Impossible Planet

A couple charlatans run tours for bored people as they look at things like novas and space events. They are partly fact and partly fiction. We know immediately that if reality isn't good enough, they can tweak the thing. A very elderly woman comes on board and is willing to hand over a huge amount of money to get them to take her to earth. One of the men, a truly disgusting guy, decides to bilk her by taking her to a different planet and pretending it is earth. What happens to the young guy who is in charge is and his relationship with this 300 year old woman is the real issue here. The problem is that the first half is gripping and the conclusion is a disappointment.

The screen writer should have stayed with the original ending....it is more thought provoking.

So it was a mildly entertaining show to watch.

The actors were all great in their roles but they were sadly let down by the production .

The plot and themes of the book were hardly followed at all and this show just ended up as a very confusing and surreal mess as a result.Especially the ending.

Basically they took the premise of the book and ignored almost all of the contents and themes.

The ending just leaves the viewer wondering what the heck is going on .

The producers should be ashamed of themselves for wasting such a good opportunity.

The new Channel 4 Philip K Dick anthology of programmes goes two for two in terms of quality with this second episode in its much-hyped new Sci-fi series.

In this one, two tired and somewhat cynical employees of an outer-space tour company see the chance to make a small fortune at the end of a long week, by hoodwinking a rich, elderly old lady (Geraldine Chaplin) into believing she's being taken back to Earth for one last look at the dear old place before she dies. With her, she has for company a protective android companion but what neither she or her bot know is that Earth doesn't exist anymore and that the two guides are substituting a similar if dead planet closer to home in the hope that she doesn't notice the difference and they can pocket a nice fat fee, what with her being old and deaf and all.

Of the two guides, one, played by Benjamin Wong just wants the old dear's money and it's him who dreams up the ruse, dragging along his younger colleague, Jack Reynor, the more personable and conscientious of the two, in his wake. But why does the younger one have flashbacks to an older time which sees him roaming around on an old bike? Just what strange attraction does the elderly lady have for him? And how are the two going to pull off their con when the lady wants to actually land on the dead planet?

All is neatly played out and resolved by the finish even if I was reminded perhaps too much of the ending of the classic "Star Trek" pilot episode "The Cage" in so doing.

Well acted and shot, this is starting to turn into a good, watchable series and I'll certainly be staying along for the remainder.

I actually liked the episode, but the ending just made no sense. It went from sci-fi to fantasy in a second, and as a sci-fi fan I hate when they do that. I haven't read this particulary story before so I didn't know what to expect. Most people found it boring, I thought it was ok, I thought it was actually leading to something interesting... but it ultimately didn't. The acting was really good, the special effects were ok, and the story was ok until the ending. It starts as sci fi, but the ending is fantasy.