 Hello viewers, hello to my regulars and to my new subscribers. Thank you for subscribing. Today is Wednesday, February 22nd, 2018. Three days ago, I started a fundraiser to reach $500 by the end of this month. So far, early this morning, there's nothing new to report, but I'll keep you posted about what happens. You can make donations at the links in the description below and on the screen here, or you can go to my page 30 seconds sci-fi at 50th.st. That's the 50th street service that I use, and you can become a monthly subscriber there or make a one-time donation. Please help out. Okay, what I'm going to talk about today as the title tells you is the Philip K. Dick series, Electric Dreams, that ran on the BBC recently. I should say, based on the work of Philip K. Dick, because as usual, what Hollywood and all film and television people do when they get hold of a Philip K. Dick story is they misinterpret it, and they usually reverse its meaning, and that's what they've done here. There are 10 episodes, and they've done that very thing in almost every case. It's disappointing, not surprising. What is extra disappointing about it, though, is that Philip K. Dick's daughter is producing the series, which makes it kind of a mystery to me. A little bit about Philip K. Dick, for those of you who are unfamiliar with him, you are definitely familiar with his work. The film Blade Runner is based on his work. The film Minority Report was based on his work. There was a film a few years ago called The Adjustment Bureau that was based on a story of his total recall. The Arnold Schwarzenegger film was based on a story of Philip K. Dick's. In every one of those cases, they pretty much disregarded Philip K. Dick's story, wrote their own story, and then reversed the meanings, especially at the endings, in every case. He was a very prolific science fiction writer. He started writing stories in the 1950s. Most of his stories were very short. Often there were only 20 pages, sometimes less. They were usually just sketches, just ideas, and they were often jokes. They were often making fun of science fiction. He wrote more than 100 short stories, maybe closer to 200, and he wrote many novels, something like 40. The quality of his writing has been debated among science fiction aficionados for many years. In my experience, I consider his writing to be very inconsistent. Sometimes it's great, sometimes it's downright bad. I'm one of those who believes that he's somewhat overrated. He was a chronic drug abuser. In the 1970s, he became severely mentally ill. He believed that for an entire year, his body had been taken over by the spirit of Elijah the Prophet, the Bible Old Testament character. He came to believe that many of his own stories written in his past contained coded messages that only certain people could see. He was really nuts, and he died suddenly of a stroke in 1982, only hours, I think, after seeing previews of Ridley Scott's Blade Runner movie. Okay, though, let's get on with talking about this new Electric Dreams series. All 10 of the stories they chose were his early works from the 1950s. As I said before, these stories vary widely in their quality, and they're mostly very short. They're mostly the 20-page variety. A couple of them are like 60 pages. Episode one is called The Hoodmaker. It's based on a story by the same name. They gave it a different ending, silly, almost romantic ending that has nothing really to do with the story. Not only did they reverse the meaning of the ending, they reversed the relationships of all the major players, particularly the telepaths and their relation to regular humans and law enforcement. They reversed that entirely. What's the point? Episode two is called Impossible Planet, based again on a story called Impossible Planet. They were faithful to the story until the ending. They gave it a new ending that's kind of a Ray Bradbury fantasy, Martian Chronicles kind of ending, which throws out the original ending, which had a kind of a point to it. Again, they didn't care. Episode three is called The Commuter, based on a story by the same name. They changed this one so much, I don't know where to start. And again, they changed the ending. They dramatically changed the ending, reversing its meaning. Episode four is a thing called Crazy Diamond. I don't know where that title comes from. It's based on a story called Sales Pitch, or it's supposed to be based on a story called Sales Pitch. That's what they say. I read Sales Pitch, and I don't see how this episode four is related to Sales Pitch at all. There's one word, just a single word that I recognized from the original story that they used in Crazy Diamond. And that's it. The episode was a confusing mess. It didn't make any sense. I couldn't tell what was going on. Steve Buscemi was just looking old and confused all the way through it. The phrase Crazy Diamond, to me, brings to mind a Pink Floyd album. There was no reference to Pink Floyd as far as I could tell. This was just a mess, and kind of a mystery as to why it was done. All right, moving on to episode five. It's called Real Life. It's based on a story called Exhibit Piece, or again, it's supposed to be based on a story called Exhibit Piece. And again, I read the story and I really can't see. I can see a kernel of an idea that they could have started with, but it's not the same story at all. This one was well produced. It looked good. It had a really good story. Anna Pakwin and Terence Howard turned out some really good performances, excellent acting, especially from Terence Howard. I was very impressed. But then after this really interesting, compelling story about virtual life, about putting on a helmet and living a virtual life and not being able to tell which is which, they had this downright silly ending, I thought, where the supporting cast members came out and essentially explained to you what the ending was. You're not supposed to do that, especially with a story that's supposed to be compelling and have meaning. Episode six is called Human Is, starring Brian Cranston, who has an executive producer credit on the series, by the way. The story, the original story is called Human Is. And in this case, they stayed faithful to the story. They kept the proper ending. And I felt they actually improved it. This was a story that was very brief. It was very short. And Philip K. Dick wrote a very sketchy little thing that wasn't all that compelling. They gave it a better foundation, I thought, that had more urgency to it. And they did it right. And Brian Cranston was great. He's always great. Episode seven is called Kill All Others. It is apparently based on a story called The Hanging Stranger. I read it. I read it just two days ago, and I can't really remember much about it. It wasn't very good. The episode isn't very good either, and it's hardly related to the original story at all. It's not even worth talking about, really. Episode eight is called Autofact, based on a story by the same name. This story starts out with the same premise. It ends very differently than the original story. It's a completely different story, actually. It was an okay episode, but again, what does it have to do with the original? Now we come to episode nine, which is called Safe and Sound, starring a newcomer I've never heard of, a young actress named Annalise Basso. She was excellent. In fact, she was amazing. This story is supposed to be based on an original Philip K. Dick story called Foster, You're Dead. And again, it has nothing to do with the original story. There is a kernel, an element there, from the original story about corporations colluding with government to compel us through fear and social pressure to buy products that we don't need, products that hurt us, but allow corporations and the government to make very large amounts of money. There is that element there. Outside of that, it's entirely new. This episode was so well made. It was so relevant to today's world and what we're all experiencing. It made me so anxious I had to turn it off halfway through and come back to it the next day. It was it was that effective on me. I highly recommend this particular episode. And again, this girl was tremendous. And now we come to the final episode episode 10 called The Father Thing starring Greg Kinnear. Like episode six, this one was faithful to the original. It's a variation on the body snatchers kind of story. They kept the original story. They kept the original ending. They updated it to the present day, which is acceptable. This one was okay. Overall, though, the series was more than a disappointment. Mostly it was infuriating because they're just doing the same things they always do to Philip K. Dick. And with his daughter executive producing, how how is that happening? I don't understand. There are those three kernels of good stories in there. In that one episode nine called Safe and Sound again, I recommend you watch that one if you don't watch any other. All right, that's it for this time. Please be sure to press the like button and please become a subscriber. I always need more subscribers. Please make a comment. I enjoy getting comments. I enjoy talking to people who are watching my videos and have a question or something to say. And please contribute to my fundraiser and consider becoming a monthly sponsor. And I will see you tomorrow with a new video. Bye.