VR.5, "Pilot"

''"Pilot." VR.5.'' FOX-TV. 10 March 1995. Pilot episode of the series. Thania St. John, script. Michael Katleman, dir.

Heroine goes "into the machine," initially by accident, entering a world of VR (virtual reality) and wish-fulfilment, plus some nightmare elements. In a VR conversation, she tells her mother: "It's like I can bring another person into my dreams. I create the setting, but I can't control what happens in it." When she "wakes up" she remembers, but the other person just recalls the feelings. Her mother responds: "You've tapped into the subconscious." Imagery is of a high-tech descent moving into a dream inside the machine. The heroine is recruited at episode's end by "the Committee." Cf. and contrast the "dream machine" in Le Guin's novel and the PBS movie THE LATHE OF HEAVEN (film 1979/80), and both simstim and cyberspace in William Gibson's Neuromancer trilogy.