Total Recall 2070

Easton & Pruner play a perfect pair of cops who work off each others strongpoints and makes for enlightening scenario of the future mental battles of crime. Easton keeps his character as dark and moody as he has in the past. Pruner is great as an android partner who craves human traits and feelings so he can fit in with his human counterpart Easton. Great series set with a toned down "BladeRunner" motif. Brings back memories of "Mann & Machine". Hopefully this series will last longer than "M&M" CDB

If you like The man in the High Castle, Black Rain, Blade Runner, Alien, Prometheus, WestWorld and Total Recall, this show is for you.

You don't mind a little stiff acting, as long as there is a great sci-fi story and cool special effects.

You can accept some clumsy blocky stating the obvious and spilling the beans storytelling, to get you where you want to go.

You almost like, that the main character looks like Christian Bale and sounds like young Keanu Reeves, while he delivers his stiff Raymond Chandler sounding lines.

Clichés like "that is out of your jurisdiction" and "let's go downtown fo a little chat" makes you smile.

If someone tries to put a little Hannibal Lecter or Roy Batty into their character, that just makes things better, according to you.

You have missed that glossy nineties ad agency way of shooting things, with hard light directly from the side.

And if you can get all of the above, and even some R rated skin exposure too, wrapped in classic cop buddy series form, you don't want to leave until you have consumed the whole thing!

This is a great show, with underrated production values and subtlety. People who watch movies, unfortunately do not always read books. Some complains that it does not follow the Total Recall novel. But in fact it is a loving and exciting recreation of the world of Philip K. Dick--his future dystopias. It owes a lot to "Flow My Tears the Polceman Said"--with its mysterious hierarchy of androids. No, this is not an "action" series like the "Ahnold" movie "TR" was. It's a mixture of sci-fi, mystery, police procedural and a lot of Red-Serling like philosophizing and speculating about the future and human nature. Somebody who judges this series based on one episode seems to be a bit short-tempered. By the way, there are now DVDs of this episode available on the 'net.

In the first time I watched Total Recall 2070 I was just thinking "Blade Runner". The backgrounds, the style, the futuristic look of the sets and the technology, all of them look like "Blade Runner". A nice show in overall, not only due to it's looks but also to it's story and sub-stories in each episode.

When I read this show was very much Philip K Dick inspired, using many of his ideas, rather than just a spin off, I knew I had to see it.

Total Recall 2070 shows a futuristic world dominated by multinational corporations, many of them operating on Mars as well. While crime has reduced spectacularly, there are still many problems in society. The show deals with a lot of cyberpunk topics: brain manipulation, androids, genetics, virtual reality, viruses etcetera. The CPB, a type of independent police force, often competing with other jurisdictions, has their hands full on it.

Visually the show is literally very dark with sparse lighting and often a foggy, rainy scenery whenever things take place outside. Clearly the show had a tight budget, often repeating the same cgi imagery transiting between scenes to show parts of the city, but it was very cleverly used. The backgrounds show us but a glimpse of a grim world that is rebuilding itself on technology, nature having been destroyed mostly.

Unfortunately the show is not addictive at all and there are some important elements missing to make it great: humor, a clear direction of storyline, well- motivated and consistent emotions. It too often feels as just another bland cop show, just set in the future, although it's really much deeper than your average police fare. Some characters, like David Hume's wife, or the female lab researcher,Olan Chang, are underdeveloped. But Hume and Farve, his android partner, are excellently casted. Hume is the cool, but emotional and aggressive agent, while Farve is the brilliant investigator, looking for his unknown origins.

The ambient synth music fits very well with the whole Blade Runner feel. It would be unfair to compare it all with what Vangelis and Ridley Scott did for atmosphere: for a TV show they've done a good job transferring the script to a very watchable programme.

Total Recall has occasional swearing and some sex but it is all functional, not just for the heck of it. Overall a very smart show with a lot of conspiracy, cover ups, tensions, but most importantly very relevant issues regarding humanity's fate in a world where technology can be one's friend or worst enemy, depending who is using it, who wants to have it, who owns it and who decides what is legal to do with it.

So, there's some good and some bad. I didn't mind the lower production values but compared to this show, writing has dramatically improved for so many shows these days and so has their addictiveness. I hope to see a nice new cyberpunk/futuristic show soon, right now Westworld is the best one to watch.

In particular avid Philip K Dick and sci fi fans should give this show a shot but you may get bored after an episode or 6.