Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams is a collection of standalone – the stories are all unconnected – episodes based on a variety of science fiction short stories written by the late Philip K. Dick. Philip K. Dick was an influential science fiction author who, during his career, enjoyed both critical acclaim and popularity with readers, but rarely enjoyed any commercial success himself, due to how his contracts tended to be worded, meaning that he often failed to benefit himself from how many copies of his books sold.
Just before he died, Dick did benefit from one of his stories, his novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which was adapted into the film Blade Runner. Since his death, more than a few of his novels and short stories have been adapted into many different films and programmes, some quite loosely. Some of the more well known film adaptations are, going by the name of the adaptation rather than the original name, Total Recall (two versions), Minority Report, Paycheck, The Adjustment Bureau, A Scanner Darkly and Next. The novel The Man in the High Castle has also been adapted into a television series. There are more adaptations than these, and in other media.
The time setting of the episodes in this series ranges from the present through the near future to the more distant future, with an alternate universe along the way. The short stories are all decades old, so have often been updated to a degree, to make them more relevant. In some cases, very relevant – some have a definite echo of present and potential future events, whether through foresight on Dick’s part, or from adaptation or a combination of both. The stories themselves are often not that cheerful, with societies often portrayed as being a dystopian in nature, from a little to extremely so. Electric Dreams is not a series to watch for a viewer who wants to be cheered up.
The episodes, being standalone, have various directors, producers and writers, and quite a few well known actors appear in them.