Harsh Realm

Review By: Jeff Wilser
JeffWilser@TheCinemaSource.com

Sci-fi is a genre that’s widely scorned. You think sci-fi and you think of high school dorks eating pizza, playing Dungeons & Dragons, and debating who’s the better Starfleet commander—Captain Kirk or Captain Picard. (“Dude, c’mon, Kirk was the only one to ever beat the no-win scenario test!”) Once in a long while, though, something comes along that transcends the genre. Through compelling storytelling, rich characters, and a thoughtful exploration that is almost philosophical, some sci-fi shows can hold any demographic spellbound.

Harsh Realm isn’t one of them. Created by X-Files honcho Chris Carter, Harsh Realm was cancelled in 1999 after airing just three episodes. It’s easy to see why. In one of the DVD extras, Carter asserts that Fox canceled the show “for no good reason.” Then, in the next breath, he complains that his show hadn’t yet found an audience. I’m no network executive, but isn’t that a pretty good reason for canceling a show? (He also says the show was “under-watched.” Ah. I see the distinction. Does that make a bum “under-employed?”)

Flash forward five years. After watching the property collect dust, the suits at 20th Century Fox released the entire series on DVD, including episodes 4-9, which never aired on television. So the truth is out there, and here it is: Harsh Realm, though it looks great, and while it serves up a premise that will delight any card-carrying fan of science fiction, is ultimately barren of the main reason we watch tv shows week after week: well-drawn, engaging characters. It’s smart. It’s sleek. But there’s no emotional core. Imagine The X-Files without Mulder. (In fact, this happened, and when it did, the show died a slow and painful death).

So what is Harsh Realm, exactly? Loosely speaking, it’s a cross between The X-Files, The Matrix, The Twilight Zone, and Escape from New York. As far as source materials go, that’s not bad. More specifically, Harsh Realm is a top-secret game of virtual reality, created by the military for training purposes, but a game that has spun out of control and is essentially a parallel universe. The world of Harsh Realm is a mirror image of our own, but a darker one that has somehow gone terribly wrong. (Imagine the Republican National Convention.)

The hero of this doomed series, Lt. Thomas Hobbes, played by simple-but-good-hearted-country-boy-looking Scott Bairstow, is sent by the Army to enter this virtual world. He is instructed to find and kill the rogue solider Major Santiago (Terry O’Quinn, one of many X-Files alums), who has taken the game hostage. Once inside this “game,” Hobbes realizes that he’s been misled, the stakes are real, and that he can’t leave until he kills Santiago. The parallel world of Harsh Realm is a post-apoplectic dystopia, with ...