When everyman Philbert Noyce starts hearing things that others are oblivious to, he starts doubting his sanity, while also fearing that bad things are afoot.

Much like previous episode Safe and Sound, we’re in one of those awful dystopian future societies again, where paranoia is rife and technology is only really serving the establishment. Pity poor Philbert, he works on a mindless production line, his wife is having an affair with a coffee advert (really!) and the single party candidate for the government is preaching to commuters on the train. Except that, did she really just say that? And so follows Philbert’s descent into bureaucratic hell, paranoia and fighting the system.

The Oscar-nominated screenwriter Dee Rees (for this year’s Mudbound) takes Philip K. Dick’s 1953 Science Fiction Adventures tale The Hanging Stranger and creates an equally humorous and shocking parable, which works particularly well when the protagonist starts to wonder if he’s paranoid or whether the people around him are gaslighting him.

It reminds me of Roddy Piper in John Carpenter’s They Live where he starts seeing subliminal messages by the undercover invaders. Inevitably, this is a tale without a happy ending, and whether it is cautionary or just expanding on a big ‘what if?’ premise, it makes for uneasy viewing.

Verdict: The hybrid MexUsCan nation with its fake news and uni-party leadership feels shockingly close to a possible tomorrow. A strong conclusion to a thought-provoking season, reminding us just how relevant the themes of PKD’s work are today as they were over 60 years ago. 8/10

Nick Joy