--- "Virtuality" is the kind of science fiction that successfully does so many things right that it's nearly impossible to find anything wrong; it's got a bold, realistic, and fresh perspective that shows what science fiction is – or could be – if only given the right effort; its characters are complex, developed individuals that draw the audience into the world so naturally and completely that they may never wish to leave; its setting is stylish and imaginative; and its mysteries and questions intriguing. ---

Full Article:
http://www.airlockalpha.com/node/6481

--- “Virtuality” is sexy and cerebral. It contains enough eye-candy and “scientific realism” to satisfy the entire family. Its pacing and special effects give Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” competition, while it’s electronic music accompaniment insures younger viewers hang on for the ride. ---

They, also, give mention of our TV Series campaign!

Full Article:
http://www.popdecay.com/2009/06/virtuality-cerebral-sexy-must-see-tv/

CBR News sat down with Clea DuVall, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Gene Farber and Erik Jensen before the screening of "Virtuality" at Universal to get their thoughts on the production of the pilot.

Full Article:
http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=21806

--- There is something dark lurking in the shadows of the Phaeton, and before the end of the pilot it claims its first real victim. I won't say who dies and how, but it's an event that turns the whole scenario on its head.

At the end, you really begin to wonder if the whole mission is real or even if they're actually on a spacecraft. An early clue that CO2 levels have risen and O2 dropped also suggests that maybe there is another person onboard who wasn't in the original roster.

In terms of the actors there aren't many familiar faces, although they all seem to be competent performers. I recognised Clea Duvall, as pilot Sue Parsons from Heroes where she played Parkman's cop buddy before the writers got bored with her. Captain Pike is played by the excellent Danish actor Nikolaj Coster Waldau, who was in Black Hawk Down and Wimbledon.

But my personal favourite here is English actor James D'Arcy, who plays Roger Fallon, who is both the crew physiologist and the producer of the reality TV show they're all forced to appear on. The part where he explains to the two gay guys that they need to bitch more for ratings, so that one of their relatives can move away from the coastal flood waters back on Earth, was quite chilling. He represents the TV crew back to Earth, but also ‘the consortium' that spent $200bn on the Phaeton to the crew. Using his security camera array, he's oddly the voyeur who can't see past his own nose, and a man in desperate need of his own physiologist.

Overall, after seeing the pilot, do I want more? Hell, yes! ---

Full Article:
http://www.denofgeek.com/television/277437/virtuality_pilot_review.html

Virtuality-TV.Info gets a shout out from Wired thanks to a post from Jessica Blank (Wife of Erik Jensen) on Facebook:

--- Jessica Blank, an actress whose husband Erik Jensen plays spaceship designer Jules Barnes on the show, put out a call to action Friday on Facebook to publicize the Virtuality TV Series Fan Support Page.

Urging viewers to e-mail Fox executives, Blank writes: “Virtuality deals with issues that are not being widely dealt with. It’s extremely intelligent science fiction and deserves a chance. The only way this show will get picked up is if enough people watch tonight and let the network know they liked it.” ---

Full Article:
http://www.wired.com/underwire/2009/06/virtuality-web-campaign-calls-for-full-blown-series/

--- “Follow me through the mirror, down the rabbit hole. Trust me, it has to be this way.”

A rabbit hole indeed. Ronald D. Moore has done it again giving us some brilliant writing with Virtuality as far as I’m concerned and Fox not sticking to the original plan of creating a series out of his concept is not only their loss, but ours as well. ---

Full Article:
http://screenrant.com/virtuality-review-discussion-brusimm-14985/

--- Virtuality is truly unlike anything on television right now. It's a gutsy sci-fi drama with intriguing reality and virtual reality elements that any fan of Ronald D. Moore, Michael Taylor or their groundbreaking series Battlestar Galactica will surely relish. I just hope we all get the chance to relish more of this series ---

Full Article:
http://www.movieweb.com/review/REurOzvAB9E2xD

--- Ronald D. Moore's long-awaited pilot TV movie, Virtuality, airs tonight on Fox, and it's your ticket to escape the M.J. sads and thrill out in space for a couple hours.

Don't skip a ride on the starship Phaeton just because the show didn't get picked up to series. As executive producer Michael Taylor points out, other networks are still "very interested"—and resolutions can be overrated. Virtuality, says Taylor, "is interesting in a way because of the questions it raises. It's really more about asking questions than providing answers."

In asking these questions—from defining infidelity and the essence of life to the inevitability of gay marriage—this show appeals to all televisionaries... ---

Full Article:
http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/watch_with_kristin/b131393_virtualitys_joyride_has_ending_set_stun.html

--- Tonight Fox launches Ronald D. Moore’s Virtuality, a two hour movie that was originally meant to be the pilot for a new series. While Moore’s last series – the much beloved Battlestar Galactica – also got off to a rocky start, the future doesn’t look as bright for Virtuality which isn’t likely to go to series unless ratings for tonight's movie turn out to be unexpectedly strong.

For gay fans that’s especially unfortunate as the show is the first U.S. science fiction television program to include regularly occurring gay characters as part of the main cast. And we’re not talking just any gay characters – Manny (Jose Pablo Cantillo) and Val (Gene Farber) are a married couple, making this a twofer when it comes to breaking new ground in gay visibility.

AfterElton.com recently had the chance to chat with Cantillo about what it meant to him to play the part of Manny, how he approached the role, and the frustration of being an actor coming so close to a series pick-up.

AfterElton: Did you know how groundbreaking the characters are when it comes to science fiction shows?
Jose Pablo Cantillo: Yes and no. I'd heard some rumors that we were the first openly gay characters in space, and then we were wrapped and done, they said, "No, it's actually the first show to have an actual married couple."

So I was made aware afterward. It's quite the honor, especially with such high tech material and a really, really good cast. Everyone gelled and got along so well and sort of challenged each other. ---

Full Article:
http://www.afterelton.com/people/2009/6/josepablocantillo

--- The two-hour pilot Moore delivered is sweepingly ambitious, thought-provoking and visually well-imagined, like a more photogenic version of BSG's claustrophobic interiors. While it's hard to tell from one pilot, it certainly looks like a potentially worthy successor to BSG. It's also complicated, thick with levels and interlocking narratives and, frankly, tough to follow until you get acclimated. This apparently scared Fox off, and the network that made Joss Whedon dumb down Dollhouse (until it reconsidered, at which point it got good), decided not to order a series.
This would usually mean a pilot, unless freed and picked up by another network, would disappear without ever being seen. Fox, however, is for some reason not only airing the pilot but has been giving it a fair amount of publicity for a show it seems to have every intention of killing. It's moved the airdate from a July 4th weekend deathslot to tonight (a Friday, yes, but a traditional Fox sci-fi timeslot) and made actors and producers available for interviews. It's treating the airing almost as a debut even though, in all likelihood, it is not. ---

Full Article:
http://tunedin.blogs.time.com/2009/06/26/virtualitys-bold-lonely-mission/

--- With FOX unveiling Ronald D. Moore and Michael Taylor’s much buzzed about first post-BATTLESTAR GALACTICA project tonight at 8PM on FOX, this TV Addict thought now would be as good a time as any to dedicate today’s Top 5 to things you should know about VIRTUALITY.

1. It’s reality TV in space
Recognizing what co-creator Ronald D. Moore calls, “a fundamental interest of people watching other real people or at least what they perceive as real people as opposed to watching fictional programming,” Moore alongside co-creator Michael Taylor cleverly built their series around exactly that; a reality TV show entitled Edge of Never: Life on the Phaeton. Complete with branded crew uniforms, confessionals, not to mention a group of really good looking actors — fans of SURVIVOR and THE AMAZING RACE will be right at home, as the good, bad and ugly from the Phaeton crew’s 10-year mission is ‘broadcast’ back to earth. ---

Full Article:
http://thetvaddict.com/2009/06/26/today’s-tv-addict-top-5-things-you-should-know-about-virtuality/

--- Following up on the posting of interviews with Michael Taylor and Nelson Lee and Gene Farber from this week's "Virtuality" premiere on the Universal lot, here are two more brief interviews with the show's stars, these with Clea DuVall and Erik Jensen. ---

Full Article:
http://www.hitfix.com/articles/2009-6-26-hitfix-interviews-virtuality-stars-clea-duvall-and-erik-jensen

--- It's unclear whether FOX will turn Virtuality into a series, but this two-hour premiere is certainly not a self-contained story. As I said earlier, the "go no go" plot is resolved, but so many lose ends remain at the end that it feels unsatisfying as a stand-alone TV movie.

Virtuality spins a lot of balls into the air with this pilot, and it's not clear that Ron Moore can keep them from crashing down. Is the show really going to be able to balance the reality-TV storyline with our crew's virtual reality adventures (and their real-life dramas)? The reality TV angle brings a much-needed cynical subtlety to the show, which rescues it from pure space psychodrama. But Moore isn't exactly known for his cynical storytelling, and I worry that this prickly aspect of the series will get smoothed over by Fantasy Island morality tales set in VR land.

Still, I would like the chance to find out where Virtuality might take us. Moore was willing to deliver quite a shock at the end of the pilot, which set the stage for a show unafraid to take risks. And I have to admit I'm intrigued to see what will befall the crew next, in a watching-a-trainwreck-on-Livejournal way. Creepy mind games mixed with media weirdness in space? Yeah, sign me up. Let's hope the show goes on. ---

Full Article:
http://io9.com/5302800/virtuality-promises-cynical-media-melodrama-+-in-space

--- On Wednesday night, just two days before the telefilm/pilot's Friday, June 26 airing, there was an intimate premiere for FOX's sci-fi drama "Virtuality" on the Universal Studios lot.

Created by Ronald Moore and Michael Taylor and direct by Peter Berg, "Virtuality" is about the perils of space flight, the fate of Earth, the horrors of reality television and virtual reality. The show's two-hour pilot will air on Friday and... Well, the Magic Eight Ball would tell you that the future is cloudy and to come back after the Nielsen results are in.

HitFix caught up with a number of the "Virtuality" stars at the premiere, to talk about the show and its future.

To start things off, here's a pair of brief Q&As with Gene Farber and Nelson Lee... ---

Full Article:
http://www.hitfix.com/articles/2009-6-26-hitfix-interviews-virtuality-stars-gene-farber-and-nelson-lee

--- When pressed for specifics about when FOX will make a decision, Taylor confessed: "The truth in Hollywood is we have very busy, talented actors who could go on to different things. But if someone decided over the course of whatever time it might be, a few weeks or whatever, 'You know what, let's get our actors together, let's do something,' we could assemble the team, we could do it. But we've love it to be on FOX, we'd love to be on Sci Fi, I mean there's some budgetary issues there, but bottom line I'm super gratified by the support. I am so thrilled that people seem to be so interested in it. We're so glad it's on the air." ---

Full Article:
http://www.thefutoncritic.com/rant.aspx?id=20090626_virtuality

--- The biggest mystery about "Virtuality" is the future of "Virtuality" itself. Produced by Ronald D. Moore and Michael Taylor of "Battlestar Galactica," it has been presented as a stand-alone two-hour movie. And as such, it may leave viewers scratching their heads.

But everyone can see that it's really a pilot for a new series — and a very good series at that — but one that neither Fox, nor any other network, has picked up. "Virtuality" may fall into kind of black hole of programming, too expensive for cable but too limited in appeal for network TV.

Viewers who like good sci-fi and smart television should not miss this one. If enough people watch, then perhaps Fox or some other outlet will allow the long space voyage to continue. After all, do we really want to live in an unjust universe where "Dollhouse" survives and "Virtuality" can't find a home? ---

Full Article:
http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090626/LIFE/906260313/-1/SITEMAP

--- this is nothing like Star Trek. In fact, it's hard to compare "Virtuality" to anything. And that's good. I don't know about you, but I am so tired of having to hear how shows are a cross between one classic show and another. Even Syfy's new series "Warehouse 13" can't get out of the spotlight of "The X-Files," despite the fact that it is absolutely nothing like the long-time Fox series.

Is the plot complex? You bet. But is it tedious? No. So that means you simply have to be paying attention. Put the TV Guide down, put the kids to bed and build a wall around you that will keep you isolated long enough to pay attention.

I mean, this does allow you to kind of separate yourself from the non-thinking crowd, who likely will head to the theaters to see "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen." Instead, you can give "Virtuality" a shot, and help boost its ratings, because heaven's knows, if there is any chance Fox will let this see the light of day as a series, it will take everyone reading these words, and the entire city around them to be watching to make this actually continue for more episodes after this.

And it deserves it. "Virtuality" is great television that'll force you to scratch your chin, but demand more. ---

Full Article:
http://www.airlockalpha.com/node/6477

--- ‘Virtuality’’ is an exercise in futility, but not because it’s bad. Indeed, this two-hour sci-fi presentation, tonight at 8 on Channel 25, has plenty going for it. A drama about 12 astronauts on a 10-year space journey to find an alternative to a drowning Earth, it made me want to see more.

And that’s where the futility comes into the picture. “Virtuality,’’ created by “Battlestar Galactica’’ writers Ronald D. Moore and Michael Taylor, was originally meant to be a two-hour pilot for a full-length series. But the series didn’t get picked up, and so Fox has decided to air the chunk as if it’s a self-standing event.

It definitely isn’t. The end of “Virtuality’’ tonight isn’t sloppy so much as it’s actually a beginning. Character introductions have been made, plots have been set in motion, huge mysteries have been raised. Now what? Roll credits. ---

Full Article:
http://www.boston.com/ae/tv/articles/2009/06/26/8216virtuality8217_a_sci_fi_starter_that_only_ends/

--- Advance Review: "This makes no sense whatsoever. And it makes utter, utter sense." These words, spoken to us by Second-in-Command Space Officer Jimmy Johnson (Ritchie Coster, The Dark Knight) in his reality-show confessional, handily sums up Virtuality; a dark thought-provoking masterwork that's part sci-fi and part existential noir. And while FOX is airing this Ron Moore (Battlestar Galactica) written, Peter Berg (Hancock, Friday Night Lights) directed space mission as a TV movie, it's clear that Virtuality was meant for greater things. It is a TV pilot for a series that FOX doesn't seem intent on making. Combine Danny Boyle's Sunshine with Philip K. Dick's Ubik and make it all part of a global "Reality Show" and you start to come close to describing this heady, meditative gemstone. ---

Full Article:
http://tv.ign.com/articles/998/998184p1.html

--- That Fox is broadcasting “Virtuality,” a film meant to introduce a series it has not scheduled, on a Friday night in June — one week before the Fourth of July — carries with it the cruel weight of a live burial. While it ought to be said that “Virtuality” seems created to alienate any but the pointiest science-fiction fans (civilians might prefer the weekend backup on I-95 just outside New Haven), it is an impressively credentialed and stylish bit of television moviemaking, an exploration not merely of our practical dependence on technology but also of our psychological and nearly eroticized addiction to it. ---

Full Article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/26/arts/television/26virtuality.html?_r=1&src=twt&twt=nytimestv

--- Virtuality is a tricky beast to wrap your head around, and not just because it interlaces reality TV-style “confessionals,” spaceship drama and virtual-reality dream sequences into a dense layer cake of multistranded sci-fi conflict. The really gnarly part is the neither-fish-nor-fowl nature of the show itself.

Airing Friday at 8 p.m. EST on Fox as a stand-alone movie, Virtuality was originally conceived by Battlestar Galactica producers Michael Taylor and Ronald D. Moore as the pilot episode for an ongoing series. However, the network declined to order more episodes, leaving the two-hour movie lost in space, an intriguing but apparently meaningless blip on the radar.

That’s too bad, because the premise proves rich enough to sustain at least a season’s worth of programs. ---

Full Article:
http://www.wired.com/underwire/2009/06/review-virtuality/

--- Yesterday SciFiPulse was part of a press call with Sienna Guillory and Clea Duvall, two the female leads from the new Ron D. Moore Pilot Virtuality. The pilot, which airs on Friday night at 8pm EST centres on the crew of the Phaeton who are on a 10 – year journey through space towards a planet that may be able to sustain life. Their journey is not a straightforward cake walk, and to help alleviate pressure the Phaeton has a special Virtual Reality entertainment system installed for the recreational use of the crew. However one of the more interesting twists to this show is the fact that the entire mission and lives of the Phaeton crew is being broadcast back to earth. Just like Big Brother. ---

Full Article:
http://scifipulse.net/?p=9743

--- Tomorrow night, viewers will see something extraordinary on American television: leading gay characters in a science fiction program – on a broadcast network no less.

Problem is, the rest of the pretentious, slow-moving mess of a show is about as far from extraordinary as you can get.

Fox is billing Virtuality as a “two-hour original science-fiction thriller.” But it was originally intended to be the pilot for a series that the network was once highly touting. After all, it was created by Battlestar Galactica’s Ronald D. Moore and Michael Taylor, who also wrote this pilot movie.

Somewhere between Fox’s initial enthusiasm and the execution of the idea, something went very wrong. ---

Full Article:
http://www.afterelton.com/TV/2009/6/virtualityreview?page=0%2C0

--- The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary defines "Virtual Reality" as "the generation by computer software of an image or environment that appears real to the senses."

Science fiction geeks define it as "that thing I want NOW!"

With the advent of Ron Moore's VR-themed Virtuality looming, we thought we'd immerse ourselves into a look back at the almost-80-year history of VR, both as a sci-fi concept and as a real technology. ---

Full Article:
http://scifiwire.com/2009/06/a-comprehensive-timeline.php

Well, I guess they can’t all be good - right?

--- Unfortunately, the plot, while seeming straightforward, is confusing and the characters are difficult to empathize with. Some of the characters even seemed contradictory, such as a television producer that was also the ship's psychologist or the host that was also a computer scientist. On a positive note there were a few cool scenes (one of the VR fantasies involved a rocker chick singing The Munsters theme in Japanese).

The show itself seemed contradictory since part of the concept is that it's a reality television program about the astronauts being sent to Earth in an effort to defray costs. As a result, it seemed mixed between pseudo-documentary and drama without a clear line in between (movies like Cloverfield executed the concept better). If the series lasts, Moore and Taylor would likely be using one of the themes of The Matrix in which life is what you make of it. ---

Full Article:
http://www.tvsquad.com/2009/06/25/virtuality-an-early-look/

--- ''I'm asking if you know fantasy from reality,'' the starship commander demands of one of his officers, and in Virtuality the question is anything but rhetorical. This sci-fi TV movie that Fox hopes to spin off into a series is like an existential Cuisinart, slicing and dicing the real, the virtual and the imaginary into something that's intellectually fascinating if not quite dramatically satisfying. ---

Full Article:
http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/glenn-garvin/story/1112714.html

--- The cast is large and those that had a chance to stand out did a great job acting. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (New Amsterdam) and Clea Duvall (Carnivale) are the most memorable, but all of the actors did well and brought that A-class acting that people are accustomed to from Battlestar Galactica.
The music was well placed in scenes, including the very memorable scene where they boost the ship’s speed with nukes. Trust me, you’ll understand what I’m talking about when you see it.
Moore brings his signature to this pilot with a scifi program that is filled with flawed complicated characters. He has a knack of bringing darkness to a story, but yet giving us a sliver of hope. ---

Full Article:
http://scifipulse.net/?p=9712

Clea Duvall and Sienna Guillory talk green screens, gay characters and the environment with Airlock Alpha

--- Green screens can sometimes be loathed by actors, but not Sienna Guillory.

The actress, who plays Rika Goddard on "Virtuality" airing this Friday on Fox, said that while a lot of her work took place in front of the screens, she enjoyed the challenge.

"I think in a way, when you're working with green screens, it's hugely enabling," Guillory told reporters at a news conference that included Airlock Alpha. "It's the same thing -- the whole thing that [executive producer] Ron Moore came up with. In 'Virtuality,' he gives us a life with no limitations, so you have to use that green screen as a plus. The fact that there's nothing there to limit your imagination or to limit where you see yourself or how you see the scene unfolding can be a helpful thing, so you just imagine it exactly the way you want it to be, rather than kind of being held back by the physical limitations of a set." ---

Full Article:
http://www.airlockalpha.com/node/6472

--- HitFix: My reaction to what's airing on Friday is that as a pilot, it's fantastic, but as a movie...

Michael Taylor: It ain't a movie. There's the short answer. It is not a f***ing movie. OK? It was not designed to be a movie. It's a pilot for a series. I think it's still a marvelously entertaining pilot and if it were somebody else's pilot, I'd watch it, because I dig science fiction. And I'd say, "Hey, it's that's what it takes to get a show on the air is to watch the show, that's not a lot of work." It's work I'm glad to do. So I'd say invest in it. It's a fun ride. It's a fun two-hour pilot. No. It does not answer your questions, all your questions. It raises questions. That's what a pilot does. And yet, in a way, that's what science fiction series does in general. If it's always answering your questions, then what kind of show is that? How would you understand that as speculative fiction, which is what science fiction is. So this pilot, which is a pilot, speculates a lot. And questions are raised and they will be answered, but you're gotta show up first. You've gotta show up for the beginning and then maybe there'll be an end.

HitFix: So how do you feel about it being put out there as a movie special?

MT: That's programming. That's network programming. They're gonna put it out there and dangle the hook and put a little bait on it and then let it dangle there in the middle of the summer, beginning of the summer, on a Friday night. If people bite? If people come? Anything can happen. ---

Full Article:
http://www.hitfix.com/articles/2009-6-25-hitfix-interview-michael-taylor-on-the-fate-of-fox-s-virtuality

Michael Taylor sent this list of reason to watch Virtuality out to 100 people and asked them to send out the same letter to 100 of their friends, and so forth. Copy it and spread it around!
---
10. Free “Friend of Ron Moore” ball cap (normally only available on “Ron Moore Day” at Dodgers stadium).

9. Get reserved seats at the hottest panel at Comicon next year!

8. Receive your very own easy-to-assemble Starship Phaeton, no pilot’s license needed to operate provided you stay within the solar system and always wear a helmet.

7. What else are you gonna do on a Friday night? Um, okay, so maybe that’s a crappy reason but hey, that’s why it’s up here at number 7.

6. Yes, I know, by asking you to forward this message I’m essentially involving you in a pop culture pyramid scheme. But look at it this way: You’re getting in on the ground floor! So after this letter has propagated for 10 generations, you’ll be able to tell, um, 100 billion people “I told you so” when they write back to say they liked the show!

5. It’ll give my Mom something to brag about.

4. By staying in and watching the show, you’ll save gas and help save the environment! It’s socially responsible!

3. After watching the show, you too will be able to use the word “virtuality” in a sentence!

2. Because if enough people watch the show this Friday, there’s a decent chance it’ll actually get to become a full-blown TV series.

And the number one reason to check out “Virtuality” on Friday and encourage your friends to do the same:
1. ’Cause it’s a frakkin’ cool show!
---

Tune in June 26, 2009, 8PM ET/7PM CT on FOX!

Source: Michael Taylor via The Good Ship Phaeton

--- Context matters. A really great sitcom can make a horrible play. A fantastic play can make a terrible movie. An excellent movie can make an awful TV miniseries.

Fox's "Virtuality" (8 p.m. Friday, June 26) proves that a really good pilot for a TV series can make a truly awful TV movie. But don't be mistaken: This excursion into the far reaches of space, brought to you by "Battlestar Galactica" producers Ronald D. Moore and Michael Taylor, proves far more compelling than most made-for-TV movies – and most TV pilots, for that matter – up until its abrupt, hair-pullingly inconclusive ending. ---

Full Article:
http://www.salon.com/ent/tv/review/2009/06/25/virtuality/

--- Damn you FOX, damn you. Why do you hate science fiction so much? They have a history with the genre. The fan favorite series Firefly was well received by critics, and yet it was prematurely cancelled. Terminator fans were pissed that T: SCC was cancelled. Now, a great concept created by one of the brightest creative minds in science fiction is being prematurely judged. Damn you FOX. They’ve made it clear that Virtuality is a strong concept with great potential as a weekly series, and it could be an enthralling and challenging series for sci-fi fans and anyone else for that matter. But it’s not good enough to get the green light? And the pilot is shoved into the tv hell-hole that is the dreaded Friday night time slot?

For all you Battlestar fans, I’m sure you all feel grateful for what Ronald D. Moore worked so hard to give you. It’s time to repay him by tuning in to Virtuality this Friday evening at 8 pm ET/PT. Everyone else, I beg of you to please tune in and help to give it a chance to become the weekly series Moore wants it to pay. As a reward for everyone choosing to tune in, you may just be rewarded with one of the most interesting new series’ in recent memory. ---

Full Article:
http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=95560348021&h=mT-Jk&u=ZkV5d&ref=nf

--- Ronald D. Moore's TV movie Virtuality is a deep-space odyssey, a fake reality TV show, and, yes, a virtual-reality nightmare. But it's also an intense theater piece, full of improv. We talked to stars Siena Guillory and Clea DuVall. Spoilers!

In Virtuality, Siena Guillory plays Rika Goddard, the ship's exobiologist who's trapped in a passionless marraige with Roger, the ship's psychologist and producer of the fake reality TV program the ship's crew stars in. And Clea DuVall (Carnivale) plays Sue Parsons, the ship's brash pilot who's already drawing comparisons to Starbuck. Both actors went on a conference call with reporters today and talked about how they approached their characters in this TV movie (which could spawn an ongoing series). ---

Full Article:
http://io9.com/5302149/improv-and-transcendance-in-ronald-d-moores-virtuality?skyline=true&s=x

--- The most attractive aspect of Virtuality is how hip, modern and current it feels. With sleek, bright sets, fast-paced camera action from director Pete Berg, and gorgeous computer generated imaging of outer space and the virtual reality scenes, the show departs visually from the austerity that is often a sci-fi staple. It is also a shrewd, tongue-in-cheek satire about our obsession with “celebrity” against the backdrop of an all too plausible environmental reality here on Earth. The action aboard the Phaeton is being broadcast back on Earth as the most popular reality show of all time, “The Edge of Never,” being seen by billions every week. Orchestrated by Dr. Roger Fallon (James D’Arcy), whose simultaneous roles as reality show producer and on-board psychologist come into conflict, the show combines the drama of Earth’s impending doom and the search for other habitable planets with our modern televised voyeurism. Hosted by the well-meaning but invasive Billie Kashmiri (Kerry Bishé), the show meticulously follows every facet of the crew’s quotidian existence, complete with ubiquitous cameras throughout the ship, Big Brother-style confessional rooms, and manufactured conflict to entertain the masses. Combining Star Trek and The Hills, Virtuality adds yet another layer to the confounding question of what is real, what is virtual, and where the twain shall meet. All of this action and philosophy culminates in a shocking surprise twist that you will never see coming. It will test the sense of trust and camaraderie aboard the vessel, raise questions about the boundaries of escapism in a virtual world, and put in danger the crew’s psychological capacity for their ten-year mission in outer space. ---

Full Article:
http://www.scriptphd.com/?p=313

--- Near the end of "Virtuality," one astronaut tells another, "Follow me, through the mirror and down a rabbit hole. Because the only way for any of us is to just keep going."

If "Virtuality" were airing as intended -- as the two-hour pilot episode for an ongoing Fox series -- then those words would feel like a fitting prelude to all the drama that presumably would follow. But Fox declined to order "Virtuality" to series, and the way it's airing now -- as a TV-movie designed to recoup some of the production costs -- that line feels more like an unfair tease. ---

Full Article:
http://www.nj.com/entertainment/tv/index.ssf/2009/06/virtuality_review_sepinwall_on.html

--- In “Virtuality,” Nikolaj Coster-Waldau stars as Commander Frank Pike, the leader of the crew of the Phaeton, which works for a business consortium that is offsetting the cost of the expedition by making the astronauts star in a reality show about the journey. To escape the ever-present cameras scattered throughout the ship, the crew members often escape into their “virtual reality” headsets, which allow them to interact—sometimes in surprising ways—in fantastical settings.

“Virtuality” deftly lays out the relationships among the characters, who range from the tough Sue Parsons (Clea DuVall) to the canny ship’s therapist, Roger Fallon (James D’Arcy). All these characters carry not just the hopes of Earth, which is in the grip of an environmental crisis, but their own emotional baggage and neuroses. And the ship itself—or at least its virtual reality programs—are not exactly functioning as planned.

Though Ritchie Coster is instantly interesting as second-in-command Jimmy Johnson, not all of "Virtuality's" characters stand out, and there are a some overwrought moments and less interesting segues. But the generally well-paced film is impressive in the way it builds toward a tense conclusion even as it explores the nature of role-playing in a technology-obsessed world. ---

Full Article:
http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2009/06/virtuality-fox-ron-moore-.html

--- "Everything that was shot against green screen were dynamic interpersonal scenes where there is a lot of dramatic dialogue," Hutzel said. "That stuff shoots very well and quickly because [cinematographer] Steve McNutt doesn't have to worry about lighting the set. He lights the characters, and we do the rest."

Probably one of the most interesting tidbits from the "Virtuality" production is that the shooting sets were actually on wheels. That meant the production crew didn't have to stop between scenes to move equipment and set themselves back up.

"The set was usually the floor or bed or whatever the couple of items the characters would interact with," Hutzel said. "We would roll one set in, shoot, then roll it out so we could roll the next one in and keep shooting." ---

Full Article:
http://www.airlockalpha.com/node/6466

Sci Fi Wire talked with Erik Jensen about his character and the virtual modules in Virtuality:

--- The show places its characters into a stylized and unsettling hyper-reality when they are in their VR modules. "The only thing I can compare the feeling to is like sort of being fully immersed in a really interesting video game," Jensen says. "The feeling I get when I'm watching it is sort of the same feeling I got when I was playing Myst—you remember Myst? That video game from many years ago? There's something unsettling happening, but it's happening internally with the characters. It's not an unsettling thing that's happening with the external grit and the sort of look with the piece. The camera floats as it follows people. Whereas in Battlestar, the camera sort of smashed back and forth between people, so there's this unsettling mystery feeling. I sort of guess the pitch for it would be, you know, Sunshine meets Lost." ---

Full Article:
http://scifiwire.com/2009/06/what-is-the-scariest-thin.php

--- Reality TV in space! I make no apologies, I'm a sucker for the bleeped out f-bombs, over-produced drama and conniving cliques that make for god-awfully good reality TV. Put a bunch of people in a pimped out fishbowl and watch 'em bring out the worst in each other. Name the time and channel and I'll get my TiVo on it! Baking this into a sci-fi setting works in Virtuality. Actually, it's a pretty ingenious plot device. The humanity of these characters, their flaws, their emotions are front and center in their confessional interviews and other footage we're shown from the reality show that's paying the bills for the expedition, Edge of Never. Pulling the crew out of their very sci-fi surroundings and listening to them pour their hearts out against the barren backdrop of the confessional forces the viewer to focus on the characters, to care about them, and for a moment forget about all that schnazzy sci-fi eye candy. ---

Full Article:
http://tvblog.ugo.com/tv/virtuality-what-i-liked-what-fox-probably-didnt

Thanks go out to Ian at SciFi Pulse for mentioning Virtuality-TV.Info and fan efforts to get Virtuality picked up as a series.

--- Ron D. Moore’s Virtuality hasn’t even aired yet, but with the premiere set for Friday 26 June, fans are already looking to get behind the show and are prepping to campaign in order to to help the movie go to being the series that it is meant to be.

A number of fan websites for Virtuality are starting to pop up all over the internet, and one such site is run by John T. Folden who has tasked himself with the big job of putting the word out about Virtuality, and encouraging folks to stay in and watch the movie when it airs this Friday. ---

Full Article:
http://scifipulse.net/?p=9603

--- The show is set up at FOX, but it does not look like it will be taken to series. The network will be airing the two hour pilot on Friday, June 26th, but unless the airing does some killer ratings, a series pick up is doubtful. Moore, in a recent conference call, said they haven’t ruled out continuing the story in other mediums, but is waiting to see what happens next week. After taking a look at the pilot recently, I’m not as hopeful as I once was.
...
I see the huge potential that FOX saw in the show. A great production team, a cool script, and a big name director. FOX worked with Moore in trying to cut the show down to a one hour pilot, and I’m sure various other tweaks before they came to the decision to air just the pilot and see what happens. I hope the best for the show, but I think it would need some changes if it goes to series. ---

Full Article:
http://www.cliqueclack.com/tv/2009/06/19/virtuality-great-concept-but-does-it-deliver-cliqueclack-preview/

--- Michael Taylor talks exclusively to SFX about the TV movie, and its chances of becoming an ongoing series.

SFX: How is the reality TV angle incorporated?

MT: "I think we just had the idea about what if this mission was privately funded? And what if the consortium – as we call it – wants to make its money back? Want to see this as a profit-making venture? What would they naturally do?

MT: “Already today NASA astronauts will communicate from the international space station, from the shuttle; they'll do publicity; they'll speak to school kids; they'll do various specials. And we were expanding that to the something very contemporary: the ultimate reality show. 12 people on a mission to another star, where they hope to find life on another world - what could be a more exciting hook than that? It adds another layer, a sort of Big Brother-ish vibe to the whole thing. Our crew are astronauts but they're also forced to sing for their supper. Some of them really chafe at it; others don't care, almost showing off for the camera. It just seemed like another cool layer for the show that also tied in with some of the themes that we are exploring: what is real? What is not real? How participating in a show about ourselves affects our lives”

SFX: Is there any audience voting involved?

MT: “Audience voting? Well, that's interesting. Down the road, if there's a road to go down, there certainly could be something like that. The problem is that if we vote someone off the ship they don't really have anywhere to go. Maybe ‘The Universe’s Got Talent’ is an episode down the road.”

SFX: So, will there be a series?

MT: “There isn't any definitive word on a series yet. To be honest, this looks like it could well be a one shot deal. Fox is airing it on a night that is not one of the great television nights of the year. I think it is challenging material. It's not a typical network show. It's not typical of an atypical network show. It’s got a lot of characters. It plays, I feel, a little bit more like an indie movie. We think it's fabulous. We think it could have been better. There's more work that would have loved to have done on it. But given the budget, given the constraints we were under, this is the show that we came up with and we think it’s really cool. But, uh, I cannot hold out a lot of hope that it's going to continue. I mean, if by a miracle, a lot of people decide they want to watch it, on this particular Friday night on a week before 4 July, who knows what might happen?” ---

Full Article:
http://www.sfx.co.uk/page/sfx?entry=exclusive_interview_michael_taylor_on

--- Q: The concept of the virtual reality allows you to write a different show every time -- the pilot, for instance, has a Civil War environment. What's that experience like as a writer?

A: I've been doing that since my first days in scifi television, writing for Deep Space Nine and Voyager. And I had that same sense then -- one show could be a doctor show, a cowboy show, a police drama, a mystery thriller. What's most interesting for me is the extent the virtual reality is an expression of the characters. For the Civil War environment, if we have a chance to continue the show, we'll understand why Pike has chosen it. There's a reason. It's 12 people stuck in a ship, but the environments are limitless. The world is in one sense closed, but in terms of virtual reality opened up.

Q: Which is, in a strange way, the opposite of BSG where the world was very much contained.

A: Right. In Battlestar, despite a much larger potential field to draw characters from, in some way you assumed you had met the key players -- they were your players, and we weren't going to run into any aliens. Virtuality seems more contained and closed, yet can reach out in a whole different direction.

Q: What are the chances Virtuality will become a series?

A: Honestly, slim to none. I've been through too much drama with this show already to go through more funerals in my head for it -- it's too traumatic. They have not made an official word, but they're scheduling it on a night that I think has been characterized as the butt-end of the television universe. It's sad for me and Ron -- they said, "Hey come aboard. We love what you do." And then we did what we do, and they went, "Ooh, s--- man this is kind of much for us." Given the scheduling time and the lack of promotion, call it a New Orleans funeral: We'll be having a good time, and we're grateful people at least have the opportunity to see what we did. ---

Full Article:
http://blogs.amctv.com/scifi-scanner/2009/06/michael-taylor-interview.php

--- Nikolaj Coster-Waldau stars as captain of a ship, which also includes Clea DuVall, Joy Bryant and James D'Arcy. To keep the crew happy on the 10-year mission, they are equipped with virtual-reality goggles that transport them to happier places, though they develop a glitch that starts to spook them.

Another neat conceit for the show is that the flight is entirely funded by a corporation making money from the fact that the crew's adventures are being turned into a reality show for consumption back home. It's a nifty swipe at the reality programming that's filling airwaves more than ever this summer, even if the network had the last laugh and let "Virtuality" sit as two episodes of a series that apparently never will be made.

And as intriguing as that is, it certainly doesn't gel as a movie. Rather, after the introductions of the first hour, there's a single crisis to deal with in the second, and a big open-ended conclusion meant to lead to several seasons of storytelling that just won't happen. ---

Full Article:
http://www.courant.com/entertainment/tv/hc-tveye0621.artjun21,0,5525985.column

Sci Fi Wire looks at the currently available webisodes and gives them a short review:
--- They're a bit like the confessionals from MTV's The Real World mixed with snippets of shipboard life, but mostly they feel like promos for the show. If that's the intent, then kudos to Fox for making promos that feel a little different and slicker than the norm. If they're supposed to work as stand-alone content like most other webisodes out there, then they're less successful. ---

Full Article:
http://scifiwire.com/2009/06/the-virtuality-webisodes.php

You can see the currently available webisodes, which I’ve been told are culled from extensive amounts of improv performances, via the Edge Of Never Facebook page;

Meet Commander Frank Pike:
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1184739179976

Meet newlyweds Val & Manny:
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1184738139950

...and the initial Edge of Never Trailer:

Melinda Seckington participated in the conference call with Ronald Moore last week, stating it might be one of the highlights of her blogging career, and while other articles have covered it - I think she provides one of the more complete transcripts of the event.

She’s posted it in two parts:
http://missgeeky.com/2009/06/17/interview-ron-moore-on-virtuality-part-1/
http://missgeeky.com/2009/06/17/interview-ron-moore-on-virtuality-part-2/

...and the deluge of articles keeps coming, including this one from iFMagazine:

/ Does the show ever comment on the year this is happening or what the problem with Earth is?
MOORE: “We started to nail this down and we do refer to the year and the nature of the emergency. There is a commercial for the reality show inside the show that fleshes out what’s happening on Earth and what went wrong and why they are on this mission to find a new place to live. Or at least that’s what the astronauts are told.”

What does Moore think about the current network climate right now?
MOORE: “I think it is a difficult time for the networks in general and the schedule reflects that. Everyone has a sense that television is changing. Nobody has an idea as to what it is changing to. That sort of anxiety and lack of knowledge contributes to a sense of panic and fear. Saying ‘Oh my God, it didn’t work yank it.’ Or ‘We gave it four episodes and that’s it.’ The most successful shows had a shaky start. SEINFELD had a rocky beginning. Unfortunately, we are in an atmosphere where everyone is afraid and everyone is focused on week to week rather than the long-term.” /

Full Article:
http://ifmagazine.com/new.asp?article=8168

/ Series potential if enough people tune in
Initially conceived as a pilot for an ongoing series, network executives have not picked up the show for a continuing run. Moore says strong viewer response could persuade network execs to order a season’s worth of Virtuality episodes. “It depends on ratings, demographics, word of mouth,” he says. “Sometimes these things have a bigger life that blossoms after broadcast. If you get a buzz going, people wonder when it’s going to come out on DVD and so on. Decisions about where we might go with the underlying properties — it’s really hard to say right now. Mike and I do have a direction of where we would take the story after this.”

Converting to reality TV
Moore likes the extra dramatic complications that come into play as earthbound producers of the astronautic reality series play with the heads of the show “contestants,” but the producer admits he only recently became a fan of nonfiction TV. “I started off as a skeptic-slash-hater of reality TV, but last season my wife and I decided to give the Deadliest Catch a try and we were really taken with it,” he says. “That’s at the top of my list. I like Project Runway, I like Top Chef. I’ve been suckered in.” /

Full Article:
http://www.wired.com/underwire/2009/06/ron-moores-tv-movie-virtuality-takes-vr-to-outer-space/

/ If the pilot, which doesn't completely resolve itself in two hours, is not picked up for series, Moore said it could continue in another medium, such as comic book form or as another TV movie.

"We've talked about all those possibilities. It depends on where we go after the broadcast," he added. "Sometimes these things have a bigger life that blossoms a few weeks after the broadcast."

Regardless of its fate, the show will have a presence online. Webisodes from "Edge of Never," the reality show within "Virtuality," will be put up on the show's Facebook page. /

Full Article:
http://www.tvweek.com/blogs/tvbizwire/2009/06/anything-is-possible-says-virt.php

/ This movie was meant to be a pilot. So you finished it, handed it to Fox and what happened next?

Moore: Well, [Fox entertainment president] Kevin Reilly's first response was, "I love it, and if this was a movie, I'd put it straight to DVD right now and release it, and it'd do big business. It's a great movie. But as a pilot, I'm not sure." He wanted to tinker around with it a little bit, and we played with variations on it, until we all got to a version we were happy with, and that was the version that Kevin took up the line to the rest of the people at Fox.

And ultimately I think the communal reaction was that they were impressed by the production value of the show, they were challenged by the story material, and they just didn't know if it was going to work on the Fox network or not. They haven't officially said, "That's it. It's over." You never know how these things turn out, but at the moment I think Fox's attitude is probably wait and see.

How did the shoot go?

Moore: It was good. It was a very complicated shoot. It was juggling the three elements [the crew's mission, the virtual reality and the reality show] simultaneously, so we had to shoot enough footage to always have enough stuff that would play as the surveillance cameras and first-person confessionals, for the cast members to talk as if they were going into the confession room at the Big Brother house or something. So you had to have a lot of material to serve a lot of different purposes.

And the virtual stuff, we committed early on in the process to do it in CGI for almost all of it. Those sets were almost entirely green-screen sets, and we repurposed a video-game technology that my visual-effects supervisor was intrigued by as a way of doing cost-effective virtual effects. So it was a very complicated shoot with a lot of moving pieces. It was really fortunate that Peter Berg [Hancock] was the one who came in to direct it, because he was really able to juggle all these things simultaneously.

Did you alter the ending? Did anything change as a result of Fox choosing to air it as a movie versus them calling it a pilot and airing it as such?

Moore: No. To me, this will always be a pilot. I know that Fox calls it a movie, but this is a pilot. It ends with the setup for a series. That's how it should be viewed. /

Full Article:
http://scifiwire.com/2009/06/why-virtuality-creator-ro.php

/ When we got a chance to take part in a conference call with Ronald D. Moore about Virtuality, there was only one question we wanted to ask him: How is this new show different from Star Trek's holodeck episodes?

Moore, creator of Battlestar Galactica, didn't seem to mind our obnoxious question. Here's what he said:

Well, it's a different concept. The holodeck is a space, and you would go into [it] and 3D forms were created in front of you... This is truly a virtual world, much more akin to a virtual headset. Whereas you have an experiential ability touch things [you're not going into an actual space], so it's a different sort of mechanics. At the story level, we're not explaining the idea that if you die in the virtual space, you die in the real space. [Instead, if you die in the virtual space, you just wake up.]

It's more like gaming is now. You game, you don't get killed, you wake up. We're using it much more psychologically now. The experiences that the astronauts have aboard the spaceship in the virtual space are things that are psychologically motivated. They go in there in and do things for entertainment. [And this reveals something about their personalities, and where they want to spend their time.] When things go wrong in that space, how is it going to affect them in the real world? How does the virtual space affect the real world storyline, and vice versa? /

Full Article:
http://io9.com/5287364/how-is-virtuality-different-than-star-treks-holodeck

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