Wednesday, July 01, 2009

"Lost" in Space

The crew in conference. Yes, they're in a spaceship.


The "Virtuality" pilot (for now just a TV movie, unless a network picks it up) does what good a pilot should do: it sets the premise up, shows us the characters and setting, and gives us an idea of the potential stories of the various characters and devices.

The premise is ok enough, it's 2050, 12 people are manning Earth's first starship, which will take 10 years to reach the nearest star potentially capable of sustaining life. But that won't be enough to sustain modern audiences (much less SF enthusiasts) so they add a twist -- the astronauts' day to day lives are filmed and shown on earth as a reality show -- and a literal plot device -- personal virtual reality modules (think realistically portrayed Star Trek holodecks) that help while away the time AND serve as the ship's interface.

Each character has his/her issues that are illuminated through the "confessional" shots for the reality series and their VR worlds. From civil war reenactments to anime-inspired fantasies, each scenario is an episode in itself and a chance for the actors and writers to play around.

Oh, and there's a guy going around the VR worlds killing their VR selves.

Download it from your riendly neighborhood torrent site and support the call for a full series. We need more shows like this.

Oh, and yay, the ship uses an Orion drive.


3 comments:

Condo Dweller said...

What's an Orion drive?

missingpoints said...

The ship's back has a huge "pusher plate" that acts as a sail. They detonate a nuclear bomb which pushes the ship forward. They drop as many bombs as they need to attain target speed.

Of course a real interstellar ship would require around 10,000 bombs to attain the proper speed. They only used a couple in the show but it's a great visual treat.

It's a concept that NASA's been toying around with since the 1950s.

alwaysanxious said...

geek :P