Tag: Reverie

NBC Cancels Reverie Plus Other TV News Items

~ Metacrone

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News on Reverie, The Passage (Video), Manifest, People’s Sexiest Man Alive (Video) and Syfy’s Deadly Class (Video)

NBC announced today that Reverie, the Sarah Shahi virtual reality thriller, has been cancelled after one season. The show premiered May 30, 2018 and struggled in the ratings during its 10 episode run.

Reverie also starred Dennis Haysbert, Sendhil Ramamurthy, Jessica Lu and Kathryn Morris. Extant creator Mickey Fisher was the creator and showrunner.

Sendhil Ramamurthy has already moved on to a new show, one of the fall season’s hits, New Amsterdam. Congrats to him.

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Reverie Season 1 Episode 10: Point of Origin Recap and Season 1 Analysis/Review

~ Metacrone

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This episode is a nightmare. Oliver finds ways to threaten Reverie in the real world and the virtual world, and threatens Mara and Alexis besides. He’s the worst ex-boyfriend and ex-coworker ever. Both Alexis and Mara spend a significant amount of time dealing with tragic deaths they thought they’d already dealt with. And almost all of my theories and predictions are proven wrong, which is a sad, sad turn of events. The double agents and spies on this show always turn out to be low-level security guards and the like, which is no fun at all.

If Reverie gets a season 2, I hope they fill out their cast of regular and recurring characters more, and bring some complexity to all of the characters. I love the Onira Tech gang, but as it stands, Oliver is the only one who feels like a real human being with the full range of contradictory emotions and reactions. The rest of the regulars are always under control, even when they aren’t or shouldn’t be.

Mara has emotions, but she tries hard to be good. That’s why it feels so wrong to me that Mara talked Ray into shooting himself. Even when she was a down and out alcoholic, she was still a sweet, supportive teacher. Where has her mean streak been all season?

Let’s move on and find out how the writers decided to end the season, since they didn’t use any of my ideas. 😜😜

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Reverie Season 1 Episode 9: The Key

~ Metacrone ~ 1 Comment

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Mara continues her very bad day in this episode, trying to sort out how much of her life is real and how much is frighteningly real hallucination. Oliver, the king of blurred reality, takes over the medical wing and Alexis’ attention for seemingly benign reasons, but this is Oliver. He’s a manipulative, spurned genius and nothing will ever be simple with him. Nothing is ever as simple as it seems with Charlie either, and he’s all over this episode, intervening with Oliver and Alexis, and interrupting Paul and Mara to drop a bombshell.

The episode begins with Charlie arriving at Mara’s apartment not long after she’s figured out that she’s dating a hallucination. Paul and Alexis are already there. Paul’s making tea, because he’s a good boyfriend coworker, and as far as I can tell the Brits make tea in response to every life event. I support this habit.

Charlie has Mara tell her story in detail, but she leaves the derealization sex out. That kind of intense physical hallucination probably should be reported, but I understand her need for privacy. It protects Paul’s heart as well, so let’s keep his dreams alive for as long as possible.

Charlie and Paul try to reassure Mara that she’s safe and they’ll work it out. Mara jumps out of her seat to tell Paul that she’s done everything she was supposed to do, everything he told her to do, but she’s far from okay. Mara doesn’t even know if the rest of the team are really there. Everyone looks sad and guilty, but it’s Alexis, of all people, who responds. It’s the most warmth we’ve ever seen from her.

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Reverie Season 1 Episode 8: Despedida Recap

~ Metacrone

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This week, Mara learns about love, in a small South American town, or at least the Reverie version of the town. She learns that love isn’t always as simple and straight forward as it seems, and can endure in unexpected ways. As is usual, the lesson applies to her own life as well.

Mara wakes up in the morning after episode 7 and Chris is still in her apartment. She asks him if he thinks this is a good idea. They go back and forth a minute, then she realizes she’s overthinking it. Chris says he’s good, Mara says she is too, and they decide everything is okay.

An elderly woman, Pilar Simonet, who lives in an assisted living facility, looks at her dreary life and decides that today is the day she’ll try her Reverie. She says “Apertus” as fast as she can when a staff member discovers her with her tablet. She wakes up young and beautiful in a small South American village where everyone is friendly.

At Onira, Mara and Charlie meet with Jack Selve, executive director of Shady Pines Assisted Living, who is NOT OKAY with his residents using Reverie. They’re supposed to be engaged with each other and life, not technology. Why, Pilar is such a bad girl that she’s missing a treatment for her terminal lung cancer today, plus physical therapy and meals. She’s apparently been sneaking time in Reverie for 2 weeks, and her health has worsened because of it.

Maybe if the staff of Shady Pines treated her like an adult it would help.

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Reverie Season 1 Episode 7: The Black Mandala Recap

~ Metacrone

In episode 7, we get our first real taste of what the military intends to use Reverie for and the capabilities of Dark Reverie adaptations to the program. Mara is sent into a hostile Reverie for the first time, and experiences physical consequences. The team work together to support Mara as she saves a boy from an unjust fate.

At the start of the episode, Paul and Mara are together in Reverie 2.0 on a date, where Mara is helping Paul learn to fly. After he comes in for a soft landing, Paul leaves through his door in the library. Before Mara can leave, a new door appears, and she, like Alice, can’t resist following the White Rabbit to see where she ends up.

Where she ends up looks like an empty underground parking garage, but she hears someone screaming in the distance. Mara follows the sound and finds a young man, Ehmet, locked in a room and handcuffed to a chair. Ehmet doesn’t know that he’s in a Reverie. He was kidnapped, blindfolded and driven somewhere in a van. He blacked out, then woke up where he is now.

Mara explains that he’s in a virtual reality simulation. Ehmet thinks she’s lying. He’s being questioned about an attack on an airbase by someone who claims to be US military and called him an enemy combatant. They won’t let him eat or leave until he tells them what they want to hear.

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Reverie Season 1 Episode 6: Pas de Deux Recap

~ Metacrone

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This week Mara helps a dancer who’s unable to envision her life without dancing, but who’s lost the ability to dance after a devastating bicycle accident. Mara’s patient has gotten lost in her Reverie, reenacting the best parts of her life and the experiences she wishes she could have had. Saving Holly reunites Mara with Chris, the psychiatrist who was her boyfriend before her family’s murders. In her grief, she shut him out. Now, she has to deal with him in a professional capacity, and face the hurt she caused him by pulling away from their romantic relationship 19 months ago.

Holly is a former dancer who is now paralyzed and uses a wheelchair. She lives with her sister, Vivian, who is also a dancer. While her sister runs a dance studio and lives a busy life, Holly spends her days in Reverie dancing in an empty theatre. At the beginning of the episode, Holly spends too long in Reverie and needs to be brought into Onira Tech’s medical wing.

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Reverie Season 1 Episode 5: Altum Somnum Recap

~ Metacrone

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This week’s episode starts with a boom, then a crash and a fireball. During the cold opening, we watch people come and go for a minute before a terrorist explodes a bomb in an office building lobby. Mara will be asked to trick information out of a dying woman who was injured in this explosion.

Mara is getting coffee in the Onira Tech break room when Charlie finds her and tells her to come with him. He gives her no explanation for why he wants her, and just happens to have an armed military guard with him. Mara is understandably freaked out.

Dennis Haysbert has one of the great actor voices of all time, as we all know, and he can use it for good or evil. Can you imagine having your boss tell you to come with him and an armed guard, with that voice, and what you’d think if he didn’t add something like, “It’s not about you”? I’d be having a heart attack. Terrible boss move, Charlie.

Monica, Alexis, and Paul are also in Charlie’s office, so either the entire senior staff is in trouble, or it’s about something else. Alexis is playing on her phone, because she doesn’t believe in showing emotions, no matter what. Paul is playing Grumpy Cat and moral compass. It’s Monica’s meeting, and she’s all business, despite the temperature of the room.

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Reverie Season 1 Episode 4: Blue Is the Coldest Color Recap

~ Metacrone

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This week’s episode picks up right where last week’s last off, with Mara in her sister’s burning apartment. As it burns, the apartment, and Derealization Ghost Brynn, shatter and dissolve away from Mara, leaving her standing in the middle of the street with a car about to run her down. A man jumps in and pushes her to the side of the road, just in time.

Mara is left stunned, trying to figure out what’s real and what isn’t, as she clutches the grass she’s lying on. The man who saved her introduces himself as Oliver Hill and says they need to talk. He also needs to eat, so they go to a diner.

At the diner, Oliver explains that he started Onira Tech with Alexis. He’s the brain part of the brain computer interface, or BCI, and Alexis is the computer. Oliver fidgets nervously with his Zippo lighter as he eats. Mara can tell that he should be on psych meds, but he says that he isn’t. Oliver says that despite what Paul told her, they don’t help with Reverie 2.0 derealizations, so he stopped taking them.

Oliver tells Mara that he’s been keeping an eye on her situation for a while, because before her, he was the person who had spent the most time in 2.0. Because of that, he knows that she’s in danger of losing her mind. He’s been stuck going in and out of derealizations for years, without being sure which is real. Sometimes he burns himself to figure out if he’s in reality or not.

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Reverie Season 1 Episode 3: No More Mr. Nice Guy Recap

~ Metacrone

 

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This week, our story begins with a bank heist, the fantasy of young father-to-be Nate Hallo. He’s lounging at home for his Reverie, but his wife is frantic to get him out of his typical male ego trip of a fantasy.

As she gets ready for work in the morning, Mara, who must be the calmest, nicest person on the planet, talks with the derealization ghost of her dead niece, Brynn. She let Brynn back into her brain at the end of last week’s episode, despite Paul’s instructions to avoid encouraging the visions. Brynn is accommodating, but stone-faced, until the conversation is interrupted by Mara’s ringing phone. Mara didn’t find out much about why and how Brynn is there before the phone rang and she disappeared.

Of course it’s Charlie on the phone, asking Mara to consult on Nate’s case. Nate’s wife, Annie, is suing Reverie because Nate has been using the product addictively for the last 4 months, to the point where it’s ruining their lives. Annie’s lawyer, Daniel Baez, explains that Nate’s lost his job and the couple are in so much debt that they’re about to lose their home due to the overwhelming amount of time Nate spends in Reverie.

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Reverie Season 1 Episode 2: Bond. Jane Bond. Recap

~ Metacrone

In this week’s of episode Reverie, Mara visits a spy fantasy created by a woman with a previously unknown heart condition. Both her real and metaphorical hearts are hurting. While Rachel’s Reverie was only supposed to be for fun, the program picked up on her underlying issues and included them in the game aspect of her fantasy. Unlike last week’s Reverie, Rachel needs to solve her issues in the real world. Mara acts as support and guide, trying to get Rachel to accept reality as quickly as possible.

Along the way, we learn more about how Reverie works and about the team. The story is heartwarming with a dash of excitement, but the stakes are low. We know Mara’s not going to fail this early in the series.

Rachel Kauffman is looking for an adventure in her Reverie, since she’s been suffering from depression in real life. She wants some excitement to help kickstart her life. She enters Reverie through the gorgeous rounded library we saw last week and is thrilled to see her new look, complete with a change in hair style and color. She steps through the door to start her adventure, and enters a stylish hotel bar. Before long, she’s approached by Keystone, the contact from spy agency, who hands her a phone with her target displayed: Vater (not Darth Vader, which becomes a running joke), who’s a scientist that’s developing a bioweapon that he wants to sell to the highest bidder.

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