Ronald D. Moore’s New Sci-Fi Series ‘Virtuality’ In Limbo
So you’re wondering what you’re going to do when Battlestar Galactica ends? Well Ronald D. Moore would have an answer for you if the bean counters weren’t putting up road blocks.
He’s been hard at work trying to bring us a new science fiction series titled Virtuality – “Yay!” I hear you exclaim.
Virtuality follows the crew of the deep-space starship Phaeton. The story follows how they deal with a long 10 year journey through space via the use of a virtual reality computer program (something like the holodeck in Star Trek), and how something goes wrong…
This is where the “Yay!” gets tempered, because the problem is it’s a Fox production. Last we heard Fox weren’t happy with the two hour pilot, claiming it wasn’t mainstream enough. They want it dumbed down for the masses and as a result are forcing Ron Moore’s hand to butcher his work. Dollhouse immediately comes to my mind or, if we are to listen to Joss Whedon, at least the first five episodes of Dollhouse.
Despite the fact that some people have referred to it as a ‘masterpiece’, Moore was forced to take Virtuality back to the drawing board and attempt to rework it into something more palatable to mainstream audiences. If you take away the jargon that means Fox told Moore to take the knife to it and slice away as much depth as he can so that people with low attention spans might grasp it.
That was weeks ago and, as it stands, nothing has really happened since then. Ron Moore recently spoke with The Live Feed who queried him on the present status of the series. This was his answer:
They haven’t officially turned it down, they haven’t officially moved it forward. We’ll just have to wait and see.
I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again. We don’t need more ‘mainstream’ television series. We need more television networks allowing less-mainstream creative geniuses to do their thing. If for one moment risk wasn’t the only counter-balance to innovation, not only would we probably have another great television series on our hands, but we might have the next cult hit to replace the hole about to be left by Battlestar Galactica.
Let’s hope someone at Fox loses their job and someone else with half a brain steps in to let Moore do his thing. For the moment, Virtuality remains in limbo.
March 14th, 2009 at 10:24 pm
Fox?
Call me when they have a minimum of 22 episodes out on DVD and are still airing the show. Then I’ll consider watching. That is my FOX policy. I made an exception for Firefly and Amsterdam.
New policy: no more exceptions.
April 25th, 2009 at 7:04 am
Well – I was looking forward to this, but FOX really is the pits. I haven’t forgiven them for New Amsterdam and others; don’t know why I’m surprised by this. I wonder if they could release the pilot – as it was originally conceived – as a straight-to-DVD, since it looks like this is going nowhere, otherwise.
April 25th, 2009 at 11:15 pm
I’ll bet this is awesome. You’d think after Battlestar Galactica that someone like Moore would get a little bit of credit.
This reminds me of the current situation with Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Honestly, if they cancel TSCC I’m going to make it my mission to avoid watching Fox. I admit, I’ll tune in for Fringe – but I’ll do that on Hulu. Apart from that, if TSCC goes, so do I!
May 8th, 2009 at 7:09 am
I just saw an article over on Futon Critic that FOX is going to air the pilot. It looks like maybe they’re burning it off; hopefully they aren’t basing a go-ahead decision on viewership. The 2-hour pilot airs Saturday July 4 – 8:00 p.m. Here’s the url: http://www.thefutoncritic.com/news.aspx?id=8081
May 28th, 2009 at 5:33 am
Fox is doing what is commonly referred to as a Dump. They’ll air this on a historically low ratings night, then send it off to Home Video dept for low end DVD distribution. With the C-Title marketing effort, you’ll be able to aquire the DVDs at Walmart’s Bargain Bin most likely in late September, or early October.
Any thoughts of it going series should be put out of your mind. The only thing that got Fox to air it at all is the amount of money they spent to make it
Face it, the “genius” RDM had to beg and plead to be given a 4th season to wrap RDM BSG, as the network, appalled by dismal ratings numbers caused by the humorless, moralless, angst/dysfunction fest that was RDM BSG, had sought to kill it soon after the close of season 2. Season 3 saw numbers approaching full blown cancellation bait meltdown levels. SciFi and Universal hoping to maybe recoup some of the huge sums of money they blew down the RDM drain, with stealth marketing schemes and mass marketing attempts to polish the RDM pile.
RDM is not the God-Like Genius Savior of SciFi.