Electric Dreams: Season 1 (DVD) – Series Review
Fans of older works of Sci-Fi will probably have heard of Philip K. Dick, who wrote many novels and even more short stories, all revolving around the bizarre, ranging from typical Sci-Fi stories, to dystopian pictures of the future, where mankind didn’t live a happy life at all. Different realities and dimensions weren’t strange to the writer at all, and now these stories are being brought to your living rooms with the first season of Electric Dreams. Each episode stars a different cast and story, making it feel like a series of short movies, rather than a completely coherent series. Be warned though, the future might not seem like a great place if we have to believe some of the stories being told here.
It’s hard to describe the picture that hides behind Electric Dreams, as every single episode portrays a different story that situates itself in the future or in an alternative dimension, showing what our world can become if we don’t take care of this planet, or what it could have become if some events in our history didn’t happen the way they did. This makes the series very accessible for those who just want to watch short stories, that often have a dystopian undertone or that don’t really have happy endings. You’ll have to make do with short stories that are never continued, sometimes leaving you with questions, as the stories aren’t always finished, in the sense they have very open endings, allowing the viewer to ponder on what actually happened. The latter can be a very pleasant approach, but can also be a bit frustrating for viewers who love to have closure when watching a series or movies.
You’ll notice that the flow of every episode is very different, as some prefer a longer buildup, while others will throw you in the middle of the story, rather than let you ease in. Some stories paint a proper background of the future or alternate dimension you find yourself staring at, while others leave you wondering how our world turned out to be like this. It’s easy to say that you’ll like some episodes a lot more than others, but overall you’ll find a lot of content to be appealing, original and very interesting. The series doesn’t look cheap at all, which is a definite plus for something in the Sci-Fi genre, as many series do tread the waters of the genre, but often don’t have the proper budget to back things up.
While the cast members change every episode, safe for a few extras that get tossed around between episodes, each episode is backed up by one or more stellar actors or actresses. You’ll see Steve Buscemi, Liam Cunningham, Bryan Cranston and many others pass the revue, making this a very qualitative series. The cast, be it the main characters or the ones in the back, all do a formidable job, making this series a chain of small movies, rather than a simple series. We were most definitely impressed with the massive cast supporting this series.
The DVD edition of the first season of Electric Dreams comes with no special features or extra content whatsoever. While it would have been nice to learn a bit more about Philip K. Dick, his stories and his life, we understand that no extra content was added to this series. All of the stories stand tall without needing further information, and for the most part it would not add any value to the episodes by adding a making of or other similar content.
Conclusion
The first season of Electric Dreams was very interesting to say the least. Not only will this series offer something for fans of the Sci-Fi genre, every episode is backed up by a decent and well-known cast as the central figure. While the stories are not interlinked to one another, the many different tales are fun to watch separately and allow you a change of pace, rather than having to binge a complete series in order to progress with the story. We were hooked to this format, and the overall concept has been executed in a great fashion. We can’t wait to see what this series has in store for us in the second season.
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