Electric Dreams

Electric Dreams (2009 TV series)


Electric Dreams is a BBC television documentary series, co-produced with The Open University, that places a family of two parents and four children in their home with only the amenities available during each of the previous three decades (1970s, 1980s and 1990s), and recording their responses to the changing pace of technological change. The intent of the series was to be "much more than a technology show … it is contemporary social history and asks big moral questions about life in the modern world". Narrated by actor and comedian Robert Llewellyn, the series first aired on the UK digital terrestrial channel BBC Four in September and October 2009. It was later sold for international broadcast in 2010 and 2011.

Background
There are three episodes; "The 1970s", "The 1980s" and "The 1990s". Each covers a period of ten days, one for each year, with a counter over the front door showing the current year. New devices and amenities - as well as clothing and interior designs - are provided as appropriate as days go by (for example, a home computer in 1982, and a VCR in 1984), and sometimes removed as they go out of date. The programme follows the family's adaption and reaction to being thrown back in time to a more technologically sparse period; and how their pastimes, social interactions and attitudes change in response to both landing in the early 1970s and coming up-to-date. They are not kept isolated "Big Brother" style over the course of the series; instead life continues "normally" - the parents go to work, children to school, friends come over, videos are (only just) rented, and dinner parties held. The series concludes with the family hosting their own Millennium party (to the children's initial confusion) with friends and neighbours in attendance. Their general opinion is one of relief to be returned to the 21st century and its more widely electronically connected society, but that some lessons have been learned from the past on how making more time for family togetherness actually made them happier than their previously quite personally insular existence.

Guests
Guests appearing on the show included Sir Clive Sinclair, members of Ultravox, Simon Munnery, Patrick Bossert and Keith Stewart of The Guardian, a gaming journalist and Simon Webb, curator of the Museum of Computing in Swindon. Although cut from the final version, Jason Fitzpatrick of The Centre for Computing History was also interviewed about the Altair 8800 computer. Many of the gadgets used in the documentary were supplied by the museum.