Alexis Barrett (Jessica Lu) is testing her new virtual reality computer program Reverie but a few users have started falling into comas. Former police chief Charlie Ventana (Dennis Haysbert) hires his former hostage negotiator Mara Kint (Sarah Shahi) to retrieve these users lost in their own minds. She is still struggling with a personal lost. Paul Hammond (Sendhil Ramamurthy) is the program designer. Monica Shaw (Kathryn Morris) is the greedy suit who pushes for more nefarious uses.
The pilot makes this seems like a limited sci-fi procedural. Its limitations make it dull. The virtual reality world strains to be imaginative when it can't be more than a TV projection. The weak pilot basically sinks the show before it has a chance. It does get better with some espionage intrigue and a darker conspiratorial villainy. That stuff needs to be pushed earlier into the pilot or at the latest, the second episode. It needs the dark antagonist to give the show the narrative propulsion. It's missing that drive in the first few episodes. The characters are fine and the actors are solid. It just needed to start with a bang rather than a fizzle.
The pilot makes this seems like a limited sci-fi procedural. Its limitations make it dull. The virtual reality world strains to be imaginative when it can't be more than a TV projection. The weak pilot basically sinks the show before it has a chance. It does get better with some espionage intrigue and a darker conspiratorial villainy. That stuff needs to be pushed earlier into the pilot or at the latest, the second episode. It needs the dark antagonist to give the show the narrative propulsion. It's missing that drive in the first few episodes. The characters are fine and the actors are solid. It just needed to start with a bang rather than a fizzle.