Shine On [Review: Crazy Diamond]

Crazy Diamond, the fourth Electric Dream, takes us to a near-future of rising sea-levels, eco-homes perched on precarious, crumbling cliffs, and Jacks and Jills - synthetic humans grown from human and pig DNA and implanted with a QC - a quantum consciousness. Ed (Steve Buscemi) works in a facility that makes the QCs, but dreams of leaving his limited life behind and sailing away on a voyage of discovery, taking his wife Sally with him. He meets a Jill (Sidse Babett) who has a failing QC and a plan for something that could change both their lives, but is quite illegal.

Ed is the archetype PKD everyman - didn't I tell you to get used to this? - living day to day, holding down a job, dreaming of a voyage into the unknown but only half-believing that it's possible. He's capable of overlooking small illegalities such as the seeds home-grown by Sally (Julia Davis), but larger crimes as proposed by the Jill throw him into conflict between his dreams and his wish to do the right thing.

Some of the back story for this episode can be deduced from the setting - the eco-homes, wind turbines and electric Beetles all point to a post-oil world, with rising sea levels causing coastal erosion and destroying homes. However there are some gaps. It's not clear why food is decaying more quickly, or why the sell-by date is enforced so enthusiastically by the refuse collector. There's a sheet of metal under the ground to prevent people growing their own, apparently to protect the local economy - but why does this make sense?

More significantly, it's not clear why the synthetic humans and their QCs were created, or why they are needed in this society. They're not servants like the synths of Humans or indeed the replicants of Blade Runner. Or at least they're not all servants - the tour guide showing a group of visitors around the QC facility tells them that Jacks and Jills are living amongst us all, then reveals his own status as a Jack. It's possible that they are needed as a result of decreasing fertility hinted at by Ed and Sally's failure to conceive - and taking this along with the food issues I wonder if the writers aren't just thinking of a world that has run out of oil but one that has also been poisoned by pollution.

It's also unclear exactly what the synthetics are - more or less capable than humans? More or less intelligent? Do they actually share human emotions or are they something different? Jill turns out to be capable of some shocking acts, apparently driven by desperation due to her own short shelf-life.

Sally confides in a woman with a pig's head and trotters, Sue, who works as a security guard at the facility, but it isn't clear why this is - the other Jills all look human. She might be an earlier model Jill, or a different type of Jill created specifically for the work, or maybe a Jill from another facility. Sally and Sue's chats do reveal some anti-Jack and Jill snobbery and patronizing attitudes - in one scene Sally is overcome by some form of middle-class guilt while Sue's parting comment is "I'm bred not to take offense."

This episode owes a great debt to Blade Runner - in particular the central character who is a synthetic femme fatale reminds me a little of Rachel from the original film. However there are other influences here too, not least the air ducts and waste pipes in the eco-homes straight out of Terry Gilliam's Brazil.

This was another good episode, mainly down to excellent casting. The Electric Dreams series seems to have attracted some of the best actors, and the three leads here are no exception. However while there's some good worldbuilding, and it's OK to leave some mysteries for the viewer to think about, this time I feel the episode didn't quite provide enough hints.

Shiny Unhappy People [Review: Humans episode 1]

Synths - synthetic humans - are the new iPhones. They're cheaper than a car (with the discount), anyone can buy one, and they can do more or less anything. They're the perfect addition to your family. Watch the advert here - they're not creepy at all, are they?


Channel 4's new drama Humans is based on the Swedish drama Real Humans. The first episode revolves around Joe Hawkins and his family. Laura, his wife, is a lawyer and spends too much time away from home, so Joe buys a synth, Anita, to tidy up at home and help him look after the children. The fun begins when Laura gets home... but meanwhile, sinister events are occurring elsewhere, and Anita may not be quite the first-hand, new model she appears to be.

Humans is well written, produced and acted. The synths are brilliantly almost-human with perfect skin, shiny eyes and expressions that are slightly too slow and controlled. Watching synth Anita (Gemma Chan) freak out Laura (Katherine Parkinson) is compelling. Predictably the plot revolves around whether the synths are machines or sentient slaves, and Channel 4 does take some risks here - one scene, where a synth is challenged by a sinister investigator and runs away from his position in a poly tunnel farm only to be shot and recaptured, evokes very strong imagery of the plantations, including the racial appearance of the runaway.

However, the "reveal" of the first episode is pretty tame, and so far in plot terms there is nothing we haven't seen in AI, Blade Runner or I,Robot. I'll continue watching for the drama but I'm hoping that conceptually there is a lot more to come during the series.

Questions, Questions, We All Got Questions [Review: Exam]

“There is one question before you, and one answer is required. If you try to communicate with myself or the guard, you will be disqualified. If you spoil your paper, intentionally or accidentally, you will be disqualified. If you choose to leave this room for any reason, you will be disqualified. Any questions?”

Eight young men and women are escorted into an examination room by an armed guard. They are smartly dressed but some have mysterious cuts or bruises. They are candidates for a highly prized job and the exam is the final stage of the selection procedure. The invigilator stresses that the unknown employer is so powerful that within these walls they can make their own rules. However the penalty for breaking a rule is not execution but simply a bus ride home – and failure.

Stuart Hazeldine’s film Exam is set in a cleverly designed concrete bunker which is reminiscent of Cube, as is the ethnically-diverse group of characters with complementary skills and the philosophical undertone to the dialogue. Exam does not rely on Cube’s cheesewire-trap shocks, although the setting is never “safe” and the danger escalates as the LED clock ticks down. The one-room concept is strictly adhered to – apart from the opening sequence in a washroom, the camera is entirely limited to the exam chamber itself and about two metres of coridoor outside the obligatory sliding door: this works in the film’s favour – a location that initially appears bleak turns out to have secrets and surprises behind every feature.

Exam is based on your own personal examination nightmare, and predictably the candidates turn their papers over to find that they are blank*: happily this is just the opening gambit in a series of puzzles, twists, red herrings and trust-betrayal dilemmas. The key is in the rules, or rather what the rules do not say. For instance there’s no rule against communication between the candidates, so they can cooperate to work out the nature of the question – but the same rules also leave open some interesting ways of disadvantaging each other. The cast of Exam try to resolve their situation within these rules rather than escape them so Exam is not science fiction.

Adar Beck as "Brunette" in Exam

Cinematically this is a tense and extremely watchable film. Exam is tightly scripted and does a very good job of gradually hinting at each candidate’s background as well as the nature of the mysterious employer and the state of the world outside. Colin Salmon is perfectly cast as the suave invigilator and Adar Beck is particularly good as a psychologist who turns out to have previously worked for the company – the others turn on her as they suspect that the exam is some kind of experiment. The ending is clean, resolving the mystery firmly and fairly: it’s well done but sometimes, as in Cube or, say, Blade Runner, it’s good to leave a little ambiguity.

*For those readers whose exam nightmare involves finding that instead of a paper on your desk there is a slice of black forest gateau, my condolences – but watch out for the sequel.

Do mechanoids dream of electric skutters?

Red Dwarf Back to Earth: caught episode 3 tonight and was pleasantly surprised - perhaps there actually was a point to this exercise after all. While TV characters entering the real world and tracking down their creator is not an original concept by any means, this final episode actually managed to wring some decent comedy from the situations, while the many nods to "the show's original inspiration", Blade Runner, were welcome and, if not bringing actual depth, at least added some perspective and dimension to the show. Two of these scenes, the crew fleeing for their life through a Chinatown market and the appearance of Kochanski as Rachael, were also beautifully filmed.

While the concept for this three-off appears embarrassingly contrived, it's consistent with Red Dwarf past episodes that have brought the crew back to Earth temporarily in a variety of ways - from the slides taking them back to the mansion of the Tension Sheet inventor, through the Backwards contracting universe scenario, to the classic episode Better than Life - Back to Earth is in some ways a remake of the latter.

I was trying to work out whether Red Dwarf was really inspired by Blade Runner. There aren't too many obvious connections! However after tonight I'm willing to give the Grant Naylor gestalt the benefit of the doubt, because a) inspiration can be as lateral as you like, and b) it's one of those things that would be cool if it were true.