Lathe of Heaven

PBS in San Francisco broadcast the original every night for a week in, I believe 1978, and I'm old enough to have taped it on my newly invented, right-out-of-the-box, VHS recorder. I still have that well-used tape and still drag it out to watch every few years. What made the original so compelling was not only the delicious characterizations by an extraordinary cast, and the exploration of significant social issues - nuclear war, racial tensions, misguided social engineering, etc., all prominent issues of the day (okay, so what's changed?) but the surreal quality of the visual presentation that mirrored the pattern of dreams in a chillingly recognizable way.

In this era of extraordinary graphics capabilities, I eagerly looked forward to new interpretations of the dream sequences so central to the story. Unfortunately, the new interpretation was to eliminate them altogether, along with most of the plot elements, and thereby substituting the original production's cognitive dissonance with somnambulance.

Big words. Lousy movie. Somebody PLEASE try again.