Philip K Dick's Electric Dreams [C4] [** Spoilers **]

Mr.Nice Guy

The acting from the Irish guy was so bad. Like the scene where he's talking about how there has to be more to life and he says it in the most wooden manner possible. Honestly the robot's acting was less stilted.

Harry Palmr

Underwhelming is the watchword at this point, pity.

s3rtvdbwfj81ch

The Commuter, up to the first ad break, is intriguing enough.

Set in a relatively "normal" universe, and Timothy Spall is always great.

Agent Coulson

Three episodes down and all three not very good.

sunbeam

Just caught up with all three tonight. The third was the best for me but they all just seem to be lacking something. The endings felt like they were cut off just before a final twist and seemed to lack closure.

NIMAN

Saw my 1st last night, The Commuter.

A bit me'h for me. Thought it was going to have a great twist or ending, and it didn't.

Don't think I'll be tuning in for any more.

OldRio

The Commuter was good last night, the other two, not so good.
Timothy Spall is such a good actor. As for the twist in the plot? It was there.

NIMAN

OK it had a twist, but it wasn't great. Just my wording made it sound like I didn't see a twist.

If that episode was the best, I think I'll not be checking out the 1st two episodes for sure.

Mr.Nice Guy

I liked the episode. I thought that was the best of the three so far.

stronglikebull

Agent Coulson wrote: »

Three episodes down and all three not very good.

Yeah, disappointing all round. The third one was probably the most interesting of them all, but still not that good. I felt somewhat bored throughout, and then just lost.

Steve Buscemi next week. Hoping for better.

mloc123

Have not watched any so far... the promos for them is doing nothing to draw me in. Will hold out for a positive review here first.

Unearthly

Very disappointed with this show so far. Each episode falls flat.

I'll give it a few more episodes, if Walter White and Ser Davos can't save it then no one can.

Blut2

Its odd they started off with the episodes with a less well known cast. I would have thought they'd have started with the mega-stars to draw the viewers in.

All three episodes so far have also been disappointing for me. They're providing so little closure at the end that it makes the preceding 45minutes a feel like a wasted investment of time. Episode3 in particular was awful for this, it felt as if it was missing a final act.

MOH

Only watched the first two so far. First wasn't great, second was abysmal on every level. It looked awful, the android showed more emotion than the male lead, Benedict Wong's character felt completely off, and again had very little relation to the original story beyond the basic setup. I'm baffled both why they wanted to relate this to Philip K Dick at all (marketing?), and how on earth his estate agreed to associate his name with what's really just a very poor imitation on The Outer Limits.

Mr.Nice Guy

I wasn't a fan of the episode tonight. It never hooked me at any point and I lost interest as it went on.

SnakePlissken

That's 4 for 4 for me now, I'm out, it's not awful, it's not inept, it's much worse than that; it's boring.

OldRio

So it started with Steve Buscemi on a boat listening to music by Syd Barrett on a record player. I'm hooked already. This ticks all my boxes surely nothing can go wrong now?
How wrong I was.

Pure and utter muck. The director should hang his head in shame.

Beechwoodspark

OldRio wrote: »

So it started with Steve Buscemi on a boat listening to music by Syd Barrett on a record player. I'm hooked already. This ticks all my boxes surely nothing can go wrong now?
How wrong I was.

Pure and utter muck. The director should hang his head in shame.

What was the basic plot of last nights episode? Didn't see it but wondering if I should get it on catch up

fryup

couldn't make head nor tail of last nights episode...can anyone explain it to me in a nutshell

stronglikebull

I totally forgot about it this week, and I don't think I can bothered to even go looking for it online. It doesn't sound like it was worth watching anyway. It's been a damp squib of a series, or just plain boring as someone else said.

kerplun k

stronglikebull wrote: »

I totally forgot about it this week, and I don't think I can bothered to even go looking for it online. It doesn't sound like it was worth watching anyway. It's been a damp squib of a series, or just plain boring as someone else said.

Squib? You mean damp squid? Right?

kerplun k

I don't want to put this episode on a pedal stool, but I thought it was the best of a bad bunch.

Agent Coulson

And I'm out.

Blut2

That was the best of the series so far last night I think. It actually had a definitive ending, which was a change.

SteelyDanJalapeno

Pity nobody is watching it anymore

DMcL1971

That was the last episode for me. I'm giving up on it now.

alchemist33

Haven't watched this week's yet and not sure if I will. I thought the first was pretty good and then they got more boring every week. I nearly fell asleep during the Steve Buscemi one.

One problem, and I don't know why, is that they mostly seem so quintessentially English. The Timothy Spall episode was so British Rail and last week's was set on the cliffs of Dover. The setting just doesn't seem to fit the stories.

OldRio

To be fair last weeks was very good. But it definitely had a bigger budget. Production values were much higher. Much more American than the rest.

The best by far, but let's face it the bar wasn't set too high.

MOH

Not having seen the fifth yet, the fourth one is about the only one that actually fells like a Philip K Dick story. Which is ironic, since it's probably the one that differs most from the story it's nominally based on, seems more like an amalgam of various stories. And if they'd done an update on the original idea of 'Sales Pitch' it'd be hugely relevant today.
But at least it's closer in tone to his work, as opposed to some of the earlier rubbish like Impossible Planet. Which was just somebody writing a completely unrelated episode based on the opening premise of a story.

Looked really vibrant too, kept reminding me of Utopia. Turns out it shares a director.

Still not seeing the point of the whole exercise though. They're picking some some stories which are either too outdated/been done since to base directly on without extensive (bad) rewrites, too short to make an hour long episode out of without adding in completely unrelated stuff which totally changes the tone, or both. 1/4 so far, and still six to go.

alchemist33 wrote: »

One problem, and I don't know why, is that they mostly seem so quintessentially English. The Timothy Spall episode was so British Rail and last week's was set on the cliffs of Dover. The setting just doesn't seem to fit the stories.

It's really jarring. No idea why they keep going so over the top anglicizing it. Didn't find the Dover one quite so bad, could have been a stand-in for a cliffside anywhere, but the British Rail one was bad. Especially since they stuck with the name Macon Heights which sounds so American.

Slydice

Agree, the 5th episode felt improved. Anna Paquin brought in a good performance and

I think one scene had effects that looked a bit like blade runner.

which was a 'huh, cool!' moment.

The story reminded me of

total recall and its memory stuff

. The way Paquin and Howard pulled it off felt decent enough though.

The drawbacks in the the episode I think are the moments where the director is drawing out scenes for what appears to be no reason. Like 'oh lets have the audience do a bit of thinking for some moments' but there's been nothing presented to the audience to think about. The personal interactions could be beefed up a bit too. It's probably the scripted dialogue... there's only so much the cast can do with limited dialogue.