Tag: virtual reality

Kiss Me First Season 1 Review (Spoiler Free)

~ Metacrone ~ 1 Comment

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Kiss Me First is a new Netflix/British Channel 4 series that is loosely based on Lottie Moggach’s 2014 debut novel of the same name. The six episode first season focusses on Leila (Tallulah Haddon), a young woman whose mother has just died, and Tess (Simona Brown), a mentally ill woman with a troubled history.

Both women escape from the difficulties of their lives using a ubiquitous gaming program called Azana Planet, but Tess, known as Mania within the game, has found her way into a hacked section of the program that’s set up as a private meeting space. It’s reserved for friends of a gamer who calls himself Adrian (Matthew Beard), who collects troubled young people and theoretically gives them what they need.

Eventually Leila, who goes by the name Shadowfax in the game, also finds her way into the private space. The club and its virtual clubhouse are known as Red Pill, for the pill Neo took to get out of the Matrix, rather than the Men’s Rights Activists’ delusion of choice. Before long, Leila suspects that Adrian isn’t as benign as the others thinks he is. Her real world investigation of Adrian involves the rest of the Red Pill members and becomes high stakes, as members start meeting sinister fates, one by one.

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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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Reverie Season 1 Episode 1: Apertus Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 1 Comment

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NBC’s Reverie is a new show starring Sarah Shahi (Person of Interest) as former hostage negotiator Mara Kint, who’s brought in by her former boss, Charlie Ventana (Dennis Haysbert, Allstate Insurance commercials) to help revive the comatose user of a new form of technology call Reverie, produced by Onira Tech. The tech creates virtual simulations within the patient’s own mind, making them indistinguishable from reality. It allows the users to bring back, and interact with, lost loved ones, and reenact favorite memories. Some users find the simulated reality better than real life, and try to stay inside Reverie forever. While they’re living out their fantasy life in the dreamworld, their bodies have slipped into comas.

Mara’s job is to enter the coma victim’s dreamworld and talk them out of their Reverie. Because of the nature of the tech, they be involuntarily removed, and once she’s in, neither can Mara. Each patient has a biotech implant that interfaces with their nervous system, allowing the Reverie to feel real, but making it harder to keep the patients safe when things go wrong.

Reverie (the product) was created by scientist Alexis Barrett (Jessica Lu, Awkward). Alexis also created the Jarvis-like AI that runs the Onira headquarters, Dylan. Dylan and Alexis have a past. Mara is trained in the use of Reverie, and her visits are monitored, by Oneirologist Paul Hammond (Sendhil Ramamurthy, Heroes). Oneirology is the scientific study of dreams. Kathryn Morris (Cold Case) plays Monica Shaw, a mysterious Department of Defense official who meets with Charlie to discuss the future of the project and its DoD is funding.

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New SciFi Show: NBC’s Reverie Starts Wednesday, 5/30 [Video]

~ Metacrone

Are we ready to take a chance on the next broadcast network scifi show? Reverie is created by Mickey Fisher (Extant, The Strain), executive produced by Steven Spielberg and stars Sarah Shahi (Person of Interest), Dennis Haysbert (Allstate car insurance commercials, President Palmer on 24), Jessica Lu (Awkward), Sendhil Ramamurthy (Heroes), and Kathryn Morris (Cold Case). That’s a pretty great pedigree.

NBC’s description of the show’s premise:

“This grounded new thriller follows Mara Kint (Sarah Shahi), a former hostage negotiator and expert on human behavior, who became a college professor after facing an unimaginable personal tragedy. But when her former boss, Charlie Ventana (Dennis Haysbert), brings her in to save ordinary people who have lost themselves in an immersive, highly advanced virtual reality program in which users can live out their wildest dreams, she finds that in saving others, she may actually have discovered a way to save herself.”

In one of the videos below, star Sarah Shahi describes it as “a psychological thriller set in a virtual reality world.”

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