TV Review Electric Dreams Safe And Sound

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Spoiler alerts In an America divided, a young girl, Foster Lee, (Analisse Basso) and her radical mother get a year’s free pass to visit the Western freelands despite being from a people regarded as terrorists and anarchists and potential suicide bombers. The story mainly centres on the daughter as she finds herself alienated from her new school friends, and seeking consolation in her use of a futuristic Siri-like computer devise in her ear, but the devise appears to fuel her fear and paranoia. When she removes the ear piece, the voices still reach her, seemingly coming even from the very insects buzzing around her. Slowly, she is groomed into committing a fake suicide bomb attack on a school, for which her mother will be arrested. Though captured and deprogrammed, her attack is used to deprive the people of the West of even more freedoms, but in reality, the state has engineered the whole terrorist drama just to do this. I did like this episode. It was obvious Foster Lee was being set up from the Golden Ticket prize to go from the bubble to the Utopia, with the voice in the ear cruelly parodying her father's schizophrenic voices, especially in continuing after she had switched off the set. The epilogue change of point of view showed even the 'friendly' brainwasher being manipulated, This was more Brave New World than 1984, take your freedoms away with paranoia induced about outsiders amidst must have consumerism, while leaving you thinking it is a state to be happy with. Reminds me of the line from Me & Bobby McGee about 'Freedom's Just Another word for nothing left to lose'. A bit too much Minority Report style holographic computer play, but otherwise this was a strong, very socially aware story Arthur Chappell