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Episode 2 of The Dark Crystal: Age Of Resistance has many pleasures. Deet has found her way to the surface, and despite being unused to the glare of the three suns has met her first podling and her first fizzgig who may prove to be a bit of a scene-stealer. The Skeksis are as treacherous as ever - not least to each other, and Rian and Brea are both in so much trouble for different reasons. With some movies or shows there is a drive towards realism, whether through special or visual effects, with the ultimate goal of making the audience forget they are watching a created fantasy. Here the effect is different. It's never in doubt that you are watching puppets - Muppets, even, but the artistry is so good that you still accept them as real characters and care about their struggles. I have taken a decision not to binge-watch The Dark Crystal. It's too good - I want to take a bit more time and enjoy each episode. Also, at this point two episodes in I feel a need to go back and watch ...

The world of Thra is changing. The Skeksis, alien vulture-like creatures who have ruled over the native Gelflings for hundreds of years, have plundered the power of the Crystal to sustain themselves, and this is beginning to influence Thraian lifeforms in sinister ways. Most of the Gelflings are extremely gullible and view the obviously evil Skeksis as benevolent lords, but one or two are beginning to smell a rat. Junior guards Rian (Taron Egerton and Neil Sterenberg) and Mira (Alicia Vikander and Helena Smee) are searching the Skeksis castle for an escaped Spitter when they have an unfortunate encounter with the Skeksis chief scientist; meanwhile Gelfling princess Brea (Anya Taylor-Joy and Alice Dinnean) becomes suspicious of the tributes offered to the Skeksis lords during the annual tithing ceremony, and underground-dwelling Deet (Nathalie Emmanuel and Beccy Henderson) discovers that her favourite baby nurloc has become a little irritable. Something isn't quite right. Set before...

The second of Channel 4's Electric Dreams TV dramas is an adaptation of Philip K. Dick's short story The Impossible Planet. In a distant, space opera future two cynical intergalactic tour guides, Brian Norton and Ed Andrews, take parties of human tourists on cruises to see the most beautiful sights in the Universe - secretly editing the sights and sounds to make them more dramatic. When an elderly woman knocks on their office door accompanied by her personal robot and a suitcase full of cash, asking for a private tour of Earth, Norton and Andrews know that they can't really do this - after all, Earth was vaporized centuries earlier. But she is persistent, and able to pay cash. Perhaps there's a way they can grant her wish after all... The Impossible Planet is slightly reminiscent in places of The Hitch-Hiker's Guide or a good episode of Doctor Who. It's just as inventive and darkly funny. However that's as far as it goes in terms of comparison. Amazingly, th...

After #ElectricDreams which sci-fi author should @Channel4 adapt next? — Sci-Fi Gene (@scifigene) September 18, 2017

Electric Dreams, Channel 4's season of Philip K. Dick dramas, begins with The Hood Maker. This drama is set in an alternate history where tension is rising between "teeps" (telepaths) and "normals". Honor (Holliday Grainger) is a teep recruited by police agent Ross (Richard Madden) to help in the search for anti-teep activists, but when she participates in an interrogation they uncover a trail leading to a group of militants with a secret. The Hood Maker is a good start. Shot in atmospheric yellows and greens, it's a dystopia of slums and riots on the one hand, and a rising police dictatorship on the other. Grainger, fresh from her fresh-faced performance as Cormorant Strike's assistant Robin, acts her heart out as telepath Honor in a challenging role throwing her from innocence to powerful psychic to traumatised victim. Madden has no such range in his role but achieves something else - a decent portrayal of the everyman hero at the heart of so many PKD ...