Pilot (Harsh Realm)

Infobox Television episode
Title="Pilot"
Series=Harsh Realm
Season=1
Episode=1
Airdate=October 8, 1999
Production=101
Writer=Chris Carter
Director=Daniel Sackheim
Guests=Michael David Simms
Jose Vargas
Lance Henriksen
Gillian Anderson
Prev="none"
Next=Leviathan

Pilot is the first episode the short-lived Fox science-fiction action series "Harsh Realm".

Plot synopsis

After seeing the horrors of war in Sarajevo, Lt. Thomas F. Hobbes (Scott Bairstow) is ready to settle down with his fiancé, Sophie (Samantha Mathis). However, the Army has one last assignment for him: to test Project Harsh Realm, a virtual reality created by the military for combat training. Under the instruction of an enigmatic woman named Inga Fossa (Sarah-Jane Redmond), Hobbes agrees to do the military one last favor and compete with the reigning Lord of the Realm.

However once inside Harsh Realm, Hobbes soon finds himself fighting for his life in a post-Apocalyptic version of America in which a nuclear bomb detonated in New York City in 1995. He forms an alliance with another soldier, Mike Pinochio (D. B. Sweeney), who is uninterested in helping this new recruit. But a mysterious woman named Florence (Rachel Hayward) believes that Hobbes is to be Harsh Realm's savior and will deliver the virtual characters from under the oppression of Omar Santiago (Terry O'Quinn), the military dictator who rules over Harsh Realm.

Hobbes realises that the only way to escape Harsh Realm is to beat the highest scoring player, Santiago, who is unwilling to give up his kingdom. Hobbes's mission now is to escape Harsh Realm by any means necessary to return home to his fiancé.

Trivia

* "Inga Fossa" is Latin for "in the trench."

Allusions

* Tom Hobbes is named for a 17th Century philosopher.
* Mike Pinocchio is not named for the Carlo Collodi character, but for a childhood baseball friend of Chris Carter.
* Flornece is named for a 19th Century nurse and statistician.
* Hobbes's dog Dexter is named after Dexter Green, the protagonist of the "Harsh Realm" limited-run comic on which the series was loosely based.
* The early scene in which the unnamed generals explain Hobbes' mission over dinner is a reference to a similar scene in 1979 Francis Ford Coppola film "Apocalypse Now".