Harsh Realm plot details? No way!
By: Les Bazso

Chris Carter uses speculative science to tell allegorical stories.

The more you ask Chris Carter about the plot of his new TV show Harsh Realm, the more cagey he gets.

"I'm being a bit cryptic, because already I've got spoilers on the Internet, who are trying to spoil our secrets," says Carter during a break in filming.

The pilot episode concerns a small group of soldiers who spend some time in Sarajevo, circa 1994, and encounter a computer-generated world that parallels our own. After that, the details get sketchy.

"It's a virtual-reality idea that takes place in two worlds," says Carter. "This world and another, virtual world."

Harsh Realm is Carter's adaptation of a comic book about a private eye, who searches a virtual reality world for a missing teenager. The comic series surfaced only briefly in the early '90s but it struck a chord with Carter. "I've taken off from the comic book," says Carter.

"We took the name and the idea of a virtual world. We just turned it into a TV series and changed some elements."

Carter's downbeat Millennium never really caught fire with the mainstream TV audience the way The X-Files did but he figures Harsh Realm will press more viewer buttons.

"There'll be something for everyone, it's a very romantic show," he says. "It's got old-fashioned heroes in it, good dramatic situations, against a backdrop of the military and war."

The series stars Scott Bairstow, D.B. Sweeney and Max Martini, along with Samantha Mathis and Rachel Hayward (Katie wonders about Chris Carter's fascination with the name Samantha...).

"There are two very strong female characters," says Carter. "Samantha's role is one that spans both the worlds that I was talking about -- I can't say much more. Rachel plays what I would call a very strong healer."

What about bad guys? Carter won't say, but Terry O'Quinn, who played the blowed-up FBI bomb expert in the big-screen X-Files movie, is in Harsh Realm as an officer gone all Heart of Darkness.

Carter's fascination with helicopters is brought over from The X-Files -- Harsh Realm's cast and crew spent a couple of days playing with guns and military-style choppers in Surrey -- but there are no black oil or bees to be seen.

And why does Carter keep coming back to science fiction?

"The X-Files and Millennium are both big-canvas shows," he says.

"They deal with questions of religion, existence and philosophy. You have the potential to tell stories that are allegorical to our own existence.

"Science fiction -- what I would prefer to call speculative science -- is a fertile ground in which to tell those stories."

Harsh Realm's military setting also gives an outlet to talk about world politics, Carter says.

"I'll be able to comment on just how screwed up everything is."