Electric Dreams: Real Life offered a hackneyed vision of the future, full of clichés and self-referential asides - review

“Doesn’t this all seem like some ancient male fantasy?” asked the heroine of Electric Dreams: Real Life (Channel 4). “What they used to call science-fiction? I literally have a flying car and a gorgeous lesbian wife who wants to have sex all the time.” Sadly, this disappointing drama wasn’t nearly as spicy as that description sounds. 

The fifth standalone episode in the dystopian sci-fi strand saw Sarah (Anna Paquin), a self-styled “lesbian supercop from the future”, haunted by the horror of a recent massacre at her Chicago police precinct and suffering from survivor’s remorse. 

She soon discovered that her life was inextricably linked to that of billionaire tech magnate George (Terrence Howard). Both were married to the idealised figure of Katie (Rachelle Lefevre) and both were pursuing violent killers – George had turned vigilante after his Katie was brutally murdered – while trying to escape their woes via virtual-reality devices. “A vacation without leaving home,” as it was described.

As the dual protagonists shared headspace, the lines between fact and fantasy blurred. Each imagined themselves living the other’s life – but whose was real? 

Electric Dreams has been Channel 4’s attempt to replace Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror, which operates in a similar sphere but moved to Netflix. An anthology series based on Philip K Dick short stories (this one was adapted from Ronald D Moore’s Exhibit Piece (1954)) was a timely commission too, with Blade Runner 2049 currently getting film fanboys in a frenzy.

Unfortunately, it has lacked Black Mirror’s thought-provoking ideas and audacious wit – or, indeed, Blade Runner's visual flair. Instead, the stories have felt po-faced and pretentious. A co-production by Amazon and Sony, Electric Dreams's hefty budget has attracted Hollywood names such as Bryan Cranston and Steve Buscemi with no great reward. The best episode so far has been the simplest: The Commuter, starring Timothy Spall. 

Paquin and Howard are both fine actors but here were stuck with blank stares and meaningful glares instead of getting anything meaty to work with. The hokey, clunkingly expositional dialogue didn’t help. “You’re not alone in this, Sarah,” intoned her cardboard cut-out sidekick Mario (Jacob Vargas). “The massacre affected the entire department. I want to find the guys that did this too.” “I keep feeling there’s a much deeper truth here,” mused George, impressively keeping a straight face. 

Home-grown interest came from Lara Pulver, who played George’s doctor-cum-confidante. Her main job was icy pouts and spouting cod-scientific gobbledegook about “cerebral cortexes” and “software decryption codes”. The gangster villain in both worlds, Collins (Guy Burnet), was also supposed to be British, hence his Dick Van Dyke-esque Mockney squawking. 

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Real Life offered a hackneyed vision of the future, full of skyscrapers, holograms, hackers and driverless cars. It’s a wonder there were no one-pill meals or robot butlers. The script tried to make a virtue of its clichés by bunging in some knowingly self-referential asides – “A tale of heartbreak and revenge, I love it!”, “Hot lesbian sex in some sci-fi paradise!” – but they felt tacked on. Meanwhile, George got compared to Bruce Wayne and had the surname Miller – presumably a nod to the Aussie creator of Mad Max.

Real Life desperately wanted to be Kafka-esque and profound. Instead it was frustratingly sixth-formish. Another misfire in an unsatisfying series. 

In the end, which world was real? By the time the credits rolled, I can’t say I cared terribly much.