episode #02, segment 2: Dreams For Sale
Base of Galactic Science Fiction :: SCIENCE FICTION in TELEVISION :: The Copper Age of TV Sci-Fi
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episode #02, segment 2: Dreams For Sale
BoG Wed Apr 21, 2010 8:20 pm
#2b: DREAMS FOR SALE: written by Joe Gannon; Directed by Tommy Lee Wallace
Some viewers familiar with this show regard this episode as a misstep. It's one of the short ones at under 10 minutes and does seem almost like a throwaway, sort of brushing over the concept presented here and moving on. But, the concept did intrigue me when I first watched this one.
The episode begins with a couple and their two kids on a picnic. It's a very pastoral setting, perhaps even cliched. And, that's the point - this is an ideal setting, for a woman (Meg Foster) who yearns for the perfect family life. But, something is wrong. Her husband starts 
This could have been one of the longer, 20 or 25-minute episodes, as the woman
Some viewers familiar with this show regard this episode as a misstep. It's one of the short ones at under 10 minutes and does seem almost like a throwaway, sort of brushing over the concept presented here and moving on. But, the concept did intrigue me when I first watched this one.
- Spoiler:
- repeating phrases and then even the visual of him and the setting begins to distort or fluctuate. There's a problem with the program. The woman 'wakes up' - she's hooked into an entertainment computer, presumably on her break during work at some futuristic factory. The problem here is that, due to the malfunction, she does not recall her 'real' life; the simple computer recreation in her head is what is real to her now.
This could have been one of the longer, 20 or 25-minute episodes, as the woman
- Spoiler:
- struggles to confront reality, but this version wraps everything up quickly. But, keep in mind, this was over a decade before the Matrix films. This one made a strong impression on me; what if this color-encoded world we live in is merely an idealized computer fantasy? What if the real world were a lot more gray? It kept me thinking for a few nights. And, I probably wasn't too surprised or spellbound by The Matrix (1999) when it came along due to TV episodes such as this. The FX in this one were pretty good - by TV standards.