His wife has divorced him and taken another lover, his son is ensconced away in a private school in Europe and he has no job and a bad reputation as a TEK junkie and a cop killer the last of which is what got him thrown in CryoPrison. Jake Cardigan a former police officer starts the series being revived from a 15 year cryoprison sentence early to find his world turned upside down. That is why it is deadly, as these TEK experiences can not just be addictive but eventually cause neurological deficits, nerve damage, brain damage and eventually death. The drug is a futuristic VR hallucinogen that when active allows the user to experience whatever illusion he or she desires along with enhancing the users neurochemical processes. In this stylish future the world is plagued by the drug TEK. But again, that is a minor aside, what counts is the stories and the acting and Evigan and cast deliver good solid dialog with only a few winces (Rez-off) and cool cyber-noir story lines that would make effective reading if not filmed. This doesn't detract from the viewing experience, just makes this cyberpunk future a bit more heavy on the futuristic comfort rather than the 'beat it to fit and paint it to match' aesthetic of wrote cyberpunk. I like to call it Ikea-Tech as it has a subtle euro-Nordic influence to it's design sensibilities. Here the tech was high tech looking with colorful polished surfaces, metallic sheen and a slightly computer generated look to it's design. Granted the future was very stylish, not the beat-up grungy used and recycled vision of cyberpunk that visionaries like William Gibson and Bruce Sterling gave us in their novels. However the series taken from the four Universal Action Pack movies that aired in syndication months before the series debut was one of the most futuristic and visionary cyberpunk stories to air on television in the early/mid-nineties when VR and Cyberspace was beginning to become common buzzwords in the lexicon of the 90's. I would have given it more stars but for the simple fact that some scrimping had to be done in order to create the world of 2045.

Tekwar series