TV-NZ has a new series this season, which I believe is bound for world fame, like The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Flight of the Conchords and Outrageous Fortune. This Is Not My Life isn’t exactly science fiction. Most of the technologies it features are currently available but unethical without informed consent. The first show starts with the main character waking up one morning and realizing he has absolutely no idea who or where he is. His wife and doctor tell him his name is Alec and blame his amnesia on a fall from a ladder.  However as the story unfolds, he develops the strong sense that he is really someone else and has only recently come to Waimoana.

He subsequently learns via messages he and other people have left on his cellphone that his wife has “ordered” him and his eight year old daughter from a catalogue, and if he doesn’t behave himself he will be replaced. He also learns that the Waimoana elite pay of lot of money to come live in the happiest and most beautiful and congenial town in the world – as well as for the privilege to special order the perfect spouse.  Obviously nowhere is perfectly happy or idyllic, but the people who pay to live in Waimoana (as well as the spouses they order) are all implanted with  microchips that not only wipe their old identity but any memory of new unpleasant events that occur.

The microchips work in conjunction with perfectly insipid Wai TV (looks exactly like American TV to me) that transmits some kind of subliminal messaging.  If you stop watching Wai TV for any length of time, you start having crushing headaches and bad dreams and flashbacks of your old life. Apparently this is how Alec’s problems started.

Welcome to Waimoana

Waimoana is run by a realistically sinister and amoral security service (modelled on the CIA rather than New Zealand intelligence) that monitors everyone via closed circuit TV and does periodic mass chip upgrades (for example when some “terrorists” blow up the power station, everyone loses two days). Security is also responsible for “replacing” (aka “disappearing”) people.

The acting, especially by two of the women, is superb. The wife is perfect as the shallow, annoyingly chirpy cheerleader type you would expect from someone who is getting her microchip wiped daily. And the young female doctor, who doesn’t have a microchip because she paid to work at the Wellness Centre and monitor everyone else’s chips, is so cold and stone faced she’s positively creepy. She leads Alec to believe she’s on his side (she gives him a choice whether to get his third chip implanted when the second one malfunctions). At the same time she forbids him to deviate from his normal routine without her permission.

I imagine American men would likely find Dr Collins pretty intimidating. However, with or without microchips, Kiwi blokes are pretty used to women like this (remember New Zealand was the first country where women got the vote) and recognize when they need to do as they are told.

The series is kind of cross between the Matrix and One Hundred First Dates, with its own unique Kiwi flavor.

Unlike the BBC, TV-NZ replays most of their TV shows on their website and you could see past episodes of This is Not My Life at http://tvnz.co.nz/this-is-not-my-life/not-my-life-index-group-3631491. The site also features a selection of Wai TV programming for your enjoyment.

However viewers need to be cautious about not watching Wai TV for too long, or they may be prone to severe headaches and nightmares.

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