Has VIRTUALITY just been “Foxed”?

As several of you have emailed us to point out, Fox did their TCA presentation in Los Angeles the other day, and BATTLESTAR fans (as well as those poor Whedon fans) are soaking up a short but ominous statement by Fox exec Kevin Reilly about the 2-hour pilot for Ron Moore and Michael Taylor’s new SciFi show VIRTUALITY:

"It could air as is, and there's a certain segment of the audience that would flip over it, but it is, I think, right now a little bit too dense," Reilly said. "They shot a two-hour pilot, and I think the storytelling probably would have been served as a one-hour, so they're going in, and they're recutting, and we're going to look at it. It's pretty cool."

As we have mentioned before, there are signs on the wall that Fox has lost their appetite for this adventurous and smart pilot, even though they seemed excited about the great script that went into production last summer. Meanwhile, Fox is completely reshooting the pilot for another SciFi show they had been even more excited about publicly, BOLDLY GOING NOWHERE.

Are BSG fans getting their first taste of yet another case of a cool new sci-fi show “getting Foxed”? (Whedon fans: please don’t start crying, I can’t take it anymore. Seriously.)

It will be a darned frakkin shame if this project doesn’t make it to air. The script we got our hands on last year was pretty terrific and definitely something BSG fans will be interested in. Is Fox’s recent recommitment to SFF programming wavering already? Let’s hope not. And if they dump VIRTUALITY? Well…it sure would be great if HBO did a Sci-Fi show…look what they just did with vampires.


Meanwhile, Televisionary has procured an exclusive statement from Michael Taylor responding to this TCA news:

"Ron and I think the show is great as is. A lot of people definitely would dig it, and not just the Battlestar audience; this could have an even wider appeal, and as a network show it should. And we've also already cut it down quite a bit from its original two-hour run time to satisfy network concerns about pace and to prune some storylines.

But at the same time, Reilly's right about it being a little dense. It's dense in the same way Battlestar was/is, in that it introduces a bunch of complex, intriguing characters, along with a compelling sci-fi scenario with several layers to it. In other words, it's dense in the way good science fiction often is. The pilot puts a bunch of balls in the air but I think it does a great job of juggling those balls and setting up the scenario up in a way that makes it easy for the audience to understand without having to be hit over the heads with a lot of heavy-handed exposition. That said, it's definitely challenging material, the kind of story you need and want to pay attention to, especially in the pilot. But to us that's what made it so much fun to create, and what will ultimately pay off in series, by allowing us to tell exciting layered stories in the mold of shows like Lost (and Battlestar, of course)…”

What about you, dear readers? As some of you know, the pilot script was recently made available at SpoilerTV for anyone to see. Have you read it, and what did you think?