6 April 2018 | Lejink

6 | School craze

Yet another good entry in this Philip K Dick Anthology. The approach of this one appears more aimed at today's teen market weaned on similarly dystopian near-future scenarios like "The Hunger Games" or "The Maze Runner" focusing as it does on the 16 year old daughter of a prominent spokeswoman for one side of opposing factions in a long-running phoney war, the mother meeting senior counterparts on the other side to ostensibly discuss a peace settlement. Trouble is, the other side parleys fake news to its citizens like today's Kim Jung In or Putin which should have been a warning to the mother and daughter but somehow manages to go unheeded.



So said mother probably unwisely let's her daughter loose into this unfamiliar society while she attends her meetings and encourages the young girl to effectively take a gap year learning the ways of her fellow school mates. Not unnaturally she doesn't fit in and casts about looking for friends where she can find them, resorting to wearing the strange wrist-bands the other kids wear which while facilitating school lessons and communications nevertheless have the distinct hint of Big Brother about them. The show makes a good point about modern-day youth interacting more with their comms than in person which leads to the young girl being led to make a choice as to who she can trust, the real-life fellow pupils she meets or the voice in her ear, supposedly watching out for her like a stream of consciousness guardian angel.



Besides the above, references to the use of children in today's warfare in essence as suicide bombers gave the programme an up to date feel, but in the end I didn't enjoy the bleak conclusion or the cynical way adults use youth for their own nefarious tastes.



This episode seemed a little more fleshed out than some others I've seen already and the central character of the exploited daughter likewise appeared just a little too easily led to her acts of betrayal, especially with her mom right there with her. So while it made some telling points which are highly topical today perhaps I found the teen-condescending storyline just a little off the mark for me.