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Lt. Thomas Hobbes is preparing to settle down with his fiancée.
However, the military has one last assignment for him, which
takes him into Harsh Realm, a virtual-reality war game created
for combat training. His mission is to kill the dictator Omar
Santiago, who has taken over the simulated realm and is now
becoming a threat to the real world...
This
box set contains all nine episodes of the short-lived series,
which has never been seen before in the UK.
This
show is to Chris Carter what Firefly is to Joss Whedon.
Having created a runaway hit in the form of The X-Files
and enjoyed more modest success with Millennium,
the reaction to this VR venture seemed to be, "Hang on Chris,
what's this? Where's the spooky paranormal stuff?" Whether
you blame the viewing public for this attitude, or the network
for not supporting the show, is a matter of opinion. Joss
Whedon would similarly discover that, following the phenomenal
success of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the only slightly
less successful Angel, the reaction to his Firefly
was more or less, "Hang about Joss, where are the vampires
and demons?"
Harsh Realm was also the victim of some very bad timing.
Produced prior to the release of The Matrix but transmitted
shortly after the film's opening, the show could be mistaken
(and was) for a cheaper imitation of that groundbreaking movie.
Beyond the obvious similarity of the virtual-reality world,
which The Matrix cannot claim prior ownership of, Hobbes
is viewed by some of the realm's denizens as a prophesied
saviour. Like Neo, he is referred to as "the one". The use
of the Prodigy track "Climbatize" as incidental music during
the pilot episode also mirrors The Matrix's memorable
deployment of "Spybreak" by Propellerheads.
It's
a great shame that the show never caught on, because it has
a lot of things going for it, not least of which are the compelling
performances by Scott Bairstow as the honourable Hobbes and
D.B. Sweeney as his less scrupulous chum Mike Pinocchio. Such
"nice and nasty" partnerships have worked well before in telefantasy,
most notably in Blake's 7 (with Blake and Avon) and
V (Donovan and Tyler), and it works here too. The irony
behind Pinocchio's name is that, unlike the wooden toy who
longed to be a boy, D.B. Sweeney's character has no desire
to return to reality, preferring instead to remain within
the virtual world.
As with The X-Files, there appear to be two broad types
of Harsh Realm episode. The first three instalments,
Pilot, Leviathan and Inga Fossa, as well
as the eighth, Cincinnati are the series' equivalents
of "mythology" shows. They establish and develop major plot
arcs concerning the ruthless dictatorship of Omar Santiago
(Ten Thirteen stalwart Terry O'Quinn), and a conspiracy of
silence among the military of the real world with regard to
the existence of the Harsh Realm simulation. Yes, there's
a conspiracy - Chris Carter can't resist 'em!
Instead of "monster of the week" episodes, we have "phenomena
of the week" and "enemies of the week". The show proves to
be extremely versatile during its short run, giving us a sepia-toned
pseudo-World War II scenario in Kein Ausgang, spiritual
communication in Reunion, a technological Invasion
of the Bodysnatchers in Three Percenters, and future
predictions in the final episode Camera Obscura.
Extras
in this DVD set include a 25-minute documentary, Inside
Harsh Realm, and a fascinating 9-minute featurette on
the creation of the series' distinctive logo and title sequence.
The pilot episode is accompanied by a choice of commentaries
by Chris Carter and director Dan Sackheim.
Despite
its truncated run, it's well worth entering Harsh Realm.
Richard
McGinlay
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