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How “Black Mirror” Gets Its Barely Sci-Fi Tech Just Right
- Analemma_ 10y agoAre people liking the latest season of Black Mirror? I'm only three episodes in and haven't yet gotten to San Junipero, which everyone says is the really good one, but so far I've been a little disappointed. This might be regression to the mean, since I felt that the first six episodes were six home runs in a row and it must be tough to keep a streak like that going, but so far season 3 seems to have lost something. I loved the first two seasons because they felt like intelligent, worrying criticisms of futurism, social media and technology, whereas usually when television tries to do that it's eye-rolling and cringe-worthy. But so far season 3 feels like the Sorkin-esque Boomer slop that I loved the first two seasons for not being. What do other people think?
- AcerbicZero 10y agoI watched 2 or 3 episodes in this latest season, and they were solid, but a little predictable. Significantly better than the 1st season, which beyond the shock factor of the first episode, was pretty much blah.
- 1123581321 10y agoMany people think the third episode of the first season is the best of the series. It is the one I recommend people view first.
- the_af 10y agoFully agreed! "The Entire History of You" is when I realized Black Mirror was great. Such an interesting episode -- more about human behavior than about tech, really. For some reason I also liked the episode's title itself; to me it sounds like a name Neil Gaiman would come up with.
- tptacek 10y agoThe first episode of the new season seems like it's literally a "serious" hour-long version of the Community MeowMeowBeenz episode.
- unfunco 10y agoTo me, the third episode (Shut up and dance) is the outstanding episode, at the end I was mentally exhausted and incredibly saddened. San Junipero is different, without ruining things, it's the only episode where at the end, I wasn't considering the "where" that we're heading towards as a society (though on further thinking, it's a question of whether something good is also something moral.) – It's just very different in overall tone. The first episode I found really difficult to watch because it felt too much like real-life (Uber, especially.) – there's one episode which I didn't finish as it just didn't interest me, it was the army-type episode, I got bored incredibly quickly. The last episode (which is set on Twitter, I suppose) is incredible. I think there were maybe too many episodes, the VR episode, whilst good, just felt like filler to me, though it made me phone my mother. I'll watch the fourth season, it's still one of the better shows on television.
- alextheparrot 10y agoI've been having difficulty rating my uber drivers lately, given that I feel like I'm being pushed into participating much like the characters in the show. Seeing the "I can't drive if my rating is below 4.7" signs doesn't help either. "Shut up and dance" was definitely my favorite episode of the seasons for the emotions you listed.
- tintor 10y ago> there's one episode which I didn't finish as it just didn't interest me, it was the army-type episode, I got bored incredibly quickly. "Men Against Fire" was the most disturbing episode of the season. Army with AR implants for zero-empathy ethnic cleansing.
- unfunco 10y agoI might try it again, it got to the point where they were visiting the man that was a sympathiser and I switched off. It felt a bit like Starship Troopers (that isn't bad I suppose) but I just wasn't captivated at the time.
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- soneca 10y agoThe first episode is the very worst of the whole serious. "Fan-fiction" level of writing. Everything so obvious with tired tropes. A critique to social media that could be done by an imaginative high school kid. The other ones are good, interesting and worth watching. Although only San Junipero is great. Edit: Shut up and dance is great too.
- josu 10y agoI don't think this comment should be downvoted. While I did enjoy this episode, it does stand out in the series. While there is certainly some dark humor throughout the series, this one is straight out dark comedy, from beginning to end. AFAIK it is also the only one not written by Charlie Brooker, thus the fanfiction feel that soneca talks about.
- the_af 10y agoReally? I liked the first episode. What I think is the absolute worst (of all Black Mirror, I'd say!) is the second episode, Playtest. It's embarrassingly bad, completely amateurish, not really scary, too drawn out and with dodgy SFX and a weak premise. I also didn't like Shut Up & Dance much. To me it felt like a weaker "White Rabbit", and much of the episode hinges on a single plot twist at the end (much like White Rabbit, but that one was better executed). I liked San Junipero. I liked that it has a different, unexpected tone from the rest. I liked that it was kind-hearted, for a change. Haven't watched the rest of the season yet. Just my opinions, of course.
- rhizome 10y agoInteresting about "Playtest," did you see "10 Cloverfield Lane?" Same director.
- the_af 10y agoNot yet, but my friends spoiled the plot for me. I know enough about it to think I'd probably like it. I'll probably watch it even knowing the plot. There's nothing in Playtest that's similar to 10 Cloverfield Lane. It really has no redeeming qualities.
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- DSteinmann 10y agoThey can only reuse the same tropes so many times. Season 3 takes most of the "mind blowing" ideas from the first series and repackages them in a weaker presentation. The first episode was a weaker repackaging of Fifteen Million Merits (intrusion of social media rankings). I think there were two rehashes of White Christmas (protagonist being in an alternate universe where time moves slowly, which is always revealed a the end of the episode). White Chrismas did this much more effectively. Season 3 is just a thin shell around the same tropes.
- Namrog84 10y agoCould it be that the first 2 seasons were British. And 3rd season is first time being British-American so that felt that revisiting popular ideas with a new spin the timing was good?
- tptacek 10y agoAnd really, Fifteen Million Merits wasn't all that great either --- it was kind of all over the place narratively, and once you get the intrusive ranking trope, there's really not much more interesting about it. It felt sort of like badly plotted Vonnegut. Again: if you haven't seen the MeowMeowBeenz episode of Community: it's a pretty good chaser to either of those episodes.
- Analemma_ 10y agoI have to disagree. Fifteen Million Merits is still my favorite episode, and what's more, I don't think it's about the intrusive ranking at all (meta-point: one of the best things about Black Mirror, IMO, is that people will often disagree on not only the quality of an episode, but what the episode was even about. That's how you know it's good). I think the moral of that story was the inherent futility of ever rebelling against the System. Most people don't try, most who try fail, and even for the one-in-a-million who succeed, the System just instantly reconfigures itself to absorb your rebellion as part of it. Other works have done the "revolutionaries always become the new dictators" shtick, but Fifteen Million Merits did it better because it shows that this process doesn't even require a villain (like in, say, Animal Farm). Everyone in that episode, even the Simon Cowell stand-in, was just punching a clock and doing their job; the suppression of revolt was purely an emergent property of the system... as it usually is in real life. It was the bleakest, most nihilist bit of television I think I've ever seen, made better by the fact that it wasn't empty "dark for dark's sake" like Twilight Zone-esque twist endings tend to be. I had to go for a walk afterward. I don't see how you can't like it... but like I said, the fact that people can disagree so profoundly is one of the show's best qualities, so I'll upvote you anyway and not hold it against you :)
- danso 10y agoI've only watched episodes 2, 3, and 6, and I agree, not particularly compelling compared to even the 3 worst episodes of the previous seasons. It's still good, but not uniquely interesting or provoking in the way that past seasons have been.
- knowaveragejoe 10y agoI have not seen 6, but of 2 and 3, 2 is especially good and I don't really see any parallels between it and the first two seasons.
- unfunco 10y agoSorry to comment again, but you mentioned "six home runs in a row" – there's also a Christmas special called "White Christmas" – if you haven't seen it already, is also one of the better episodes, starring the main guy from Mad Men (Jo(h?)n Hamm?)
- bluetwo 10y agoYes, very good but doesn't seem to get the love for some reason. The way he ties the different plots and technologies together was fantastic. Maybe Netflix will release it for the holidays this year?
- josu 10y agoI really enjoyed this season. Maybe the fact that is 6 episodes long (I spaced them out throughout a couple of weeks) made me spend more time thinking about it, than the first seasons. I don't think that the quality has slipped. Maybe you are being too critical because it has lost its initial shock factor?
- rhizome 10y agoThe initial shock thing, I agree, and also backlash inflation.
- Evolved 10y agoAgreed. The quality is just fine. I think because of the year-plus hiatus, we, the viewers, set way too high a bar for the return of the series. This takes into consideration that even though, in my opinion, the series was on par with the first 2 seasons (discounted for initial shock value and departure from conventional sitcoms and dramas), it was still engaging enough to enjoy despite not everything being perfect.
- Taylor_OD 10y agoTo me it feels like all the subtly is gone. What would have not been explained in the first two seasons is spelled out in the third season. It got a whole lot less interesting or engaging.
- extr 10y agoCompletely agree. The first two seasons had more of an "unexpected consequences" vibe. I never got the feeling they were trying to lecture me, I just left wondering "Hmm, I wonder how I would react if this was the reality of the world?". I've only watched 3 episodes of S3 so far (1, 2 and 5), but I couldn't help but feel like they were all drawn out and beat the viewer over the head with the message. At one point in E1 a main character literally explains to the viewer what is going on. And E5 was particularly bad. There was a very interesting point to be made on the realities of genetic screening and they just barely touched on it.
- the_af 10y agoWatch San Junipero (episode 4) then. I don't think that one is a lecture. It's also not a pessimistic episode, somewhat surprising for Black Mirror.
- skciva 10y agoHonestly the only subtle episodes I can think of pre-season 3 are White Bear and White Christmas. I'd love a discussion on why you (or others) think otherwise.
- elevensies 10y agoI found a few of the idea repetitive to season 1 and 2, I haven't finished all episodes but I like 6 the most so far, because it presented a novel threat. And similarly and more immediately you could imagine [SPOILERISH HINTS BEYOND] a self-driving car virus that would use facial recognition to create an assassination capable vehicle botnet. Episode #2 has implications of simulated torture which is interesting but has already been treated a few times.
- stefantalpalaru 10y ago> Are people liking the latest season of Black Mirror? Yes, it's a good one. > San Junipero, which everyone says is the really good one Average, by my standards. They had a great premise and all they did with it was tell a love story. The really good episodes are S03E01 for taking the quantification of social status to an extreme, S03E05 for an interesting take on the banality of evil and S03E06 for managing to be annoyingly moralizing and very well done at the same time. > I loved the first two seasons because they felt like intelligent, worrying criticisms of futurism, social media and technology Same here, except S01E01 that had none of those qualities and nothing in common with the rest of the series. If that bland and silly social critique was the basis on which the network ordered an entire season, it was a small miracle.
- gm-conspiracy 10y agoI feel the last season offers a different perspective than the others (excluding San Junipero - which is similar to the first two seasons). The first two seasons are about a hypothetical future any person could experience (society). The last season is from the perspective of an individual's very specific circumstances (except for San Junipero). Society versus the individual? I liked the ending of the first episode of Season 3 (freedom achieved), episode 2 was more horror than scifi (a la "Brainscan"), episode 3 could have been a subplot in a single episode of Mr. Robot, episode 4 was more like the first two seasons, episode 5 was some nazi-esque Verhoeven-wannabe hegemony meh, and episode 6, to me, was like episode 2, more horror scifi.
- javajosh 10y agoNo, you're not the only one. More and more it seems the show is about people using technology in the cruelest possible way against each other. It's The Outer Limits with less range and more smartphones.
- pluma 10y agoHonestly? Season 3 seemed the weakest of the bunch but I feel that the final episode made up for the rest. And even a weak Black Mirror episode is still pretty decent if you don't hold it up to the ridiculous standards that seasons 1 and 2 set for the show.
- mei0Iesh 10y agoI found no value in the first two seasons. It's been on the front page of HN at least 4 times in the past couple weeks. I tried watching the third season hoping it was better. It's still stupid. It's like they just take some very plain 1:1 observation about exactly how the world is right now, focus on one specific demographic, then create a skit around it that has no depth. They create imaginary worlds, but they're not very imaginative. They're basically exactly the world we're in, but they replace a few things with something slightly different. It's like science fiction for people who don't really like science fiction. It's shallow intellectually, but it doesn't even have any depth emotionally. At least with most other popular TV shows there's depth in terms of personal relationships. There's drama that's more emotionally interesting. Black Mirror seems to be optimized for people who are blunted both in terms of intellect and social emotion. It's one of the most boring TV series on Netflix, which is a shame because there's not much else that even attempts to be interesting in a more sci-fi way. I think the only reason why people find value in Black Mirror must be because of references. Like how they love jokes on Reddit when they refer to something they all know. People must be like, "Ahaha, they're referencing how people are always on their phones. So true. LOL look, it's trollface!! Dude, look, trollface is on TV. I know trollface. Haha this show is great." What else would people be getting out of it?
- rezashirazian 10y agoI'm not sure if we've been watching the same show. I finished watching the first season this week, and Black Mirror does an amazing job of building characters and forming relationships in a short amount of time. It does this well because the science fiction elements of the show are not the focus. They are merely instruments for driving very human narratives. When you say It's shallow intellectually, but it doesn't even have any depth emotionally. At least with most other popular TV shows there's depth in terms of personal relationships. There's drama that's more emotionally interesting. I wish you would use an example so I can understand where you're coming from since I find myself completely on the other side of your comment.
- angersock 10y agoYou must be a riot at parties. > Black Mirror seems to be optimized for people who are blunted both in terms of intellect and social emotion. Are you sure Black Mirror is the stunted one? > They're basically exactly the world we're in, but they replace a few things with something slightly different. That's the key to good speculative fiction--unless you're one of the folks that needs aliens and spaceships and nanojiggers and other raygun bullshit to think something is scifi. The trick for good science fiction is that you focus on the people, not the tech--and you only focus on the world insofar as the people experience it. "Fifteen Million Merits" and "The National Anthem" used existing social technology but showed how the human cost of certain scenarios. "The Entire History of You", and "Be Right Back" focused on only a single real application of a novel product but again showed a solid study on how people would find ways to make themselves miserable even through the best of intentions by the creators. Simple ideas played out through character drama--that's what makes good science fiction.
- cm3 10y agoI don't know if it's US production influence, but seasons 1 and 2 plus the bonus holiday episode were, compared to season 3, raw and felt more real. If I had to explain it, I'd say it's because it was a pure British production. I really hoped after the bad 1st episode that it would get better, but it didn't achieve the same positive effect as the previous seasons. That said, if the content of season 3 manages to push some of the concerns outlined into the general public's perception and highlights them, then it's a good thing and well achieved. The thing that stuck and was funniest for me was from the worst episode (ep 1) about the adapter and planned obsolescence. Since San Junipero is mentioned here positively, I should add that it didn't work for me and seemed like ep 1 just too long for the content, but that's a subjective thing I guess. I kinda found it uninteresting and boring and honestly the ideas brought forward not crazy or exciting. Maybe it's because having lived in the tech world, the concepts are just as old as the availability electricity or even anyone who watched the matrix or read the mangas it's based on would find it "old". Playtest reminded of the No End House creepypasta. My favorite episode, despite the plot flaws, was Hated in the Nation, and that one almost saved the season. In light of InternetOf*, it was the episode I enjoyed the most.
- aaron695 10y agoFifteen Million Merits S01E02 "everyone must cycle on exercise bikes in order to power their surroundings"
- jeff_petersen 10y agoThe only episodes that even came close to making me feel like the older episodes did were "Playtest" and "Men against Fire," but even they're not up to par. I think San Junipero is widely overrated, the pacing is awful and it isn't terribly thought provoking. They've peaked, the high point was the Jon Hamm special episode and now it's over.
- AndrewKemendo 10y agoThe consistent technology theme I see across almost all episodes is that Augmented Reality is ubiquitous, and regarded as either neutral (Nosedive) or bad (Playtest, Men Against Fire).
- oldmanjay 10y agoIt's hard to make dystopian sci-fi if you're even-handed with the consequences of technology
- gallerdude 10y agoAR will be the future, after all.
- pfranz 10y agoI think it's a storytelling crutch (I don't mean that disparagingly). Technology is super difficult to convey on screen and the most straightforward way is to just show it. AR makes that easy.
- LurkingPresence 10y agoI really didn't like the 'bee' episode because it brushed a frightening ecological disaster under the table so it could have an episode about how mean people are on twitter. Really? Even if we could construct something like those robot bees, what effect would that have on the surrounding eco-systems? What happens when a bird or a frog eats some little carbon-fiber robot? I feel like they squandered a more interesting premise in order to tell a sillier one.
- riebschlager 10y agoLike how Casablanca sweeps World War II under the rug in order to tell a silly love story? Yeah. I totally get that.
- Torgo 10y agoIt feels like everybody has pretty much forgotten about, or at least gotten over the emotional impact of the deepwater horizon oil spill despite it being one of the largest manmade ecological disasters in history. brushing it under the rug is probably closer to real life and appropriately uncomfortable when fed back to you as fiction.
- bcheung 10y agoI wouldn't consider using people on bicycles to power society good science. It's probably one of the most inefficient methods of energy generation. That episode seemed a bit far fetched to me.
- rezashirazian 10y agoI think the point of that episode was not to present a practical way of creating energy but to symbolize mundane, insignificant and boring 9-5 jobs of the modern life. Sitting around "spinning your wheels"
- tempestn 10y agoI agree that it would be terrible science, but since that seems so clear - the bicycles could barely power the screens in front of them at the speed the people were riding, let alone the greater world - I gave them the benefit of the doubt and assumed that they're literally make-work. The (presumably uneducated) riders may believe they're doing something necessary, but this could be a picture of a dystopian post-scarcity future when both work and scarcity are imposed artificially simply to keep people in line.
- Torgo 10y agoother than being post-scarcity, I'd say recycling is literally almost this. it's not actually all that valuable as an activity and functions more as penance for the sin of consumerism.
- tempestn 10y agoDo you have references for that? There are many challenges involved in recycling, and it's certainly far more valuable to reduce consumption and increase re-use, but any review I've seen still shows recycling having a significant net environmental benefit.
- icelancer 10y agoOnly certain materials are truly valuable - they're the ones people pay to recycle. Metal-based recycling is incredibly valuable to the population and environment.
- BucketSort 10y agoI love how Black Mirror is like a series of existential thought experiments. Most of them involve people living meaningless lives and how people find a way to make it bearable.
- intrasight 10y ago"Black Mirror" is dark sci-fi. I do most of my video watching before bed, but that doesn't work for Black Mirror. There is so little quality in television series that I'll take whatever quality I can get. I don't like gratuitous violence, sex, or comic relief - and that rules out 3/4 of all programming. I find Black Mirror to be worth the investment of my time.
- shade23 10y agoI do not enjoy watching Black Mirror , yet I do watch it.To make me realize that all the technology boom/bubble right now can go bad too. One of the my favourite parts about the series is that it focuses on one technology at a time. Had they focussed on multiple advancements of tech,they would be as unbelievable and superficial like other sci-fi shows. But the real world has multiple technologies intermingled with each other. The point I am trying to make here: While we think Black Mirror is bad enough (I cannot watch watch more than one episode at a time),what will happen in reality could be much worse.