history, her father's research, and the inner workings of the human mind than anyone would have thought possible.
Lori Singer, who played Sydney, was something of a blank slate as an actress, but for this show that was perfect. Other characters underestimated Sydney, and since the VR.5 sequences are all about projections and questions, she can be perceived as a neutral therapist -- the one who asks the right thing when the patient is in the right frame of mind to make the change.
David McCallum played her father in the flashbacks. Louise Fletcher played her mother with whom she's now able to communicate. The character remained catatonic in her waking life, but they began to develop a relationship inside Mrs. Bloom's mind.
This show was also my first introduction to Anthony Stewart Head who played her jailer or protector Oliver Sampson.
Thirteen episodes were filmed. Fox in its infinite wisdom chose only to show six (first two, one midseason, last three) which meant the intricately laid out arching plot didn't make much sense to US viewers. Then they cancelled it. Yes, I have been cursing Fox longer than you have. *G*
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