Total Recall 2070 (1999)

After watching Total Recall movies I remembered that there were also tv series named Total Recall 2070. Total Recall 2070 is one of those forgotten scifi series, that were cancelled after first season. Series was closer to Blade Runner than 1990 movie. There is company called Rekall selling similar services than in movie, but series has other themes too and Rekall is not above other themes. Main theme was how androids and humans can coexist. Naming this Total Recall was mistake. This is almost nothing like that Schwarzenegger movie. There is no humor and actors compete who can be coolest and darkest character. Just like in Blade Runner.

Main character is human cop, whose partner was killed by android. His partner is android. Partner is not revealed to be android at the beginning. He is new more advanced model than other androids. During the season we learn more about his origins. If you don't know that android is android, he feels like he has mental issues. After learning he is android it makes more sense. The cop is having problems with his relationship. Police department is pressured from outside and our heroes' boss fight to let them do their jobs.

World was controlled by huge corporations. They even had their own police force to investigate crimes that related to them or was made by them. It was dystopian future, where people didn't mean that much and where there was little hope. Because huge corporations had their own police forces, our heroes had problems in their investigations when something pointed to huge corporations.

Series was film noir like scifi. It was violent and had adult themes. It was slow and dark. You could see low-budget at times, but that didn't matter, because story was interesting. There were clichés and flaws. But it had interesting themes and world. Too bad that we only got so little of them and only small hint what the main story arch could have been.

It has been a while since I watched the series. That is reason why this is so short and I don't go deeper into details. As far as I know there is no region 2 dvd release and online distribution is lacking. Which is great shame, because this was better scifi than your average scifi tv series. I recommend watching this if you have a change. I saw this on channel that was specialized on obscure scifi series. We need more channels like that. Otherwise we miss all Total Recall 2070s, Charlie Jades and Dresden Files.