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.

This show was a fantastic show, but it''s biggest flaw is that it was just too intelligent for the average Desperate Housewives watcher. It's not a reality show, it's not even really an action show. It's a thinking show-- they mention one thing very briefly in one episode and if you weren't paying attention the next four episodes don't make sense.As one user alluded to, this is not a show about virtual reality or technology, it's more about how this woman discovers her own past through that technology. Sydney Bloom is not who she believes she is-- her past is riddled with lies, deceits, and just plain blank spots. Though this virtual reality device, she begins uncovering who she really is, and subsequently her own family's past as well.Some of it is the Matrix BEFORE the Matrix: in this virtual world, Sydney can do anything: she need only learn how to control it. As I saw this programme first, I always felt that the Matrix stole quite a bit of some of the theory. But no matter.If this programme ever comes on DVD, it's worth whatever price they fix. The cast is brilliant (I always loved Duncan) and my poor ten year old tapes just don't hold up anymore!! They've started breaking from overuse.This show is not your run of the mill sci-fi junkie stupid predictable programme. It's weird-- too weird for most people, which was why it was cancelled. It's intelligent-- like the New Battle Star Galactica, they do not hand feed you with over-explanation. It is subtle and you have to pay attention. This is both it's biggest strength and it's biggest weakness.It's a fantastic show, and if you ever get the opportunity to see it, it's utterly brilliant.maddy

When I first saw this show I was in sixth grade, and it scared me more than anything else I had ever scene. It was the pilot episode and the main character, Sydney, had just taken her mother into her dream world, where the mother freaked out. I had nothing better to do on a friday night, but I avoided the show until one night I had a sleep over and my two friends were channel surfing and they found the show, and we all loved the episode (Escape) soooo much we had sleep overs every friday until it was canceled just to see more.The idea of a dream world, and how everything you ever read/imagined/saw all of your subconscious could become true was to me "the coolest thing ever". When I finally got to see the whole series I began to wonder why it was pulled off the air, yes sometimes the plot was not the greatest, the episodes were sometimes VERY strange, but there was this amazing quality about it, it was original, it was real (character wise), and it explored something we all wonder about, our dreams.As time goes by I go back and watch the episodes over and over and they have become better. I now know and understand more of the references, ideas, relationships, it has a deepness A sixth grader could never fully understand no matter how much they loved the show. If you get a chance I believe you should give the show a try.

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.