Philip K. Dicks Electric Dreams
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The thing Ive come to like best aboutElectric Dreamsis how every episode is completely different.
Not just in terms of conceit, but voice, strengths, flaws, and even basic approach.
Every time I started an episode, I had no idea what I was going to get.
But with that, Im sad to report that we unfortunately end the season on a miss.
Its not funny or scathing enough to be satire, nor is it emotionally grounded enough to be moving.
Which means it coasts along the surface when it should cut to the bone.
The key word here being candidate as in singular, implying that America has slid into a one-party system.
That is something I have questions about, because I genuinely cant tell what Rees is after here.
Is she suggesting that our two-party system is an inherently limited spectrum?
That both parties evoke the same nationalist fervor?
By including the very overt language of Yes, us can!
is the episode casting the Obama administration into that same bucket?
I just cant tell what all these cultural touchstones are meant to add up to.
And yet, people just want to go on with their lives.
They shrug it off as usual politics, except its not.
So, why doesnt Rees make that parallel directly?
Is it because sci-fi always tends toward metaphor?
Which means that at the core, the biggest message of the episode is one that rings most true.
Which is why it stinks that the episode suffers from three big problems.
The first is the aforementioned issue of tone.
(Theres too much Safe and Sound here for comfort.)
The last problem, and perhaps the biggest, is that Noyces struggle develops in a dramatically static way.
Even as the intensity builds, we essentially see the same conflict over and over.
Just like we cant handle monotony in a story itself.
