10 Philip K. Dick Short Stories That Would Make Great TV Episodes

Like a Jedi master struck down by Darth Vader, after his death, sci-fi legend Philip K. Dick became more powerful than anyone could have imagined. As is sadly typical of artists who make history, in life PKD struggled to make ends meet through his writing, despite awards and high regards both within and outside of the science fiction community. Yet over the last decade, it has often seemed like half the films and TV shows in development at any given time are adaptations of PKD’s work—from Blade Runner, to Minority Report, to The Man in the High Castle, to Blade Runner 2: Probably Unnecessary, he’s everywhere. Hollywood has even spent 40 years trying to adapt Ubik, a novel that doesn’t lend itself easily to a visual medium.
Lately, Dick’s novels have grabbed most of the attention, though it could be argued he was at his best when writing with a constrained word count—many of the 120 short stories he published rank with the greatest short science fiction ever written. That’s about to change, however, with the recent announcement that Breaking Bad star Bryan Cranston is collaborating with Battlestar Galactica’s Ronald D. Moore and Justified’s Michael Dinner on a 10-episode anthology series for Sony Pictures Television and Channel 4 in the U.K. called Electric Dreams that will pull directly from the writer’s impressive short SF catalog. If you’re a fan of PKD—or just a fan of great science fiction stories—this is great news. Naturally, we have opinions. Strong opinions. Here are 10 stories they absolutely must adapt for this series.

The Father-Thing
This 1954 story about a boy who suspects his father has been replaced with an alien replica is a brilliant twist on the “body snatcher’s” trope. Dick brings it down to earth, so to speak, by telling it on an intimate and emotional level, with the boy forced to turn to his fellow children for help because none of the adults can see what he sees. If Bryan Cranston doesn’t play the father with that patented Walter White slow-boil anger, it would be a shame.
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
Okay, this is a novel, not a short story. But it’s crying out to be adapted as part of this anthology. The story is set in a future dystopia in which a world-famous musician and TV personality wakes up one morning to find he no longer exists—and no one remembers him. The themes of celebrity and fame—and what they mean, and why it matters—have chilling modern-day implications, and a tightly-scripted adaptation could be a powerful commentary on our world of Youtube stars and reality TV families.
I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon
This late-era story isn’t showy. It doesn’t have a mind-blowing premise or a huge twist. It’s simply excellent. On a spaceship, one of the crew suffers a cryosleep malfunction and regains consciousness early, but remains paralyzed. The ship’s artificial intelligence entertains him over the remainder of a 10-year journey by replaying his own memories, and later by constructing virtual scenarios for him. The ending isn’t happy, so naturally, it’s a role in which Cranston would excel.
Impostor
This twisty little brain-bender is classic PKD, and it’s ideal for TV because it packs an epic conflict (galactic war with aliens) within an interior, small-scale narrative. A scientist on a team working on a weapons system is suddenly accused of being an android impostor sent to sabotage planetary defenses. Seeking to prove his humanity, he escapes and evades his captors—and runs right into a twist ending that was made for TV.

The Electric Ant
With just a few modernizing tweaks, this story could serve as grist for one of the best hours of television ever made. A man wakes up after a car crash to discover he’s an “electric ant”—essentially an organic robot. He learns that altering his programming alters his reality—and the reality of everyone he interacts with. The questions this one raises mean it could be one of the densest sci-fi scripts ever written.

Beyond Lies the Wub
PKD’s first published sci-fi story is one of his best, and deals with so many issues all at once, it’s almost overwhelming. A spaceship takes on a load of animals on Mars, including an impulse purchase by one crew member: a huge creature called a Wub. The captain wants to slaughter and eat it, but the crew discovers the Wub is intelligent, thoughtful—and telepathic. The twisty ending retains its punch after six decades. This would make for a delightfully dark episode of the anthology.

The Skull
Time travel stories that twist back upon themselves have been done, but PKD adds a subtle knot that makes it especially satisfying to unravel. A man is sent back in time to assassinate the founder of a religious cult that changed the tide of history; to identify his target, the assassin is given the cult leader’s skull. While the first twist might be obvious even from this brief description, you’ll never figure out the second one—and it would be fascinating to see if it worked as well on the screen.
The Hanging Stranger
Another of PKD’s earliest stories provides one of his most haunting images: after a day spent underground repairing the foundation of his house, a man goes into town and is shocked to see a dead body hanging from a lamppost—a hanged man no one else seems bothered by. The meaning of the hanged man is what sets this story apart, and the political interpretations keep the story evergreen no matter how much time goes by.

Second Variety
This tense, cold-war influenced story of apocalyptic war and artificially-intelligent, self-replicating robot warriors is a chilling story of paranoia any fan of The Thing will love. When robots evolve into androids almost indistinguishable from humans and turn against their makers, an investigator identifies most of the varieties—save one. Struggling to return to the Moon Base free of robots, the man discovers one of his companions is the unknown “second variety” of robot—but which one? The ending is one of those that seems pretty dark on a casual read, and really dark when you think about it.

The Golden Man
The Golden Man was very loosely adapted into the Nic Cage film Next—and if for no other reason than to erase that memory, it deserves to be adapted again. Dick’s original story is a lot weirder; the titular Golden Man can see into the future, extrapolating all possible outcomes from each decision or action, and is hunted by a government agency that eliminates dangerous mutants. In the end, the Golden Man is much more than a time traveler—he might be the primal future of humanity. A great story that deserves a real adaptation.
What PKD stories would you choose for the small screen?