User reviews

I have heard through the grapevine that FOX, even if it doesn't pickup a show, is contractually obligated to play the pilot on air. So of course FOX doesn't care if it is accurately portrayed or even advertised/marketed since they have no interest in the show.

I think this program is more suited for SciFi than FOX. The pilot seemed like an interesting beginning to a potentially more complicated series. Hopefully we will be able to see at least one season on another network that is more suited to the show's style.

Most of the characters were easy to relate to, even if a tad trite and stereotypical. As I said before I believe that there is potential here.

This TV movie or plot if it ever continues has a special touch to it that makes it really enjoyable and i have to say i really got stuck with it after watching a while.

Even though it may become an enjoyable series it still has it's flaws I'm afraid, this whole reality show thing they're trying to put in does not make any sense to me, kind of lowers the quality etc, and then we have the "The whole world is going to end" thing, we've all seen it to many times and it does not necessarily make a show more exciting, could have the opposite effect in fact.

If this actually continues as a series i'd for one want to see some changes for the better, at least i would hope that they could just remove this reality show thing because it makes me think of all the stupid reality shows out there which makes me want to puke a 100 times over, i think that reality shows should stick to reality shows, the same with fiction shows and not trying to put these together because the outcome would be obvious.

Anyhow, overall it was pretty decent, the sci-fi feeling about it made it to be worth watching, the ending here did its part and i hope for a following series

If future episodes are going to be like the pilot, 30 minutes of material stretched to 2 hours, then this is going to be one bumpy ride. Plus, anytime our astronauts are together, they all talk at once, and yell, too.

Still, the virtual reality side of things could be interesting, plus the mystery of who's doing what to whom. Do we have another HAL9000 here, a saboteur, or is mission control the bad guy?

Another down side is I've gone two hours into this without liking any of the characters. That's not a good sign.

On the other hand, I've gone two hours into this without turning it off. That's a positive sign.

I'll wait for another episode and see how that goes.

This film is about the twelve astronauts who are on a spacecraft, going to a distant star that takes ten years to arrive. On board, things start to go wrong and yet they cannot turn back.

"Virtuality" seems good on paper. It is directed by a famous director, has several known (but not very famous) stars, and an intriguing plot. However, it does not seem to work well. The story might have been interesting, but the delivery of the plot is very confusing. There are many mystifying events on board the spacecraft, and these events are not explained well. I was hoping that the ending would bring some answers, but it brings even more unanswered questions. All the confusion annoys rather than being thought stimulating.

In addition, the film fails to grip viewers or to provide suspense for viewers to beg for me. "Virtuality" is a disappointingly confusing film.

I just got around to seeing this, in 2015, since I rarely watch TV, so at first I thought it was a crazy movie with even crazier ending. Now I know it was a pilot. While it is shot beautifully and the science of the set decoration is wonderful, I was a bit bothered by the character writing. The crew do not seem like NASA people or even scientists. So it falters fatally there. Why was the mission, a very serious thing, being used for a reality TV show? Other than to advertise that general idea to Fox audiences. Although the quizzical characters did fit that plot line and it would have been food for little plot lines and maybe solve some of the mysteries on board. Even with the character issues, I would have liked to have seen at least one season, although if it had been picked up in 2009, we might not have had Nikolaj Coaster-Waldau (the Commander) on Game of Thrones (Jamie Lannister). Very hard to imagine GOT without him, so all worked out for the best.

The problem with a science fiction movie/show based off human drama, is that on a mission of earth shattering importance, the crew are almost entirely antagonistic whiny incompetents, who have no business being responsible for a trillion dollar spaceship.

Quite early on it becomes obvious that the captain, who is the final decision maker on anything important, is of dangerously low intelligence, and would not be capable of managing an ice cream truck, let alone a 'world saving' space mission.

I think real astronauts would find this movie insulting.

But the visuals are nice.

27 June 2009. The idea of a reality TV show format regarding a intersellar trip to the stars was fascinating as a sci-fi made for television movie. However, the premise in actuality was less than stellar and built on so many obviously fake assumptions that it couldn't really be pulled off without a brilliant script, direction, acting, and perhaps being made into a television series instead of a less than two-hour movie format. If for example the reality series had actually been real, it might have actually be worthy or interesting. But having to watch actors pretending to be real in a fictional movie was stretching matters, especially with the premise of heightened corporate driven ratings faking and dramatically driving such a perilous mega-trip to the stars (almost too unbelievable to accept). Alien (1979) had the corporate premise to preserve alien species for its weapon's division. This Silent Running (1972), Virtuosity (1995), The Truman Show (1998), Logan's Run (1976) amalgamation was too packed with ideas with too many characters (which was dealt with M.A.S.H television episodes fake-live interview format scenes as effectively as could have been expected). by the end, the culminating climax was a rather huge disappointment with some sort of psycho-virtual babble. This television movie wasn't without its exciting premise, its nice special effects and adherence to some strong scientific elements of space travel, and nice psychological atmospherics (like Sphere (1998) and Event Horizon (1997)). 6/10.

Virtuality is the pilot of yet another "Long voyage into space" series. It competes directly against Defying Gravity, another show in the same genre.

My first thought was that I would not want to trust my life into the hands of this crew. They're a bunch of wimps. I can not believe that they could possibly be the best that Earth would send on a trillion dollar space voyage. We have a crew of comfort junkies who are not even physically fit. The second officer and chief engineer is in a wheel chair. I am for affirmative action and reasonable accommodation as much as the next guy, but a space ship on a twelve year mission is not the place for a paraplegic. What if something goes wrong? So what are the "oh so lovey and oh so politically correct" cliché' gay couple doing on the ship? All I have seen them do is cook, cuddle and complain! And what about the girl who was using a video game on the ship's bridge while on duty? And that leads me to the next complaint. Our crew of futuristic video gamers clearly are having a major malfunction with their Nintendo WII. It's playing its own games with them, and those games involve their own deaths. As the Captain of the ship, I'd order everyone to surrender their 3D goggles and for the system to be used only for authorized and required functions that are directly related to furthering their mission. Instead, they keep on playing until I became oh so bored.

For the guy who hated it because it didn't have a satisfactory ending (amongst other complaints). Helllooo! It's a series and I think it left us exactly in the right place.

I was quite happy to see the entire two-hour PILOT despite the annoyance of commercials (love my DVDs). Virtual reality is a great science fiction theme. Star travel unaccompanied by starbursts as the ship goes into the (virtually) impossible FTL. Good riddance to warp drive.

I thought it one of the better efforts for straight-up SciFi on television.

I was bugged throughout trying to place the Commander, so came over here to IMDb to look it up. He played in another fun science fiction (more fantasy, but...) we enjoyed: Amsterdam.

I look forward to however much of the series they're willing to show us.

There is a quirk in the virtual reality simulation system of a long duration space craft which seems to be attacking the crew.

This is a sci-fi with quality production values and a solid cast but it never gets where it needs to go. There is a lot of time developing the characters and scene setting but the story arc is utterly incomplete. I think some of the other reviews have mentioned that this was supposed to act as a pilot for a TV series that never got picked up and it really feels that way because nothing gets resolved. There is a bunch of questions on the table at the end but no resolution, which is immensely frustrating.

This is nice to watch and not badly acted but in the end leaves a very sour taste for the incompleteness and lack of resolution.

reminds me of Harlan Ellison's "The Starlost", but also of sci-fi gems like "2001: A Space Odyssey", "Sunshine", "Solaris"...

first impression? Loved it!!! just brilliant! with wonderful characters that I felt deeply invested in - that by the time the gamechanger of an ending came I was left broken and demanding answers! that it just couldn't be!! I felt angry and a little bit betrayed. But mostly I wanted some explanation of what just happened. I didn't want to believe it at first. Then I understood the logistics of producing a Pilot - that sth had to grip you and sth needed to stand out amongst other new shows. On the other hand - this kind of storytelling - providing topics for discussion, for later pondering, for breaking each scene into little pieces of a great puzzle - this kind of storytelling is what I love most. I won't soon forget this little piece of art. please FOX give us more eps of this touching and ingenious new show.

This is a pilot for a cancelled TV series. If I had realised that, I may not have watched it. As it happens, I'm glad I did. This is the sort of science fiction I prefer. No ray-gun shoot-outs, just ideas (some confusing).

A big warning for those who dislike unresolved endings, this is about as bad as it gets. On the other hand, If you enjoy imagining what the writers intended for this series, have fun.

If anyone wonders what I made of it, I supposed the mission itself was virtual. The strange occurrences being intended to provoke confusion and conflict among the "crew". They were making a TV program after all.

I have one question. You are putting together the first interstellar mission. A mission whose success literally carries the fate of the entire Earth. This mission will put 10 people together in essential isolation, for a period of 10+ years. Given all these considerations, why would you choose 10 of the most immature, unstable, social outcasts that you could possibly find?

Beyond that, this movie is an excellent choice, if you want to catch up on your sleep. I kept waiting for something to actually happen, and just about the time it finally started to get interesting, the final credits appeared.

Being that this movie has an avg rating of a 6.8, I thought I'd give it a shot. Thank God I didn't pay to see it. It had several flaws that I noticed, but I ignored them to give the movie a chance. Then, without notice, the movie all of a sudden ended! I was like, WTF?? I had to come back on here just to read some reviews to see what the hell the story was. When I found out it was a made for TV movie, and the pilot to a TV series, it made a lot more sense. This movie just leaves you hanging. Many parts of it are totally unbelievable and there is no resolution whatsoever. If there were at least a few episodes after it in which you could pick the story up I may be a little less judgmental. All in all, I could have found something better to do with my time than watch this movie.

I didn't begin watching this with any preconceptions; I didn't even know about it until minutes before it aired when I saw it in evening program listings. I do love a GOOD science fiction yarn, though, so I watched it. I was not rewarded. It was unbearably formulaic, and THEN it ended suddenly, seemingly right in the middle of the plot! There was no reward for watching, no plot resolution, no moral to the story. Was this some sort of a sneaky cliff-hanger ending for a planned series? I could find no hint of that, neither in the program ending nor program listings nor even here at IMDb. Mercifully this was all there is of it, it seems.

I find it unbelievable that Fox would have the audacity to air this: Fox is the same network that first abused and disrespected and then canceled a far better science fiction series, "Firefly". What's worse, Fox has a history of doing this: "Space: Above and Beyond", "Keen Eddie", and others.

Then Fox turns around and tries to feed us this SF sewage. Peter Berg, I think, should focus on acting, and Fox should stick with the horrid reality shows and repulsive animated vulgarity that pays the bills.