Every Episode Of Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams, Ranked From Worst To Best
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Using the lesser known works of iconic science fiction author Philip K. Dick as its foundation, Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams explores technology as a transformative tool in various iterations of humanity's future--all while doing its best to maintain the hope and faith of the civilians living in these tomorrow worlds.
The science fiction TV anthology series is back, thanks to the huge success of Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror. With the tech-heavy bleakness of Season 4 still fresh in audience's minds, Amazon and Channel 4 have thrown their own hat into the ring with Electric Dreams. As one would expect, the program has drummed up comparisons to Netflix's sci-fi hit. The 10-episode first season--co-created by Battlestar Galactica's Ronald D. Moore and Justfied's Michael Dinner--may tackle similar subject matter, but it mostly does so through an optimistic lens.
The series regularly taps into story elements that have appeared in Dick's more iconic, recognizable work. But bringing an anthology series to life--giving each episode a self-contained narrative and fully developed characters--isn't the easiest of tasks. In short, the first season of Electric Dreams is a bit of a mixed bag. For every awe-inspiring episode, there's one that doesn't fire on all cylinders. From worst to best, here's our ranking of Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams Season 1.
10. Episode 7: The Father Thing
What begins as a story of a father (Greg Kinnear) trying to maintain a bond with his son Jake (Jack Gore) in the face of divorce quickly devolves into a hokey alien invasion story. And while there are elements in the tale that could qualify this genre tale as a success, things end up falling apart rather quickly.
Since Dick's original story was published back in 1954, audiences have seen this concept explored in films like Invasion of the Body Snatchers. In The Father Thing, viewers aren't given anything new to chew on. While it seems the bigger story is meant to be about a childhood darkened by a fracturing family, the focus itself becomes fractured, leaving us yearning for more developed societal satire.
9. Episode 4: Crazy Diamond
Mortality, infertility, and dystopian population control in the form of propaganda-like advertising are on full display in Crazy Diamond. As packed as it is confusing, the Steve Buscemi/Sidse Babbett-Knudsen-starring story is the one episode this season that takes the original subject matter--Philip K. Dick's short story "Sales Pitch"--and alters things beyond recognition.
Death is the biggest factor in the episode, manifesting in everything from the quickly decaying food to Ed's (Buscemi) own dreams of a more fantastical life to synthetic Jill's (Babbett-Knudsen) failing architecture. Ed's humdrum life ends up getting flipped upside down as he works to save Jill, partaking in a bizarre (and violent) consciousness heist. As a whole, the episode feels like it's striving to convey too many big messages. The performances from its leads are the one saving grace.
8. Episode 6: Safe & Sound
Class warfare is a powerful story element that is common in Philip K. Dick's collected writings. That said, the exploration of this, along with the issues of race and terrorism in the Safe & Sound story ultimately fails to deliver. Here, we follow 15-year-old Foster (Annalise Basso), a white Midwestern girl who moves from her terrorist-labeled bubble city to a big urban sprawl in search of a better life. But coming from a "Bubble" means she's treated differently as the government's emphasis on terror prevention and security puts her--and people like her--firmly in the perceived-terrorist category.
Ultimately, Foster finds solace in the voice of a "tech support employee"--who ends up pushing her to a destructive end that only helps to feed the government propaganda machine. While the episode's classist message is there, the issues explored get a bit watered down in the process. It's interesting to watch a white girl get ousted from this future society as a threat, but her Midwestern-y nature undermines the subject matter--which continues to be relevant to this day, no matter how much progress our own society has endured.
7. Episode 2: Autofac
In this dystopian tale, society has all but collapsed, except for Autofac--an automated manufacturing plant that continues to churn out products for human consumption. A small outpost of survivors live off these items, while trading their basic human freedoms to sustain themselves. An inevitable retaliation is sparked when an A.I. named Alice (Janelle Monae) is sent to assist the group. And soon, an attack against the megacorporation is put in motion.
The pacing is a bit off in Autofac, but the effort is definitely there. There's something intriguing about a machine forced to follow its coding, filling its purpose of consumerism after the population dies around it. But the episode's big narrative twist comes a bit too late, leaving everything feeling a bit fleeting.
6. Episode 8: Impossible Planet
When an extremely old woman named Irma (Geraldine Chaplin) offers an insane amount of money to Norton (Jack Reynor) and Andrew (Benedict Wong)--two jaded workers employed by space tour company Astral Dreams--their perception of what's real and what's fabricated becomes a blur. With her robot assistant in tow, Irma hires the men to take her to Earth so she can see the place she's only dreamed of, thanks to her Grandmother's stories. There's one catch, though: Earth was destroyed 600 years ago.
While Andrew is quick to con the woman by taking her to a completely different planet, Norton's compassion towards her finds the ship taking a dangerous detour. In the process, an emotional connection grows between the old woman and young man. He dreams of a bigger purpose and in her old age, Irma yearns to connect with a paradise she only knows as "Carolina." It's that common longing that bonds them together as they find a shared happiness amid the desolate landscape of a dead planet long since forgotten.
5. Episode 3: Human Is
The slow-burn nature of Human Is could have been the episode's downfall, but with the help of strong performances by Bryan Cranston and Essie Davis, the story excels. To fix the life-threatening issue of depleted resources, Silas (Cranston) leaves Vera (Davis) to lead a military mission to enemy planet, Rexor IV. After a brutal attack, Silas returns to his wife and crew. But something's different.
From cold-hearted and abusive to warm and loving, Vera's newfound affection brings a welcome connection back to her marriage. The plot twist to the Ronald D. Moore-directed story may be a bit obvious, but watching the couple's redemption arc makes the episode a satisfying experience.
4. Episode 5: The Hood Maker
In the future, the world's population finds itself in a classist separation between "Teeps" and "Normals"--humans born with telepathic abilities, and everyone else. Enter the shadow-government agency known simply as "The State": They're mission is to regulate the lives of these evolved humans, while also exploiting their abilities to keep the rest of the population in check. Clearance Agent Ross (Richard Madden) is paired with a young telepath by the name of Honor (Holliday Grainger) and it's not long before they're faced with a new threat: An unknown figure known as "The Hood Maker" has been designing masks capable of blocking any telepath's intrusive abilities.
One part crime thriller and one part love story, The Hood Maker tells the tale of a future population buckling under the weight of a surveillance program that is out to protect its people, while the combination of fear and the abuse of power leads to an inevitable revolt. What happens when freedom of thought is a crime? And you thought repealing net neutrality was dangerous.
3. Episode 1: Real Life
Real Life is an episode that takes on a common Philip K. Dick trope: a conflict of perceived realities. Anna Paquin and Terrence Howard play Sara and George, two sides of the same proverbial coin. As quickly as the audience becomes invested in Paquin's lesbian supercop character, things get complicated when she uses a virtual reality program to "take a vacation." As soon as she's logged into this gaming experience, she becomes George, a tech mogul reeling from the recent death of his wife. As you may expect, the line between each reality begins to blur until the characters on-screen, as well as the viewers watching, become unable to tell which life is the truth and which is fiction.
Sure, this theme is explored in Total Recall--which was inspired by Dick's novel, "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale"--but there are a handful of story elements in Real Life that make the episode stand out. The strongest is Howard's portrayal of George, a character we've rarely (if ever) seen the actor play. The dynamic between his emotional sensitivity and Sara's tough-as-nails exterior offers a nice role reversal to the mix. It's not the best episode of the season, but it definitely is one of the standouts.
2. Episode 9: The Commuter
In The Commuter, Timothy Spall (Wormtail from Harry Potter) plays Ed, a down-on-his-luck train station worker who is faced with a challenging home life. His son (Anthony Boyle) is driven to violent fits that point to a dark, emotional problem too difficult for Ed to deal with. Every day is exactly the same for the man until he meets a mystery woman (Tuppence Middleton) who is traveling to a station that doesn't exist. Something drives Ed to seek out answers to this growing mystery and, in the process, finds himself in the middle of Macon Heights--a picturesque town that isn't supposed to be there.
As the episode unfolds, Ed is not only faced with the wants of his own subconscious--every visit to Macon Heights alters the reality of his own home life--it's also an exploration of our own internalized dreams of a better, more idyllic life made real. Like George Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life, Ed comes to the realization that certain internalized wishes are better left unlived.
1. Episode 10: Kill All Others
Written and directed by Dee Rees (Mudbound), Kill All Others is the most timely and horrifying tale of the bunch. Adapted from Dick's "The Hanging Stranger," the episode follows a menial factory worker named Philbert (Mel Rodriguez) as he begins to suspect the sole candidate for presidency of Mega-Nation MexUsCan (Vera Farmiga) of some sinister separatist motives. When she nonchalantly calls on the population to "kill all others," Philbert's anxiety takes him on an unfortunate downward spiral.
What is an "other"? The episode never really explains, but it doesn't have to. The reality MexUsCan's citizens are living is the epitome of everything George Orwell warned of in 1984. After a dead body is found hanging from a billboard that advertises the "Kill All Others" message, Philbert's alienation drives him to extremes. Instead of getting support from his wife or co-workers, though, he becomes the latest tool in the candidate's murderous propaganda--cementing her seat of power, while keeping the Mega-Nation's citizens complacent amid a bigger evil they can't (or won't) see.
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