VR.5

There comes a time when every video collector has to go back through their archives, sometimes taped on the fly and never properly watched, and give them another look. And so it was that, after five years, I checked out VR.5. I freely admit that most of my reasons had to do with Anthony Head, but it would be simplistic to say that I haven't found other reasons to mourn its loss. The plotline is labyrinthine, the loyalties are tenuous and constantly changing, yet at the heart of it is a group of characters who learn to love, respect, and trust each other in spite of repeated and persistent efforts from without and within to fragment them. Sydney goes from a withdrawn, antisocial voyeur with a half-suppressed past to a caring, sympathetic crusader; Duncan evolves from her stereotypical eccentric platonic buddy to a strong, creative, supportive hero; and then there's Oliver, who manages to grow from an infuriatingly enigmatic button-pushing Committee Man(literally as well as figuratively) to a rebellious individual whose tragic past has shaped him into someone both caring and terrified of getting involved. Even the amorphous organization known as the Committee progresses, from a standard top-secret non-government agency, dedicated to amorphous and impossible standards, to a global conspiracy frought with schisms and internicine rivalries. Not a bad progression for thirteen measly episodes, three of which didn't even make the series' first run. It would have been nice to at least see what happened next, as the final episode was both a downer and a cliffhanger.

This show had the dark side and very cool visual possibilities wide open to it and made a great start at exploring both in its one and only season. I was very curious to see if it, unlike Alias and the X-Files (both of which I like nevertheless), could credibly sustain the intrigue surrounding the conspiracy-like back-plot of her father, the "organization" and just who she was working for, but then, of course, it got cancelled. In many ways this show staked out territory that Buffy was eventually able to mine more deeply (three cheers for Anthony Stewart Head, another link between the two shows) and, handled right and backed hard by a caring network, it could have developed into something like.

I was into the show, even being young at the time, and had to search hard to remember the title and where I could rewatch. I wish they would reboot or at least reshow this series. Definitely deserved more than 1 season

Just finished watching this one for the first time in 2025.

It had so much going for it, and when it was using creative imagery and genre-bending dreamscapes it was really cool, but I feel like it got a bit bogged down in the spy stuff and repeated some basic plot outlines a bit towards the end, before introducing a ton of new interesting plot threads right as it gets its permanent cliffhanger.

The other problem is that when its not repeating itself you can sometimes tell its getting caught up in production issues, like writing an actor off. If you read interviews about it, it was quite a strange process, they had to shoot a lot of extra stuff for one ongoing plotline to make the first few episodes feel right. It honestly works out fine at that stage, but i get the feeling that is how they worked a lot of the time, they admit they were rushed. Some episodes get a bit confusing, and I feel like Im good at parsing weird narratives.

Ultimately, if you go into this looking for some of that dated 90s atmosphere in a show you haven't seen before, with reasonable production value, and a lot of artistic flair, you might dig this. Just don't go in looking for a plot that knows exactly where its going or finishes in a satisfying way. There IS in overarching plot, and its actually not bad, it just doesnt get to wrap up at all, its one of those finales htat feels like the first episode of the nest season will be the actual finale lol

TLDR; A fun cultural artifact, one of the first few pieces of mainstream VR media after Lawnmowerman.

This show was Lost decade before Lost and The Matrix several years before The Matrix. And it featured Anthony Stuart Head and Adam Baldwin years before Joss Whedon discovered them.

It's one of the early examples of an incredibly strong sci-fi series being killed by the infamous Fox Friday night death time slot that would go onto to kill so many other great series too soon. One reviewer commented that it's not realistic. Well duh. Fortunately, realism isn't a major criteria for great television. I would love it if a DVD were released for this show, especially if some of the cast and crew could be reunited to put together some DVD extras.