Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams: Real Life

October 16, 2017 6:53 AM - Season 1, Episode 5

The lines of reality become blurred between Sarah, a policewoman in the future, and George, a brilliant game designer.
posted by lmfsilva (12 comments total)

This one really worked for me, I liked the reversal. Anna Paquin and Terence Howard were well cast.
posted by rhizome at 12:31 AM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

As far as writing goes, this was the best episode yet.
posted by lmfsilva at 5:41 AM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

I thought it sort of dragged in the last go around, but it had the most satisfying twist at the end, while most of the previous episodes sort of felt like... yes, and?

That's probably the challenge to producing stuff based on PKD's work, so much of it has already been adapted / redone / etc that much of the original impact is lessened.
posted by Kyol at 10:15 AM on October 17, 2017

Also, man Lara Pulver was really setting off my Jodie Foster look alike circuits. I hadn't noticed that before, I'll have to go back and watch Sherlock. How terrible.
posted by Kyol at 10:16 AM on October 17, 2017 [4 favorites]

i just caught this on Amazon Prime. The episode orders are changed, but I'm not sure if that matters. This one was episode 1, and it was so good. I saw the ending coming because as Kyol said above, these stories have been adapted so many times that well-seasoned media consumers can spot the tropes coming. But it was still impactful.

I really empathized when Katie said "I think you could use a vacation", I was like SAME HERE.
posted by numaner at 8:18 PM on January 11, 2018 [2 favorites]

Good start to the series although definitely pulled more from "I can remember it for you wholesale" than the actual short story it was supposedly based on.
posted by octothorpe at 7:36 PM on January 12, 2018

You are not a lesbian supercop in the future with a flying car
posted by LizBoBiz at 9:44 PM on January 14, 2018 [6 favorites]

LizBoBiz: "You are not a lesbian supercop in the future with a flying car"

But you don't really know that, do you?
posted by octothorpe at 6:39 AM on January 15, 2018 [4 favorites]

I am confident that the development execs at Amazon who paid for this show hoping to get their own Black Mirror were especially pleased by this episode.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:34 AM on January 22, 2018 [1 favorite]

If someone used that line to convince me, I’d probably be convinced. I was kind of waiting for the same line from the girlfriend about being an African American billionaire game designer with super secret fighting skills.
posted by LizBoBiz at 7:17 PM on January 22, 2018 [2 favorites]

Definitely my favorite episode so far! Even though it was only vaguely based on a PKD story, it really worked for me as a PKD-style story. It was fantastic how in both worlds, Sarah/George had it patiently explained to them why the other world was wish fulfillment. The cast was excellent, the production values were wonderful, and hey, script by Ronald D. Moore! Nice to see you here.

If one were to try to pick the show apart for clues as to which world was real (before the reveal), it seems like the “Jakarta or Singapore” line that Sarah heard at the very beginning and George heard near the end would be definitive proof that Sarah was the real one. On the other hand, the show opened with a shot of a dilating pupil, the transition between one world and the next, even though Sarah hadn’t been given the vacation tech yet. I guess that was more stylistic and a red herring.
posted by ejs at 8:29 PM on January 25, 2018

The Jakarta or Singapore line definitely implied that the George reality was fake, but on the flip side, George visited the warehouse before Sarah, and Sarah was surprised to have seen that location before when she went to bust the killers. There were clues in both directions. I'm not really sure to to make that warehouse scene fit with the episode's end reveal.
posted by painquale at 9:00 PM on January 25, 2018 [1 favorite]