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‘Black Mirror’ Finds Terror, and Soul, in the Machine
- blastofpast 10y agoAfter binge-watching the latest six episodes, I really enjoyed this "Twilight Zone"-like promo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di6emt8_ie8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di6emt8_ie8
- Mao_Zedang 10y agoI was really sad at how short season 3 was, but quality over quantity, at the very least I am grateful that Netflix revived one of my favorite shows. If all netflix does is pick up popular shows that arent popular enough for time slot tv, and inject new life into them I will be a netflix subscriber forever.
- maneesh 10y agoIt's only the first half of the season! There is a second half coming in 2017
- Mao_Zedang 10y agoThat sounds like two separate seasons. This is good news though :)
- lozf 10y ago> I was really sad at how short season 3 was Huh? It's already 6 episodes, compared to the first two seasons that were just 3 episodes each, not including the one-off "White Christmas" special. The runtime of the season 3 episodes are longer too.
- Mao_Zedang 10y agoShort compared to other shows, not short compared to its previous format designed for time slot tv.
- tdkl 10y agoIt's not supposed to be long and continuous like the majority of forgettable shows, who just prolong seasons to milk money. That's why UK shows are way superior - if the plan and story is to make 4 seasons, then it's over, even if viewers are begging for more.
- zouhair 10y ago6 episodes is a normal length for a TV season in the UK.
- worldsayshi 10y agoHaving such anthology format is probably more costly since you can re-use very little in between episodes.
- dajohnson89 10y agoNetflix didn't revive it. They outbid the original producers for production rights. It would've been continued one way or another.
- WillPostForFood 10y agoNetflix outbid the original broadcasters for broadcast/streaming rights. The same producers (Zeppotron /Endemol Shine) have made all three seasons.
- dajohnson89 10y agoWow I didn't know that, thanks for pointing it out. Still, I can't help but wonder if the third season is a bit more Americanized.
- Mao_Zedang 10y agoWhy the massive gap since season 2 then? If you dont count the single episode "special" there hasnt been a season 3.5 years.
- TwoBit 10y agoLook at the Sherlock Holmes gaps.
- manuelflara 10y agoBut that's mostly due to how extremely popular are now the two main actors, compared to when they first started doing the show, no?
- rahoulb 10y agoAlso British shows don't have teams of writers, it tends to be one or two people working alone, so workload and inspiration also affect show times.
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- danso 10y agoI've only watched 3 of the episodes (Playtest, Shut Up and Dance, and Hated in the Nation)...I've heard the other 3 episodes were better, but the 3 that I have watched seemed subpar compared to the previous 2 seasons. Not terrible as far as overall TV goes, but after the plot thrills were over, they just didn't leave the same queasiness-about-possible-future-dystopia that "White Bear", "White Christmas", "Entire History of You", "Be Right Back", and "Fifteen Million Merits" do (5 out of 7). I am looking forward to watching "San Junipero", because unlike the other episodes, I have no idea what it's about based on its episode description (or 80s-themed screenshot).
- Cyph0n 10y agoI thought the first three episodes were brilliant. The rest are also good - San Junipero is quite enjoyable - but the last episode was somewhat underwhelming for me. S3 is probably not as good as the rest of the series, but it's much better than anything else currently on TV, except for Westworld of course.
- danso 10y agoAnd Mr. Robot, which doesn't get nearly enough threads on HN IMHO :)
- JoeSloth 10y agoI thought the last episode was great, although maybe slightly long. It was a good example of how a seemingly good piece of technology can be disastrous if a back door is put into it. Also it was a decent nod to Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds"
- Cyph0n 10y agoIt might have been more believable if it wasn't just the work of a single person. I just couldn't suspend my disbelief because of that. I mean, we are on HN after all :P
- danso 10y agoI think my problem with it was how plot-driven the last episode ("Hated in the Nation") was. It ended in a way as if it mattered whether the cops catch the bad guy. I love cop shows, but the procedural bits here took time from all the interesting tech concepts that had been brought up. Another reviewer described it as feeling like an episode of X-Files, which I think is an apt way to describe it: Good, but not the kind of good that Black Mirror is uniquely positioned to deliver.
- zump 10y agoAdvertorials don't belong here.
- Mao_Zedang 10y agoIf reviews about scyfy futurology style tv shows dont belong on HN I dont know where they do belong.
- 794CD01 10y agoSeems like a good fit for reddit.
- m_mueller 10y agoBlack Mirror often takes little details that we add in software, like a rating system, and takes them to their extreme and logical conclusion. Its premises are mostly sci-fi, but as thought experiments on how what we do could lead to a severe dystopia, it is superbly engaging. I recommend watching no more than one episode per day - I've been thinking about its topics quite a lot recently. At the least, it's refreshing to see updated versions of Huxley/Orwellian dystopias or even departures from them. And to have all of that in condensed 50min netflix episodes, so free for anyone who uses it already, with absolutely no padding to waste your time, is such a unique thing to have. I hope it spawns many more shows following this format, as sort of a counter movement to 24- or Lost-like continuity with tons of baggage.
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- ben_jones 10y agoI've watched the first episode and had some existential questions pop up while on a walk today. Isn't that end-all rating system, like you mention, the final form of many companies like Facebook or Instagram? When the value generated on the platform grows beyond its platform to other important parts of society. I think this is only just starting to happen, like Air BnB's usage of Facebook profiles as host validation, or a social media marketer using the size of their instagram following etc. on a job application.
- justinpombrio 10y agoApparently China plans to role out that kind of rating system by 2020, dubbed a "social credit score": http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-34592186 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-34592186
- m_mueller 10y agoIt's scary how relevant some of Black Mirror's themes actually are. This one in particular is so close, I wonder whether the show's creators used it as a template. Edit: Apparently not, as this information is only publicly available since this September. Zeitgeist at work?
- ilaksh 10y agoOne interesting thing about this show (to me), which probably applies to just about every science fiction, is the gap between the imagination of what technology may achieve and the actual engineering timeframes.
- saurik 10y agoFor people who like Black Mirror, I highly recommend the YouTube Red series from College Humor, Bad Internet. In the exact same genre, the episodes have nothing to do with each other, so I'll link to my favorite episode, "Amazon Foresight": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQwK3jaQGKY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQwK3jaQGKY
- gallerdude 10y agoBad Internet is the comedic version of Black Mirror, and completely hilarious.
- colemonster 10y agoIn a similar vein: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJklHwoYgBQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJklHwoYgBQ (Adult Swim's "Smart Pipe" Infomercial)
- zouhair 10y agoJesus, so now we have to torrent youtube also?
- saurik 10y agoWho is "we"? I like this content and know that content like this can't exist if the people at CollegeHumor don't get paid, and I hate all the side effects of advertising as a business model, so not only do I pay for YouTube Red but if there were a way to just pay CollegeHumor specifically for this series I would do so in a heartbeat: paying for work is how I use my labor to buy food and other consumables for all the people who work on the things that I consume in my life, not encouraging people to work on things I need or want or simply enjoy but actually allowing that to be possible.
- zouhair 10y agoYou do know that Youtube Red exist only in 4 countries[0]? [0]: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6307365?hl=en&ref_topic=6305525 https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6307365?hl=en&ref_...
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- gallerdude 10y agoSan Junipero is one of my favorite TV episodes in a long time.
- ashark 10y agoI'd say it's among the best sci-fi stories I've ever seen on screen. Superbly structured and executed.
- sctb 10y agoAlso: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12761407 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12761407
- RRRA 10y agoWelcome to China, who probably read Doctorow in the wrong way... https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/58yktd/china_wants_to_give_all_of_its_citizens_a_score/ https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/58yktd/china_wan...
- sli 10y agohttps://np.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/3nyulu/in_china_every_citizen_is_being_assigned_a_credit/cvsl88k/ https://np.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/3nyulu/in_china_e...
- laurieg 10y agoBlack Mirror tackles one of the hardest problems about technical: How society changes around it. We spend such a long time talking about the latest cutting edge hardware, new algorithms, new problems that can now be solved, but it's too easy to forget that people are part of this system too. There's a great film from the 60's [1] that talks about the house of the future. It predicts online shopping and other modern appliances easily, however it is completely blind to any social change. The wife is still a housewife, the husband still goes to work and so on. As we produce more and more new tech I think media such as Black Mirror are a great way to explore some of the more human implications. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RRxqg4G-G4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RRxqg4G-G4
- madaxe_again 10y agoAnd how our technological evolution is way out of step with our societal evolution. Give a cave man a ray gun, he's still a cave man. We still run to the same hierarchy structures that we developed tens of thousands of years ago - the tribes are just bigger.
- RangerScience 10y ago> How society changes around it. > [a classic old film] is completely blind to any social change. The wife is still a housewife, the husband still goes to work and so on. This is an exceptionally good point.
- abandonliberty 10y agoThat is the standard fallacy when people predict the future. It'll be just like now, but better. Cars will fly. Housemaids will be robots. Computers will talk, but still take up entire rooms. But the future isn't just more or better. It's also different. That's much harder to predict and grasp.
- intrasight 10y agoOk I'll admit it - "San Junipero" both made me cry and scared the shit out of me at the same time. Didn't know that was even possible. Thank you Netflix. And thank you for last Monday too.
- worldsayshi 10y agoWhat do you think was so scary about it?
- ashark 10y agoNot who you were asking, but there are definitely some implications worth thinking on that the episode mostly avoids directly addressing, but which the song choice and choice of shots during the credits assure us they did intend to raise, and I think it'd be fair to describe those as "scary". There's a real twist of the knife in those final seconds that color the intent behind and the mood of the whole episode.
- worldsayshi 10y agoI think I missed these hints. What's your interpretation here?
- anonred 10y agoAlso not the GP, but I think San Junipero goes beyond just the inevitability of aging and death. It hits upon the meaninglessness of both life and a hypothetical afterlife. Although the people of San Junipero “live” in paradise, their existence borders on the hedonistic: thrill-seeking, sex, and drugs (alcohol.) Is a life of this nature worth living? The characters in the episode certainly seem to think so. Yet, I’d argue that living in this manner is a kind of hell.
- worldsayshi 10y agoThe short story Metamorphosis of prime intellect deals with the same theme, you may be interested: http://localroger.com/prime-intellect/ http://localroger.com/prime-intellect/
- ukyrgf 10y agoI was a fan before it came to US Netflix, and was thrilled to get home and watch it on Friday. Unfortunately, that first episode was painful to watch, but I realized why when the closing credits didn't have Charlie Brooker as the writer. It seemed to follow Netflix's obsession with quantity of hours of content rather than quality. The idea of a social rating system is interesting, but to drag it out for over an hour was so boring that I nearly wrote off the whole season. The prior Christmas special was like 3 episodes in one and it was only 10 minutes longer. Fortunately the rest were on par, but the series feels slightly tarnished to me now. Why the fuck were Radhika Jones and Mike Schur in charge of the one episode all of Netflix's users would have autoplay on their home screen instead of the series's creators?
- rjblackman 10y agothe season gets better, I think the first one was the worst I have seen so far.
- worldsayshi 10y agoI think that it wasn't really bad but rather the theme is very uncomfortable. It sort of hits close to home. It is over the top but that's also the point.
- jfoutz 10y agoI've never seen the show. The PR, both on news sources and also from personal recommendations has been unreal. good for them. It's almost like what i gather an episode would be like.
- dharma1 10y agoI liked the previous episodes and watched a couple of the new episodes. I really wanted to like them but it's like the writers are both trying too hard to capitalise on the obvious "trends" and not really understanding the tech deeply enough at the same time. Self replicating, 3d printing miniature robot drone bees, that fly indefinitely on solar power and handle pollination for a whole country? And yet nothing else in their future tech (mobiles, cars, computers) has changed from what it is like now? Cmon Same with the social status rating episode. Couldn't finish watching it, very implausible and cringeworthy
- wwggggoi 10y agoplausibility isn't the point - the scfi devices used are for reduction-ad-absurdum, to zoom-in on aspects of our current society. Also, in the real world some things develop faster than others. In San Junipero they can perfectly simulate a world and upload people into the cloud (heaven), but they can't cure quadriplegia with stem-cells. That's ok because all science and tech doesn't move at the same pace: some tech grows very fast while other techs never get funding and die by whatever market-force fashions.
- dharma1 10y agoI don't disagree with you, but for me you still need to retain some plausibility or it just feels sloppy. The perfect memory recorder in the previous episodes - that was my favourite one, because we are not very far off from it, yet the implications are profound. But indefinitely flying, self-replicating nanobees, just because one of the writers read about drones, 3d printers and bees dying out? Feels forced and lazy, even if it's just a prop to a bigger story about bullying on social media
- wwggggoi 10y agoyeh that was one of my favourites too but thing is, nobody can predict which technologies are more of less likely to take-off, it's a mysterious thing but many smart people poo-pooed the internet, cinema, cars, computers
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- JackFr 10y agoI guess it's just me. I simply don't find Black Mirror to be that good. To me it's like a revamped and overhyped Tales of the Unexpected ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_of_the_Unexpected_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_of_the_Unexpected_(TV_se... ) It tries to be smart by attempting to address social changes we see to today, but it's clumsy and overbearing and the writing is not up to the task. I look at classic Twilight Zone and I feel they did more with less. In some respects even the writing from Tales from the Crypt offered more believable characters. Anyway one person's (clearly) minority opinion.
- aaron695 10y agoI agree in some ways. It's one if those shows I don't think people get... Everyone thinks it's great, but is it... It's has amazing production values. Great actors. Good dialog. Buuuut it's missing plot. It uses emotion as a replacement. And as each story is separate I think you don't seem to notice. But for some reason I think I enjoy it. So perhaps we don't need a good story for a TV show. Or perhaps it's a cheap trick that might wear out if everyone jumps on board. PS try re-watching TZ. It wasn't as good as I thought when I re-watched it. Most episodes were at best OK.
- ashark 10y agoA lot of what's great about Black Mirror is what it doesn't show you. It's great at showing you enough of something to know what's going on, but not hammering it home to make sure you got it like a lesser show might. As an example, in the first episode of Season 3 (no spoiler here I think) a character leaves an area where there's a billboard with her and a guy on it, and her image fades from it. Personalized images in ads are something we've seen in other media so I'm not claiming the idea is novel, but a lesser show might still have felt the need to show someone else walking up and their image appearing on the billboard, replacing the one that had been there. Black Mirror is content to show the image fade, then cut without replacing it. This is good taste and confidence, and it's one of the show's greatest attributes. It manifests in many small choices like this in every episode. Similarly, it sometimes uses what it doesn't show us to carry most of the weight of an entire episode's central theme (Fifteen Million Merits does this, for instance). It may also throw sensation at the viewer as a bait, as it pointedly does in The National Anthem, revealing this when the camera chooses to entirely ignore the sensational event toward which the episode has been building to instead show us something both more mundane and far more disgusting in every way that matters. The subjects of that scene push the viewer to reflect on themselves—showing us the watchers when we are watchers—which is one hell of a smart gut-punch. There are a couple bad episodes, though (well, there was one, but now season 3's out and by my reckoning there are now three), and if I were walking a n00b through the series I'd probably show them the series' first episode last because it's both structurally different from all the rest and I think easier to appreciate when you've got a better feel for what the show's doing. It's a bad introductory episode, IMO.
- RangerScience 10y ago"The problem isn't machines, it's letting machines do your thinking for you." - Leto III (Dune) A friend suggests that Black Mirror is "about screens". I see what he's saying on a surface level, but, screens are just how we interface with machines doing the thinking for us, instead of people. On the other hand, isn't bureaucracy a machine, running on meat? "Screens" used to be "Paper" - see the crazy movie "Brazil". Replacing something hard (actually getting to know someone and their situation) with something easy (the output of a system) has been with humanity for a really long time, if not forever. Most [of the prior] Black Mirror episodes are about, I think, man's inhumanity to man, just mediated by modern technology. Most of them are about some way that people are failing to connect to each other. I have only watched one of the new episodes.