The sci-fi drama, announced as an "event series",[2] deals with the dangers of politically motivated abuse of mass media technology and virtual realities in particular.

The series stars James Belushi, Dana Delany, Robert Loggia, Kim Cattrall, Bebe Neuwirth, David Warner, and Angie Dickinson.

Kreutzer's Channel 3 TV station is about to launch Church Windows, a VR sitcom that projects characters into viewers' homes using a system called Mimecom.

At night Wyckoff is plagued by strange dreams of a rhinoceros and a faceless woman who has palm trees tattooed on her body.

To his dismay, Harry learns that Coty is actually the son of Kreutzer and Paige and that her search request was a plot to bring him and the Senator together.

Coty becomes not only a TV star but also — due to his privileged upbringing and personal ruthlessness — a high-ranking member of the Church of Synthiotics.

The Fathers try unsuccessfully to defuse the situation by killing Eli and broadcasting a fake video that depicts Harry as Grace's killer.

ABC agreed to finance the project on a budget of $11 million, but, remembering the eventual decline of David Lynch's Twin Peaks, insisted that the series had "a complete story, with a beginning, a middle, and an end".

Actor James Belushi compared the series (among others) to the British TV serial The Prisoner, and stated: "It's very tough, very challenging—a lot of viewers probably won't dig it."

ABC, bound to make sure that viewers wouldn't lose attention, had a supplemental book, The Wild Palms Reader, published and offered a telephone hotline with the show's initial run.

[8] William Gibson later stated that "while the mini-series fell drastically short of the serial, it did produce one admirably peculiar literary artifact, The Wild Palms Reader" (to which he contributed).

[8][9] The United States of the year 2007 as depicted in the series shows a strong influence of Japanese culture, such as in dress and interior and exterior design.

[10] In addition to Ryuichi Sakamoto's music score, a number of 1960s rock and pop songs and classical compositions could be heard in the series.

"[1] Ken Tucker in Entertainment Weekly stated that "in its length, scope, sweeping visual tableaux, and over-the-top passion, Wild Palms is more like an opera than a TV show."

[12] TV Guide also blasted it, offering the interpretation that Oliver Stone was condemning television while covertly lauding cinematic films.