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Real Life is the fifth episode of Philip K Dick’s Electric Dreams, and as well as PKD’s stories being quite weird, I understand a fair emount of the content has been changed, and to those who know the originals, this hasn’t always been for the better, so these TV dramas are loosely based on his stories rather than being accurate representations.
Anyhoo, in this episode, future cop Sarah’s (Anna Paquin) friend, played by Rachelle Lefevre, has a device which gives you an alternate ‘real life’, so a break from your own life, rather like being in a dream or on holiday… or a bit like Total Recall, which is also from the same author.
As such, she becomes CEO of his own company, George (Terrence Howard), ‘jumping’ into his body and looking dazed and confused, a bit like you’d expect in Quantum Leap. Alas, he soon ends up in quite a pickle at the hand of some bad guys, as well as another situation he’d rather forget. However, back in Sarah’s world, how come she can remember more from her dream than she expected?
As George says at one point: “I keep feeling there’s a much deeper, deeper truth, here.”
I was waiting for a twist which I was trying to guess. Was I right? No, I was fooled. Which way is right? You’ll have to watch. I’m not even going to spell out the two ways as that’s for you to find out… since that’s what happens when you sit in front of the TV – you find stuff out.
I’ll also add that it’d be great to be able to have dreams on-cue. Can someone make one of those, please?
Real Life is the fifth episode of Philip K Dick’s Electric Dreams and airs on Sunday night on Channel 4 at 9pm. Once broadcast, each episode will be on All4, but isn’t yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD.
However, in the meantime, you can pre-order the Electric Dreams book on Paperback and Kindle, released on September 14th.
Score: 8.5/10
Director: Jeffrey Reiner
Producer: Jeffrey Reiner and Steven Yell
Screenplay: Ronald D Moore (based on the short story by Philip K Dick)
Cast:
Sarah: Anna Paquin
George: Terrence Howard
Mario: Jacob Vargas
Malia: Anu Bhatt
Harris: Christian Isely
Doctor: Jason Singer
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.