I really enjoyed “Real Life” and I think the questions that arise are great fun. Philip K. Dick loved endings that made you argue and discuss what was real and what wasn’t. I also thought “Autofac” was very well done (and I always love seeing Janelle Monae). I wasn’t all that much of a fan of “Human Is” - maybe it needs a sequel to explore its themes in more detail? I saw “Crazy Diamond” last night and thought it fairly decent but not great.
In addition, each episode has been absolutely gorgeous to look at (especially in 4k HDR). Crazy Diamond, specifically, looked utterly fantastic!
My understanding was that she told Sally that Ed was going to leave her and run away with Jill, leaving Sally there to deal with their house collapsing and dying alone
That’s how I felt! Cheap, more recent Outer Limits too, with pretty bad acting and cheap plots. The two episodes I saw (Impossible Planet and the one with Bryan Cranston) were just really hard to relate to for some reason. The stories I saw lack the nuance of Black Mirror or the Twilight Zone.
I understood none of this episode. Steve Buscemi was in it and that was nice. But other than that, I’m not sure what happened and I want that hour of my life back.
Was the kid’s vest supposed to be sort of an homage to Stranger Things with its color scheme and 80s appearance, as well as the general “kids discover something” theme of the episode?
I think in general the show is similar to Black Mirror in terms of the scenarios that it sets up, but less similar in terms of the way the plot progresses. The “world-building” aspect is similar to Black Mirror and very good. With each new episode, you feel immersed in the setting and whatever technological contrivance it revolves around.
“Wow! What an intriguing concept!” I say to myself with each episode.
However, that’s where the similarity ends. The episodes of Electric Dreams are much more opaque in terms of their narrative, where as Black Mirror is pretty straightforward. The Electric Dreams episodes are frequently confusing and they don’t always have a sense of direction the way that the episodes of Black Mirror do.
Black Mirror is heavy on existential horror and the idea of people or consciousnesses being trapped in some horrific scenario, the old I Have No Mouth / The Jaunt scenario. Almost to the point where you expect it to happen in every episode. And Black Mirror almost always has what I’d describe as an OHHHH SHIIIIIIT moment…some kind of shocking twist with hard-hitting emotional impact. Electric Dreams just isn’t written this way.
Since no one else has pointed this out, I will. I’m pretty sure that the face of the partially-completed robot that turns around during the opening credits is that of Dick himself.
Clearly it is supposed to look like Dick. In this, it’s similar to the shot in the 2005 movie of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy where Douglas Adam’s face appears on a planet. It also reminds me of the robotic head built to look like Dick, which you can read about in How to Build an Android: The True Story of Philip K. Dick’s Robotic Resurrection by David F. Dufty
Hell, hands down the most fascinating/ teasing/ interesting 1.5 seconds of the entire opening sequence is the profile shot of the pregnant man seen through a window, seen here at the :28-30 second mark.
I’m befuddled - the last 15 seconds didn’t hold any significance for me. Just the natural finish after the drama of the last 10 minutes and the decision he made, no? What did that spoil for you?
As far as I can tell, the individual shots in the opening sequence have nothing to do with the series except to establish that it’s about weird stuff. A close-up of an eyeball in bright artificial colors, a group of robots floating in the lobby in a modernist building, butterflies around a light, five babies joined hands in a circle floating in the air, two people with things on their heads that have lights on each side, repeated rotating shots of two men in bowler hats standing at a window looking away - what does any of that have to do with the show? As I said, I only watched two episodes, so I don’t know.
He made his decision and then he went back to his house. I think it would have been a lot more interesting to have him walk in the front door and not have the perfect closure of him staring at the sullen faced teenage boy.
So much of the story turned on what he thought was real and what we thought was real I thought it would have been a lot more interesting to leave that last couple of shots out.
3 episodes in (the one with Anna Paquin, “Autofac”, and Bryan Cranston), and they’re all great so far, IMO. Dick was an amazing writer, and these are excellent adaptations.
