wintermuteΩ
[1986]
Despite the abstract setting and obscure vocabulary of William Gibson's Neuromancer, the novel's cult success spawned a handful of attempts at dramatization. All failed... mostly spectacularly wintermute, a spin-off television series launched in 1986 set entirely in an exorbitantly costly and brutally indecipherable analog rendition of cyberspace.
Although the show managed to distill the novel's somewhat convoluted plot into a slightly more conventional tragic adventure story, it was marred by a lack of conventional action and forward momentum. Ghost Hieroglyphs, the series' pilot episode, contains multiple extended sequences of an unintentionally glitchy digital ocean, the longest of which spans over 1 minute and 23 seconds. Creator Steven Bochco later disavowed participation in the development of wintermute after Ohio Valley test viewings resulted in aggressively negative audience reactions including two separate [possibly unrelated/bogus] episodes of induced seizure [1]. The series was subsequently never aired. Despite the profound fiscal and dramatic failure of wintermute, the project helped solidify creator Steven Bochco's reputation as a visionary in the field of experimental entertainment television. Unusual for a network program, the progressive rock group Octagon of Dex [2] was hired to score the entirety of the series, including the show's now iconic opening credit sequence [3]. Following the untimely cancellation of wintermute, the group released material composed for the show as part of its debut (and only) commercially released album [4].
- Ωref#[I, Antichrist] :: Ghost Hieroglyphs.