Crazy Diamond

There is a lot that this episode had in it's favor. The set design, acting, soundtrack, and camera work is well above average. Unfortunately, the story never really goes anywhere. While engaging while being watch, the story seems to tactfully avoid any sense of climax and ending. It just kind of stops. The story is adapted from the short story "Sales Pitch", which I found to be a great little story. The problem is: it is severely lacking in material substantial enough to adapt into a one hour television program. So the story has been altered to almost unrecognizable proportions. I normally wouldn't have a problem with this, but the story was strong in every way this interpretation was not. The themes were clear, it had a healthy dose of comedy at the ineptitude of the technology depicted, and the characters were well defined. This story evades any point or theme. (Even though the ideas of manufactured souls is extremely enticing, its used sparingly and is almost irrelevant to the story.) If you love Phillip K. Dick or Science Fiction, give it a try. Just know it's not the best of either. If there are any episodes weaker than this, I will likely be left frustrated with this season.

Supposedly based on the Philip K. Dick short story, Sales Pitch, this has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the story. Indeed, it is so far removed from it, I suspect the writer had some heist movie all written up and, with a few tweaks, passed it off as an adaptation.

Steve Buscemi plays a down-at-heel worker at a factory that makes artificial people. He is drawn into a conspiracy to steal from his employer, and things get twisty and violent.

Moderately distracting as a sort of sci-fi noir, but most people will have something better to do with their time than watch this.

Hey, here's an idea - read the Philip K. Dick story - it is actually quite good.

SPOILER: I was less impressed by this episode of Channel 4"s Philip K Dick anthology than others I've watched in the series. Set in the bleak mid-future, it pits hangdog Steve Buscemi as an ordinary average cog in the workaday scheme of things, working in a government scientific facility producing regenerative medicine, living with his childless, nervous wife in their modern house seemingly content, if not exactly happy with his lot.

In this alternative future, however, there is a shortage of natural foodstuffs, so that all things edible have a limited life span, coastal erosion is an everyday occurrence and the population is bolstered by so-called "Jack's" and "Jill's" of seemingly artificially created beings of human appearance.

Our hero is mildly rebellious however as we see him try to grow his own food and also escape the drudgery of his boring existence by retreating to his boat where he plays vinyl records. Then, into his life steps a beautiful femme-fatale, ostensibly trying to sell him life cover but in truth she wants a supply of the life-giving serums, both for commercial gain and also to save her own failing metabolism.

This story had its moments, especially a nightmarish opening and its depiction of not so sweet suburbia in the near-future but for me had too much going on, taking in as it did, a terrorist gang desperate to get its hands on the toxins, a half-pig, half-woman being who dispenses marital advice to Buscemi's wife and in the end a weird union of sorts between the Jill and the wife which leaves him effectively seduced and abandoned by the finish.

I also didn't get the use of Pink Floyd references, from the episode title, to Buscemi's character name of Syd Barrett to the background music. The acting was good though, besides Buscemi, I enjoyed seeing "Borgen's" Sidse Babette Knudson as the double-dealing temptress and Julia Davis as the seemingly timorous wife. I also liked the cinematography, filmed in wash-out grey tones as well as the set design of the house of tomorrow.

No, this story of another brick in the wall who who'd outstayed his welcome to the machine was just a little too madcap for me, sorry.

Like the show. Hate this episode. Too short, too poorly explained, symbolism that really never meshed, some kill bill deaths for some reason.

If it weren't for a fascination with Steve Buscemi I wouldn't have stayed with this. It's about a future where there is little food and some replicants called Jacks and Jills do the labor. Of course, with most artificial intelligence in sci fi, eventually they begin to rebel. I have little else to say. The plot is a mess and we aren't given enough information to really understand the world we are witnessing. Oh, who's in charge? What are the motivations?