The opening instalment of Channel 4’s anthology series based on the short stories of Philip K. Dick takes us to a world without advanced technology, where mutant telepaths have become humanity’s only mechanism for long distance communication and an uneasy alliance is formed between a cop and a ‘teep’.

In the opening scene of Matthew (Life on Mars) Graham’s adaptation of Dick’s 1955 Imagination magazine story, the camera lingers on a pan of stir-fry in a steamy back street alley. It can’t be coincidence that we immediately think of Deckard’s scene at the White Dragon noodle bar in Ridley Scott’s 1982 Blade Runner, and it doesn’t stop there. Grizzled cop in trench coat, Richard Madden, creeping about an abandoned (not the Bradbury) building, gun clapped in both hands in front of him? Interrogator Holliday Grainger asking a suspect about a memory of their mother – “Let me tell you about my mother.”

It’s a wise move signposting at this earliest stage just what sort of world we’re in, and if that means evoking memories of PKD’s most popular spin-off, that’s a fair shout. I don’t even see this world-building as rip-off or homage, merely a statement of intent, and the intent of this episode is to set it in the cinematic, dystopian world of PKD, and not the world of his written stories. This might come as a disappointment to some, but the adaptations in this series are frequently little more than ‘inspired by’ rather than straight adaptations – maybe the author’s stories don’t fit a modern TV storytelling structure. But the ideas and the tropes are still all unmistakably Dick’s from the high concept idea of the mind-reading teeps to the thought-blocking hoods.

Madden and Grainger are the cop and the teep, Agent Ross and Honor, trying to seek out the eponymous hood maker who is constructing headwear that can block the signals of the telepaths. The authorities are using the teeps to identify the would-be terrorists in this world that is a tinder box, just waiting to explode. Grainger isn’t permitted to scan Madden’s mind, but if she did, what would  she find?

Matthew Graham recalls devouring PKD’s short stories in his youth, but in his haste he missed that the hoods are actually metal bands, instead imagining them as full-head masks. Instead of correcting this misreading, he uses these hoods to great effect – a hybrid of the Sons of the Harpy metal masks from Game of Thrones and the Scarecrow’s psychedelic sackcloth mask in Batman.

In little time the world is established, primitive future retro noir, and it’s no coincidence that Graham got his beloved Ford Cortina on screen again – this vehicle isn’t reliant on computer technology. The grungy police department, warehouses and buildings are all effective in presenting this bleak world, with occasional CGI expanding the scale of the landscape, supported by a typically atmospheric score by Broadchurch’s Olafur Arnalds.

Both leads are great in their roles, Grainger’s Honor being particularly good as the abused telepath, fighting to do what’s right. As to who the hood maker is and what his plans are… watch and learn.

Reading Dick’s original 18-page story (collected in Electric Dreams, an anthology by Gollancz of the 10 stories in this series) the basic concept of the teeps being joined together telepathically is there, that they are scanning people for disloyalty, and that there are hoods blocking their signals. There’s a Clearance agent called Ross, but he’s not the protagonist, there’s no female teep called Honor and in the story it’s the teeps who are the aggressors. In short, the basic ideas have been stripped out and the story taken in a very different direction.

Verdict: A confident opening instalment that uses the familiarity of its story to establish the world of the stories. Grim, adult sci-fi that doesn’t exist to satisfy a tricksy twist ending, it’s a promising start. 8/10

Nick Joy

https://youtu.be/lwvA2BgLmOo