Fox has given the green light to "Virtuality," a two-hour back-door pilot from "Battlestar Galactica" mastermind Ronald D. Moore.

The sci-fi project, from Universal Media Studios and producers Gail Berman and Lloyd Braun, is set aboard the Phaeton, Earth's first starship. It revolves around its crew of 12 astronauts on a 10-year journey to explore a distant solar system. To help them endure the long trip and keep their minds occupied, NASA has equipped the ship with advanced virtual-reality modules, allowing the crew members to assume adventurous identities and go to any place they want. The plan works flawlessly until a mysterious "bug" is found in the system.

"It's very much about what's fantasy and what's reality; what we do to escape our lives and what actually institutes our lives; are these things very different," UMS president Katherine Pope said.

"Virtuality" is a brainchild of Braun, who shaped up the idea with Berman, his producing partner at BermanBraun.

The two approached several writers, including Moore, who sparked to the premise and quickly developed it into what became the concept for "Virtuality." He brought in with him "Battlestar" writer-producer Michael Taylor. The two penned the script and are exec producing the project with Berman and Braun.

'Virtuality' flies to Fox
Network orders two-hour sci-fi pilot
By MICHAEL SCHNEIDER

Fox is star struck with "Virtuality," ordering a two-hour back-door space-themed pilot from BermanBraun and "Battlestar Galactica" alums Ron Moore and Michael Taylor.

Universal Media Studios is behind the sci-fi drama, which follows 12 astronauts who are sent on a 10-year journey to find a distant solar system. The explorers pass the time by hooking up to advanced virtual reality modules to explore self-created worlds. But they discover someone has downloaded a computer bug into the system -- and one of them may be the saboteur.

Moore, Taylor, Lloyd Braun and Gail Berman are on board to exec produce "Virtuality," which originally came from an idea kicked around by Braun; both Braun and Berman shaped the idea and pitched it to writers around town. Moore and Taylor floated toward the idea.

"Virtuality" also comes with a hefty online component: As part of the plot, the space voyage is funded by a reality show that features the trip being streamed back to Earth. That "reality show" will be produced as webisodes, featuring the same cast members.

NBC passed on the concept, which insiders said was too sci-fi for Peacock tastes. Over at Fox, entertainment prexy Kevin Reilly bought the project almost immediately.

Moore and Taylor "have taken a complex concept and made it incredibly accessible," he said. "For all the times we've read that a project has a 'unique point of view,' it rarely applies. This time it does -- in spades."

Meanwhile, insiders said helmer Martin Campbell ("Casino Royale") is close to signing as the pilot's director.

Producers have an eye toward shooting "Virtuality" this summer. If all goes well, the project could be geared toward an event launch next February.

"It really is Fox putting their money where their mouth is in terms of Kevin's desire to do year-round development," said Universal Media Studios prexy Katherine Pope. "They really stepped up."

Berman and Braun said they felt the show was "in the right hands." The project reps a homecoming for former Fox Entertainment topper Berman.

It's been a busy year for BermanBraun, which is behind the ABC gamer "Duel" and also the Alphabet action project "Section 8." The company has several reality skeins at NBC, along with Thom Beers' Original Media, as part of a development deal there.

Mebbe it just "Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?" Or, izzat Hollyweird?

-RC =^[.]~=

Let us not forget the reality aspect... so, what, we vote which characters get to play each week?

Gods, I hate that drivel.

Not only that, but this is just more stuff to manage. Could someone just concentrate on getting a well-written, cohesive sci-fi show on T.V? All this other stuff is fluff. Hollywood thinks that if they just keep throwing content at the viewers they will connect with the show. What they don't realize is that the television content is the problem. More junk is just more junk.

When we first heard Battlestar Galactica's Ron Moore was doing a show about a deep-space long-haul crew who lose themselves in virtual reality entertainments, our first thought was, "Oh great, a whole show of Star Trek holodeck episodes." But Moore's new Fox pilot, Virtuality, is a lot more multi-layered and twisted than that, judging from the tons of script pages that have turned up.

Here are a few more spoilers I left out of yesterday's write-up of Ron Moore's new show Virtuality, either because I forgot or because they were too spoilery. Rika, the wife of the ship's therapist/show producer Roger Fallon, works in the ship's "greenhouse" and says plants are better suited to space travel than humans — but the plants start having root problems. Roger allegedly gets a percentage of all the revenues from the ship's "virtual reality" show. Jules Braun has the V.R. program simulate his dead son Shawn, but the simulation isn't rreal enough, until the program takes from Braun's own psychological profile, and then Shawn is a bit of a psycho.

One of the Green-Eyed Man's virtual-reality murders targets Captain Pike when he's having illicit virtual sex with Dr. Fallon's wife Rika. The Green-Eyed Man "kills" the Parkinsons-afflicted Dr. Meyer in V.R., but he finds the experience liberating instead of scary. When the Green-Eyed Man attacks Billie, the computer geek, she tries to tell the computer to "freeze" the program, but the program won't stop. And she can't exit the program prematurely. (Oh, and the V.R. is via headsets, not a holodeck. Shoulda mentioned that before.)

Dr. Fallon disagrees strongly with Captain Pike's decision to take the V.R. modules off-line after Billie's assault. He feels that without the V.R. modules, the crew will go nuts in deep space. Also, an engineer named Jimmy Johnson, who's confined to a wheelchair, really needs V.R. because it's the only way he can get out of his chair. (The show has a dozen characters, which is a lot to get to know.)

And here's the major spoiler: At the end of the pilot, Capt. Pike gets killed while trying to repair the ship's com-array. (It sucks, because he's one of the most likeable characters in the script, and we've gotten pretty attached to him by this point.) And the ship's com-array is still broken at the end of the episode. Jimmy Johnson takes command, and his first order is to reinstate the V.R. modules. [Thanks so much to Lukas for the heads up]

Exclusive: First Details Of Ron Moore's New Show Virtuality
Minions! A shiny Qualtloo for the first to deliver scans of those script pages!

A little bit they left out
http://io9.com/389756/fox-will-be-home-of-...ity-next-spring

I'm actually digging what I have read.

James D'Arcy has been tapped as the lead in "Virtuality," Fox's two-hour back-door pilot from "Battlestar Galactica" mastermind Ronald D. Moore, UMS and BermanBraun.

Ronald D. Moore has cast the most complex character from his new backdoor pilot Virtuality. James D'Arcy will play Roger Fallon, who has a weird double role, and a major conflict of interest, aboard the starship Phaeton. He's the mashup of Gaius Baltar and the Cylon Brother Cavil whose twisted manipulations you'll be talking about for days afterwards.

As we reported on the Virtuality before the follows a 12-man crew aboard Earth's first starship, Phaeton, that embarks on a 10-year journey to explore far-off solar systems. D'Arcy's character, Fallon, is both the crew's therapist and the producer of the reality show they star in.

Fallon uses his job as the crew's therapist to influence their actions, including urging characters to stir up drama for the television show. D'Arcy was Sherlock in the UK television and also appeared in An American Haunting, but let's not hold that against him.

From our interview with star Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, it was also pretty clear that his character was having a really bad day. Coster-Waldau, who plays the captain of the starship, was in full makeup that made his entire body look like one solid bruise.

Despite the mysteries, we learned a great deal about the crew of the Phaeton, who are primarily scientists. Six of the crew are married couples, including a gay couple. (And sharp-eyed fans may spot a few science and SF references in the character names.)

I noticed a very short blurb on Skiffy that Virtuality may still get picked up this year, but if it is it will be re-done as a more conventional drama series. Fox is moving on two other pilots though.

Ya mean it got pre-retconned?

=^[.]^=

12 minutes of clips:



And the airdate was moved up to 26JUN09.

Okay watch the clips, not impressed. I don't like real reality shows so why would I want to watch a fake one again? I don't feel like I connected with any of the characters or found them interesting or amusing, in fact they all seem pretty bland and generic to me.

Also the situation is ludicrous. No ship is going to be launched for deep space travel and then have the people on it decide whether to go back or not and then make that a reality show. Uh no. Sounds like it's the first such mission of it's kind so if they're on an important scientific mission and one that may be critical as the beginning made it sound, they don't have time for emo drama and voting and all that stupid crap. Sorry, I don't buy it. It's a shitty premise just trying to be cool and mix virtual reality with television reality and ooh throw a couple of gay people in and and Englishman.

I think I shall have to be washing my hair also.