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Crazy Diamond is the fourth episode of Philip K Dick’s Electric Dreams, although it was originally scheduled to be the fifth, as it’s swapped places with next week’s Real Life. Not quite sure why as, while it’s stars Steve Buscemi and Borgen‘s Sidse Babett Knudsen, it’s not as good as those we’ve had already.
That said, there were a couple of episodes of Black Mirror season 3 which I wasn’t hugely impressed with, while others loved them…
Anyhoo, Ed (Buscemi) is a leader in the development of ‘cognitive chimeras’, i.e. the surgical implanting of a quantum consciousness (QC), so lifeless bodies, known as Jacks and Jills, can be like real people again, and have independent thought. So, it’s a bit like Humans once they started to gain the same sense of freedom.
Again, the episode has a mixture of future tech, plus influences from the past and some present, e.g. computers and the tech for QCs are future, while Sidse’s job, as a ‘Jill’, which involves selling insurance door-to-door is something long gone.
Forever wanting to take his wife, Sally (Julia Davis), on a long trip to escape their dull lives, he feels time is slipping away from him, and is tempted to stray into uncharted waters with Jill, but for what she’s got planned, you know it’s not going to be a good idea, such are PKD’s dark themes.
There were some elements I didn’t get with this episode, such as why fresh fruit and veg expires within a day, and the problems of trying to grown their own, and while I obviously won’t divulge how this episode pans out, I felt it just rather drifted into nothing, like that with Impossible Planet, and this felt quite uneven overall.
However, I did like the idea of having toaster at drawer height. It would rather get in the way if it couldn’t be pushed back into a unit, though.
Crazy Diamond is the fourth episode of Philip K Dick’s Electric Dreams and airs tonight 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, Kindle and Hardback. The first two are out on September 14th, but the latter isn’t out until December 12th.
Score: 5/10
Director: Marc Munden
Producer: Rupert Ryle-Hodges
Screenplay: Tony Grisoni (based on the short story by Philip K Dick)
Music: Cristobal Tapia de Veer
Cast:
Ed Morris: Steve Buscemi
Jill: Sidse Babett Knudsen
Sally: Julia Davis
Su: Joanna Scanlan
Director: Lucian Msamati
Noah: Michael Socha
Implanter: Elly Bran
Jess: Isis Davis
Implanted Jill #1: Sophia Del Pizzo
Implanted Jack #1: James Henri-Thomas
American News Reporter: Gina Gangar
Implanted Jill #2: Kerri McLean
Girl: Lauren Hobbs
Recycle Driver: Abraham Popoola
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.