Two jaded space tourism employees, Jack Reynor (Transformers: Age of Extinction) and Benedict Wong (Doctor Strange, Prometheus) accept an ancient woman’s (Geraldine Chaplin) request for a trip back to Earth – a planet whose existence is a long-debunked myth.

Written and directed by David Farr, writer of The Night Manager, Impossible Planet is a gently-paced, slow-burning tale in this anthology series based on the works of Philip K. Dick’s short stories. Its studio-bound set and story structure really reminded me of the 1990s revival of The Outer Limits – and I don’t mean that in a disparaging way. This is one of the least tricksy stories in the series, featuring a very straightforward narrative and without too many sci-fi distractions. However, it still features PKD’s preoccupations with artificial life, consumerism, memory, the past and the desire to get away from it all.

Essentially a three-hander – though there is a very effective C-3PO-alike robant (robot servant) RB29 – this episode has real heart. Benedict Wong is the seasoned rogue who would happily sell coal to Newcastle, while the younger Jack Reynor struggles with the deception of their scam. This is an old lady in her dying weeks, wanting to visit Earth before she goes, and they are planning to show her another, similar celestial body that in Star Trek would be called a Class M planet. She won’t realise that she’s literally been taken for a ride, so what’s the harm?

Clearly there’s more to this story than meets the eye, and the resolution is not altogether unexpected, though is more ambiguous than the original. Dick’s 11-page story THE Impossible Planet was published in Imagination magazine in 1953 and is very faithfully followed – one of the most faithful adaptations in the series. The same characters are all present and while there is a romantic sub-plot added to bulk up the slim original, the beats are all there. But the ending to the print story is more Richard Matheson’s Third from the Sun or Planet of the Apes – it was Earth all the time, whereas this TV adaptation takes Reynor down to the planet with his old lover and transports them back in time – or have they just died from the oxygen running out? Was it actually Earth? Maybe. Maybe not.

Verdict: A tender, well-told tale about the power of memory. Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be, but sometimes you really can go back, even if you’ve never been there before! 8/10

Nick Joy