I'm currently on a trip to watch older TV shows I find interesting (sci-fi, horror, mystery, etc.) which I couldn't watch back in the day. I came across VR.5 and found the premise interesting. The whole "entering someone's unconscious by the means of telephone and virtual reality" got my interest peaked.Pretty much every 90s cliché you can think of is presented here - the main character has a mysterious past where the relatives may or may not be dead. The memories may or may not be fake. The main character lives in a loft. She has a childhood friend/neighbour who is all-alternative, reads books, knows the wisdom of many wise men, doesn't work but can still afford an apartment and a car. There is a shadowy organisation that may or may not be the enemy, but who the main character works for. She has a "keeper", who brings her new assignments but who also has a tragic/troubled past of his own. You name it, it's there.The acting is, well, mediocre at best. Lori Singer is sleepwalking through the show and is hardly someone you will care for. Michael Easton mumbles some barely audible words (I wonder if his character was written this way or if he is always like this), Anthony Head, Louise Fletcher and David McCallum are utterly wasted in this.For me the worst part is the writing. You see, in the mid-90s many people didn't even know what Internet (called Cyberspace then) is, and here's a show throwing terms and ideas at an audience not prepared for it. The technology needed a bit more explaining to make it more convincing or at least help to suspend the disbelief. A couple of rewrites from more competent writers could have saved the show.There was a good show here with some good ideas buried under pretentious and cliché-filled writing and un-engaging characters. Still, I am glad I watched it and if it ever comes out on a DVD, I would grab a copy just as a time capsule of 90s sci-fi VR show.

A few episodes of this show were displayed in the VERY late section of Egyptian Channel 2 TV (3:00 AM). And I've been looking for it everywhere since then! I find these series much better than many other popular science fiction ones. They had a special 'atmosphere' to them that cannot be found in mainstream science fiction series. This and the 80's 'Twilight Zone' are my most favourite. Too bad it was discontinued

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.

VR.5 is an excellent show which went unnoticed by general public and network executives who feel that the show was too 'unconventional' for their taste. The show stars Lori Singer ("Short Cuts"), Michael Easton, Will Patton ("Armageddon", "Entrapment"), Anthony Head ("Buffy The Vampire Slayer"), Tracey Needham ("JAG"), and occasional guest appearances by Louise Fletcher ("Deep Space Nine"), and David McCallum ("The Man from UNCLE").The show is actually more about exploration of subconscious mind and human's brain and DNA rather than the virtual reality technology which becomes the title of the show. However, virtual reality is the tool that the main character uses to explore the different subconscious mind of other people. It also cleverly mixed in the conspiracy angle of an unknown organisation who wishes to utilise the newfound technology for their own purposes. Unfortunately, after its first season, the show was canceled (even though it is now repeated on the Science-Fiction Channel) and the actors have moved into other projects, most notably Anthony Head in Buffy Tv Series and Will Patton in Armageddon and the soon to be released, Entrapment.Rep Detec