Monday, July 13, 2009

"HARSH REALM": A TOOBWORLD SANCTUARY?

I've added the Chris Carter series 'Harsh Realm', based on a comic book, to my Netflix queue after reading this excerpt from John Kenneth Muir's overview of the series:

This "Harsh Realm" game - a simulated war scenario -- was created by the Pentagon in 1995. Utilizing information from satellite cartography and the latest U.S. Census, the war gamers have created a duplicate of America, down to every last location, person and even pet. But there's an important difference between the worlds. In this virtual version of America, a suitcase nuke was detonated in New York City at noon on October 31, 1995 ("Camera Obscura"). Four million Americans died in 2.5 seconds. "Ground Zero" was located... in Manhattan. The game developers hoped to test American military (and civilian peace-keeping) capabilities after such a catastrophic terrorist attack, but they never could have anticipated what occured next.

The link for John Kenneth Muir's site can be found to the left, virtual readers!

The world of Harsh Realm sounds complex enough so that we might consider it a new location in which TV shows can be placed, TV series which can't fit into Earth Prime-Time without creating a massive bleepload of Zonks.

First among these shows would be anything set in a post-apocalyptic world of the near future - 'Whoops', for example. That episode of 'The Twilight Zone' in which Burgess Meredith lost his glasses, "Time Enough At Last".

I won't speculate further on what other TV series could be relocated there until I've actually seen the series. But it does sound promising, a nice alternative to the same old same old - "create a new alternate dimension" - kind of option.

I'm even kind of hoping it might solve the niggling 'Hi Honey, I'm Home' Zonk effect....

Thanks for that essay, JKM!

BCnU!

2 comments:

John Kenneth Muir said...

Thanks for the Shout Out at Inner Toob!

And speaking of Toob connections, sort of [since it involves a movie...], I'm told that Sarah-Jane Redmond's Inga Fossa of Harsh Realm actually appears as Agent Fossa in the 2008 X-Files movie sequel, thus officially connecting the two Chris carter universes Hmmm...)

best,
John Kenneth Muir

Toby O'B said...

I've yet to see that, but it's currently in rotation on HBO. (At least it was, last time I checked.) So I'll have to check it out. Thanks, John Kenneth!