Electric Dreams

I was really excited to watch Stan's original Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams but after watching the series I feel like they should have taken PKD's name out of the title.

After realizing they changed a lot of the endings to his original stories it made sense why the plots of the episodes felt misguided and confusing. PKD is a very clear cut writer, granted his novels such as Do Android's Dream of Electric Sheep? are a little "Inception-Like" in that some things are left a little unclear but for the most part he has very concise and clear endings to his stories because he's trying to convey a meaningful message.

Many of the episodes of this series use his source material extremely loosely and seem to use the film adaptations of his books as inspiration more than his actual books making them feel more like general sci-fi themed stories than true PKD ones. I also can't help but think of Black Mirror while watching and it feels as though they're simply trying to recreate the feeling of that.

I appreciate the way they use 70's iconography and keep the future looking gritty and focusing on the negative applications advanced technology can have as well as the benefits. The bleak outlook he always had on literally everything especially relationships is also quite prominent. On a whole it sort of does feel like Philip K. Dick but it really could have done a lot better if it had simply stuck to the source material and kept the endings true to them. For instance "Impossible Planet" had a much better ending in his story than the show tried to come up with, I get that the creators want to have some fun but if you're taking directly off of a master and then only changing a few things around you're going to fail since it was already great to begin with, that's why it's so well known. As they say, if it ain't broke don't fix it.

There can be no denying that on first look this episode of Electric Dreams borrows heavily from the likes of Blade Runner, Black Mirror, Children of Men... etc, but of course the source material for this provides inspiration for the aforementioned titles, and so it's get an originality pass in my book.

A key feature for me with sci-fi is the dealing with the creation of alternate universes, where key events change the course of evolution. On this front the episode succeeds within that premise. There have been many mediocre sci-fi presentations that have come and gone - set up with weaker writing and concepts, and possibly better acting (though I will give a special exception to Holliday Grainger, who put in a very good performance). If the future world is unconvincing, however, it drags the performances down. I felt it was convincing enough here.

In summary, is definitely worth a watch, and look forward to other episodes within the series - it's a short story and it's designed to make you think where the themes could possibly go within the world that's been created. And as such, it's succeeded. A test of it's success is that I'd have been quite happy seeing where the world would have progressed after the end scenes. A solid start.

I've read several critics' reviews comparing this show to Black Mirror as if it fails in comparison. I don't think that's accurate. Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams is visually, thematically and, most importantly, narratively interesting. What is real or normal? What makes a human? Meanwhile, there are at least 2 episodes from S4 of Black Mirror that don't measure up to what I've seen so far in Electric Dreams, and apparently I've been watching the dud episodes, per critics' reviews.

Does everything need to have some heightened level of abstraction to be interesting? I don't think so; straightforward storytelling with very good actors set in a world that's different than my own that makes me think is good enough for me.

Worth your time.

This is an anthology series based on the works of futurist sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick. It's ten episodes switching back and forth between American production and British. Despite loving the Blade Runner franchise, I don't think I've ever read his work. This has a darker tone. Some of the British ones remind me of Black Mirror which was probably the original intent. It's a murky hit-and-miss proposition. I don't know about the Philip K. Dick part. His name is useful for selling this. It has some good sci-fi ideas. I like the darker tones but the lighter tones is awkward at times.

I'm going into this without much knowledge of Philip K Dick and the whole Black Mirrors series (and really enjoying it). I have to say I really like this show. It has interesting stories, some could probably use a little more than 50 minutes to get a better grasp at the characters and the story to really make an impact. But with how they are, they are well done. The cast is amazing, full of well known actors and actresses. The episodes were beautifully shot, so from an aesthetic stand point, it was nice to watch. The stores are interesting sci-fi, leaving me with something to think about, rather than just thinking "well that's pretty cool." I think if you go into this not comparing it to Black Mirrors, you will enjoy it. If you compare, you will more than likely be disappointed, well, because it's not Black Mirrors. Both shows, in my opinion, are very well done, so I won't say one is better than the other. If you love sci-fi and the Twilight Zone feel, you will like this.