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Total Rehaul
We can review Philip K Dick TV adaptations for you wholesale.
UK Broadcast Channel 4, on hiatus US Broadcast Amazon Prime Episodes Reviewed 1.01-1.06
In one sense it’s surprising that no one’s done an anthology TV series based on the short stories of Philip K Dick before. We are, after all, talking about the author whose works have inspired nine sci-fi movies, most notably Blade Runner. On the other hand, it’s kinda understandable, given the inherent problems.
For one thing, Dick’s SF short stories – first published in mags like Amazing and Imagination – are slender affairs, generally running to no more than 10 or 12 pages. That didn’t stop them being expanded to feature-length films for the likes of Total Recall and Minority Report, of course. But it does present a challenge.
It’s one this US/British co-production’s diverse roster of writers and directors approach in varying ways. Some simply sling out the original altogether: regular Terry Gilliam collaborator Tony Grisoni’s “Crazy Diamond” has practically nothing in common with “Sales Pitch”, barring a couple of character names and the vague notion of a worker yearning for escape. And many of its new elements, like food stuffs which go off in a day, go absolutely nowhere.
Alternatively you can use the basic concept as a foundation, then build a brand-new, more fantastical ending, like someone adding a conservatory to their house. That’s the approach of The Night Manager scribe David Farr’s “Impossible Planet”, which adds romanticised eternal recurrence to Dick’s slight tale of an elderly woman who demands to be taken to the non-existent planet Earth. Or, you can just stretch it all out, like Jessica Mecklenburg’s take on “Human Is”, which dramatises the story of a woman whose soldier
Dick’s core concerns of identity and reality are fascinating
husband returns from a mission to an alien planet strangely altered with courtroom drama. There’s always a solution, and often it involves expanding the emotional dimension; collectively, these six instalments have a good deal more heart than their prose forebears.
The other obstacle is a little trickier to circumnavigate. The 10 stories selected (after a midseason pause, Electric Dreams is set to return in early 2018 with adaptations of “The Hanging Stranger”, “Autofac”, “Foster, You’re Dead!” and “The Father Thing") were originally published in the mid-’50s, and – partly as a result of how influential Dick has been, and partly because of all those previous adaptations – their tropes now feel very familiar.
That’s not to say that these stories have no contemporary resonance, mind – we’re still fascinated by Dick’s core concerns of identity and the nature of reality. And the vague sense of déjà vu that tends to swell a few moments in is not altogether a bad thing. Quite often, watching Electric Dreams is as as cosily predictable as slipping in a Blu-ray of The Twilight Zone. But there’s no escaping the fact that the series’ 20th century extrapolations of the future can’t help but feel a little dated – particularly set against Black Mirror, whose stories are informed by developments Dick understandably never saw coming, such as social media.
Still, it remains consistently enjoyable. The production design is eye-pleasing, and it’s a delight to see respected thesps like Timothy Spall and Steve Buscemi bringing the author’s put-upon protagonists to life. Dick penned a total of 121 short stories; we’d quite happily watch Electric Dreams continuing to work through them for many years to come. Ian Berriman