The Commuter

I like Twilight Zone and this episode has the same feeling to it. The actors are great and the story itself does not need a lot of fancy sets to be engaging. The down to earth way of the storytelling sits well with the whole concept of the episode. The idea could have taken a little farther but it is okay the way it is. Also the end is a little underwhelming but it works fine in the context of the whole episode.

An interesting abstract view on life and love; Though, too abstract and psychological for me.

How touching. Even the difficult choices in life can be choices out of love.

I remember reading the short story when i was a kid and finding it as confusing as this version.

PKD wrote this at a time when he was churning out short story after short story and it shows even in the first few lines of the short story describing the protagonists dull existence and the description of the people on the train which perhaps PKD felt like himself - indeed i am pretty sure it was - he was perhaps making a comment on society and how monotonous and neverending the daily grind is , how people cannot even see their own treadmill rather like the Greek mythology of Sisyphus and as i perceive it how difficult it is to break free from that reality and try something new. Even in an alternate reality which PKD was fond of expounding the protagonist could not give up his primary reality for an "improved" reality; perhaps a comment on the modern human condition and if so far ahead of his time.

Great comment also on the suburbs and how they can exist almost anywhere and no one would notice the difference which was also key to the original story and how memory and history can be easily forgotten and manipulated to achieve whatever goal is required.

Quite a good translation of the original but still rather unsatisfying as was the original story. I am sure this was at a time when PKD was bored with writing short stories and wanted to start writing novels and it shows!

But hey , maybe my perception is complete crapola and i am in my own alternate reality - it will be interesting to read others perspective on this episode as it is certainly better than the awful first episode of this series and does leave the viewer with more questions than answers and maybe just maybe makes one ask the question "just what the f*** have I actually done today"! ARE YOU A COMMUTER?

The Commuter works because writer Jack Thorne resists going down some futuristic grungy Blade Runner look.

Ed (Timothy Spall) works in the ticket office at Woking train station, a rather mundane job but it shields him from a difficult home life coping with a teenage son prone to violent outbursts.

One day a mysterious young woman asks to buy a ticket to Macon Heights, Ed tells her the stop does not exists and the woman suddenly disappears.

Ed's curiosity leads him to board a train that presumably stops at Macon Heights when suddenly some of the passengers suddenly jump off the train and head for this idyllic town.

When Ed returns home it is to a happier household but he has this nagging doubt that his visits to Macon Heights has erased his son from existence.

Some of the story went off in tangents such as the visit to the journalist, maybe it could had been tightly plotted but it worked as a story about a man who is willing to embrace life even with all its disappointments.