Electric Dreams: Episode 1 'The Hood Maker' - Review
In this episode, Richard Madden plays a detective looking into cases of anti-Teep (or anti-telepathic) protesters, with the assistance of Holliday Grainger, a Teep herself. Together they uncover the mystery of the hood maker, a man who's sent out a variety of anti-Teep hoods to the general population in an effort to resist their physic powers. Not all is as it seems though, and perhaps learning the truth can be harder than remaining in ignorance...
If you haven't seen the episode yet, I'll try to avoid spoilers as best as possible. The series is new on TV, and I can imagine some just want to read this wondering whether or not to watch. Put simply: this episode in particular isn't anything special, but maybe in the long run this series could be worth checking out.
'The Hood Maker' is about 50 minutes long, which at first seems like a good length for an episode of television, not to mention an adaptation of a short story, but very quickly you realize that this is essentially a feature film condensed into about half the necessary length. It seems to be the rule of television that nothing is perfectly paced: its either too long or too short. In the case of 'The Hood Maker', it just struggles to really tell its story in such little time. Maybe Phillip K Dick's original is a bit too short, but here the episode seems to reach it's third act just after starting its second. So much is set-up early on that the episode stumbles its way towards a third act series of revelations that end up just...happening on-screen. The actual mystery of the episode is robbed, and the revelations never hit home because you've had so little investment in the characters and their interactions.
Not to say that Madden and Grainger are bad, but their characters by the end appear to have had a relationship off-screen that never fully develops in the episode itself, making the actual ending of 'The Hood Maker' an anti-climax. A potentially interesting open ending, but the emotion just isn't there because the episode hasn't earned the moment.
Who's fault is this? I can't possibly say. Matthew Graham's work on Doctor Who wasn't particularly strong, but pacing wasn't a problem there. Maybe the commission of a fifty minute episode was just a bad idea in the first place. Or maybe I'm looking for more in a story that warrants less.
As for the actual story itself, I can't say its anything too special. The whole Teep vs normal conflict feels a bit cliched - it's so common in science fiction that it's difficult to create a new perspective on it. Here though, the social commentary just whacks you over the head instead of actually allowing you to think about it. Regardless of its faults, Blade Runner at least allows us to understand a unique conflict between the Replicants and the humans - that being that the humans essentially become deities to their android creations. Here though, it's kept so simple that it never escapes the boundary of being a sci-fi trope.
The world is realized in an interesting way, with a very seventies production design, while the production values on the whole look pretty solid, even if nothing in particular caught my eye. It's edited quite well for the most part, although the extended title sequence at the beginning felt a little too much for an anthology series like this. It's as if Electric Dreams is trying to be like Black Mirror, but avoid being Black Mirror in its style. 'The Hood Maker' is directed quite well, and the cast definitely go for it, but again no one really stands out.
Had 'The Hood Maker' provided something that stood out, or was simply just unique, I'd probably be much more positive in my review. However, nothing stood out to me. It had an interesting premise, but the execution was quite lackluster. There isn't really anything bad here, but there's nothing truly great either, giving me a sort of indifferent reaction. Is it worth continuing with Electric Dreams? Quite possibly. An anthology series like this is always going to be a hit-or-miss situation, if purely out of personal enjoyment, and in the case of 'The Hood Maker', it just didn't really do anything for me.
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