In the interviews that Virtuality Co-Creator Michael Taylor gave today, I noticed he repeatedly mentioned sending letters of support:

@ Televisionary: "Maybe we can send sunglasses to Peter Rice or something. (Laughs.) Or camp outside Mark Stern's house or send some letters. But it would be fabulous if there was a chance to continue the story of this show because it's a great show."

@ io9: "Fox has not given us the official word. I have to be honest, I think the scheduling of this the way it is... it does not look good. The chances are very slender. Slim to none — who knows? It would take pretty much a miracle for that to happen. It would take millions of people watching, on this night when people normally aren't watching television in general. I can say if a lot of people watch it and like it, and make their feelings known whether it's writing a letter to Peter Rice, or even better, to someone like Mark Stern at the Syfy Network, who really does love the show. It's part of the NBC Universal family, and I think they'd love to put it on if they could afford to put it on."

I’d love to hear other people’s thoughts... I'd normally be rather pessimistic of something like this, and maybe I still am, but this has been a crazy television season when it comes to what has been renewed, greenlit, etc... Obviously, Virtuality itself doesn't have a very big fandom at this point in the game but a lot of the actors and crew involved have fan bases of their own...

Drop me your thoughts via the Feedback form or sign up and discuss it in the Virtuality Forum!

io9 chatted with Michael Taylor today, as well;

/ We read a lot of rumors about the show getting changed from the original pilot script? Did a lot of things change?

MT: The show that will air on June 26 is not really changed at all from what we shot. On the other hand, the show did start out as a one hour pilot. NBC Universal and Fox the airing network [asked us] to turn it into a two hour movie. In a way, that had to change the nature of the script that had been widely circulated on the internet (for the original one hour show). It deepens the draw in some ways, it complicates it in others. I think when Fox saw the end result, they thought, "wow this is a very heady mix." Or as one Fox executive said, it's "Very cool but kind of dense."

Clearly they were afraid that it was not the kind of network material they were used to. Initially Peter Berg, our marvelous director, said, "I think I can boil this down to an hour, and maybe that will make it an easier sell for you guys. Let me try." So they gave him the legway to do that, and he did it in a one-hour cut. It turned out very interesting, but very different — and it would have to be. To make a two hour movie from a one hour, you have to make a lot of changes and focus on different things.

In the end, I don't think Fox found that [one-hour cut] more compelling than the two hours. There were compromises made along the route. There are things Ron and I would love to change, or Pete would love to change if we had the opportunity or the budget. The chance to reshoot some stuff, to work even better as a two hour. But what you will see is essentially what we set out to make, for better, hopefully, and for worse too. It's a show that we're all really proud of and we think is really cool. But I should say that it looks more like an indie movie than Mission Impossible 3. /

Full Article:
http://io9.com/5286366/virtuality-is-more-like-an-indie-movie-than-a-space+opera

Eric Goldman of IGN talks briefly with Ron Moore about Virtuality, it’s prospects as a series and more...

/ Recently, I spoke to Moore and asked him if Virtuality could continue past the TV-Movie, which is directed by Peter Berg. "There's no plans," Moore replied, adding, "There's nothing active that I know of to continue past it, but it's a never say never kind of business. So I imagine if it did really well, if there was a buzz about it and people were excited, anything's possible." /

Full Article:
http://tv.ign.com/articles/993/993669p1.html

Televisionary writer Jace caught up with Virtuality co-creator/executive producer Michael Taylor for a one-on-one interview, in which he discusses the likelihood of FOX picking up Virtuality as a series, what his and Ronald D. Moore’s ideas were for the first season's storylines, the Sci Fi Channel’s possible interest in the series, a jaw-dropping slingshot sequence in the movie, and... a punk-rock Japanese version of the theme song from The Munsters!

/ Taylor: Certainly there have been those sort of discussions about following through... [With FOX publicity,] we've discussed how to approach this. The network has not made a formal announcement about the fate of the show. Peter Berg wasn't asked but he volunteered to make a shorter cut. One of the compromises that is made in getting this show on the air--and it's a way sometimes that networks and sometimes studios hedge their bets it's, all right, maybe it's not a series, let's make it a two-hour back-door pilot and we do it as a movie and we can make some money back, sell it overseas, whatever their marketing thinking is. But at the same time, I feel FOX may have thought, well, maybe it could work better as an hour or more clearly as a pilot and they wanted it shot to recut it that way. However, once you take a show and expand it to two hours, it's very hard to put that genie back in his mullah's bottle and I think Pete [Berg's] cut is very, very cool but it was a somewhat different show. And I think FOX thought six of one, half a dozen of another, and they decided, let's just air the original two-hour version to let people see what the entire project was that they essentially scripted it to be.

All that being said, if I'm being honest here, it does not look good for the show to be picked up by FOX as a series. That's why it's honestly being put on on a night like this and we have had discussions with other discussions, in particular Sci Fi Channel, which I think loves the show. But then there's a financial issue of them affording a show like this and being able to put it on. Honestly, this is probably it. One shot airing of this pilot. The good thing is a lot of pilots that don't make it to series--most of them--never make it onto television. So at least people have a chance to say, okay, this is what these guys did and this is what this great cast we assembled and a talented, amazing director like Pete Berg were able to create. Odds are that will be as far as it goes. And it would take a miracle of enough people watching on a night like this to change that. /



Full Article:
http://www.televisionaryblog.com/2009/06/gono-go-televisionary-talks-to.html

Danish website “Ekstra Bladet” has posted a small article with quotes from Nikolaj, as he awaits the premiere of Virtuality.

Assuming Google Translate can be trusted, it sounds as though Nikolaj thinks the pilot is fantastic but is pessimistic that FOX will greenlight a series due to the fact the project is “very expensive to produce - twice as expensive as most other series.”

He, also, revealed that FOX is broadcasting the movie a mere 4 days before options expire and believes they are waiting to see the viewer response.

Full Article:
http://ekstrabladet.dk/flash/dkkendte/article1178350.ece

Thanks to forum member “Ania” for the link.

Courtesy Of Doug Drexler’s blog (CG supervisor for the Virtuality TV Movie), The Drex Files, graphic designer and tech consultant Mike Okuda writes about nuclear pulse propulsion and Virtuality’s ship Phaeton.

/ Zefram Cochrane notwithstanding, most fans know that real scientists have very little idea how faster-than-light “warp drive” or “hyperdrive,” could actually work, or even if they’re possible. A lot of slower-than-light technologies seen in stories and films for reaching the stars are more grounded in scientific reality, like lightsails, ramscoops, and generation ships. Unfortunately, most of them involve extremely long travel times, miniscule payloads, or near-magical breakthroughs in engineering. (Sometimes all three!) Present-day rockets are amazing machines, but they have only a tiny fraction of the performance that would be needed to travel to the stars on anything approaching a human timescale.

But there was one incredibly audacious proposal for a propulsion system, using (relatively) off-the-shelf technology that would have been able to send massive payloads to the outer planets, and maybe even to nearby stars. Nuclear pulse propulsion. /

Full Article:
http://drexfiles.wordpress.com/2009/06/09/mike-okuda-the-phaeton-and-nuclear-pulse-propulsion/

io9 has posted an Virtuality-related exclusive featuring concept art showing the inner workings of the deep-space probe Phaeton and its various modules — including a super-detailed diagram explaining the physics of the ship.

Their gallery, also, includes a behind the scenes photo Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as the ship's captain, Frank Pike, acting out a Civil War scenario on horseback via the ship's virtual reality modules and another BTS shot of visual effects supervisor Gary Hutzel on one of the sets.

http://io9.com/photogallery/thephaeton/

Thanks to forum member “Brooke Lynn” for the link.

Brian Ford Sullivan of The Futon Critic offers up a first look at the broadcast version of FOX’s “Virtuality” TV movie, calling the concept “stunningly original” in a near rave review.

THE FUTON'S FIRST LOOK: "VIRTUALITY" (FOX)
http://www.thefutoncritic.com/rant.aspx?id=20090605_virtuality

Brian had previously covered an earlier version of the pilot’s script, last year, when he deemed it the next “big” thing “brimming with joyously clever ideas and concepts, not to mention filled with decidedly unique characters and relationships” in his review.

THE FUTON'S FIRST LOOK: "VIRTUALITY" (FOX, SCRIPT)
http://www.thefutoncritic.com/rant.aspx?id=20080707

Nine more official FOX promotional photos have been added to the Virtuality TV Movie Gallery. These are production stills from the movie.

Fourteen brand new promotional photos for the FOX Virtuality TV Movie have been added to the Gallery.

While this project was commissioned last year, and remained in limbo for months with no clear direction, FOX has finally fast tracked the 2 hour movie to premiere on June 26th, 2009 at 8:00-10:00PM ET.

It has been reported for some time that this movie would serve as a back-door pilot for a, possible, TV series but there has been no commitment to that, so far. Solid ratings may improve the liklihood of this happening.

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