Black Mirror

[JayzusB.Christ]

I really didn't see it coming. 

Ah c'mon, they'd have Monica Dolan playing the villain in a documentary about Monica Dolan curing cancer.

I didn't recognise her at all.  If I'd remembered it was her who played Rose West in that series of a few years ago, I might have had more of an inkling.

[Richard]

It has taken me more than long enough to think of this, but if something goes wrong with the link, you'd want your astronauts to be on the ship, not stuck on Earth leaving the ship without a crew. So it's not a plot hole after all!

[The Legendary Shark]

Hm. Better to lose a ship and two robots than a ship and two humans, surely? Plot hole for definite.

[JayzusB.Christ]

Hm. Better to lose a ship and two robots than a ship and two humans, surely? Plot hole for definite.

Also no exercise machines, food, drinking and showering water needed.  Knowing that plot hole has made the whole thing a little bit less impactful for me, and I'm glad of that, as it fucked with my head quite a bit.

[The Legendary Shark]

Or maybe... Everyone on (this alternate) Earth is a robot and the astronauts are unique, specially grown synthetic humans. The headf*ck returns!

[JayzusB.Christ]

Or maybe... Everyone on (this alternate) Earth is a robot and the astronauts are unique, specially grown synthetic humans. The headf*ck returns!

Oh feck. My mind!
No, wait, hang on.  The Manson-type group thought metal robots were weird and unnnatural, so my mind is unfecked again.

[The Legendary Shark]

Self-haters, driven to delusions of biology by the cognitive-linkage error of remorse over sending innocent biological beings out into space, detesting themselves and, by extension, the whole robot race as slave-masters. In their twisted logic circuits, they severed the connection to set the humans free...

Somebody should write a BM about this conversation; "Head F*cking on a Comic Book Forum."

[IndigoPrime]

It's taking me a lot longer to get through these, and I'd somehow forgotten quite how bleak they were. Prescient too, at least with the start of series 2. Be Right Black feels topical in a world of generative art, when Martha screams at not-Ash that he's not enough. "You're just a few ripples of you, there's no history to you. You're just a performance of stuff that he performed without thinking, and it's not enough." And yet that is... a lot of everything right now. (The black humour of putting away memories in the attic was chef's kiss good.)

White Bear was one where I remembered the twist but not some of the specifics (notably Tyres from Spaced taking quite the turn). Again, it feels more relevant today, what with all the Gammons arguing for what about to torture for people who commit heinous crimes. That made the episode extremely uncomfortable viewing towards the end. But also, I felt a bit uncomfortable with how it turned out the sole POC of note in the entire thing was the big bad. And some of the details of what happened (regarding coercion/falling under someone's spell) adds depth there that I'm not sure anyone's really grappled with.

I'm not sure whether the episode is a bit racist, or a commentary on how society treats minorities/people without power, or how a system might treat someone if they cannot get their hands on the true perpetrator of an atrocity and so have to 'made do' with someone once removed.

[Dark Jimbo]

Just finished Demon '79. Brilliant evocation of an era, funny and charming, but the ending was such a damp squib. They'd set themselves up for something quite clever, whereby Nida's well-meaning attack on Michael Smart inadvertently ushers in a future even worse than the one she was trying to prevent - 'Hero politician assaulted by unhinged immigrant!' the tabloids would proclaim the next day. Cue riots, civil unrest and a landslide victory for either Smart or the National Front.

Instead they did absolutely nothing with any of that foreshadowing. The political subtext woven throughout the episode ultimately goes nowhere, and a random nuclear attack happens instead. Oh well.

[Richard]

...worse than the one she was trying to prevent

Would that really have been worse?!

[IndigoPrime]

I'm continuing my very slow re-watch. The Waldo Moment wasn't nearly as strong as I remembered, being packed full of tropes and undercooked writing, and the epilogue has all the subtlety of a brick. But it again feels quite current, in the sense people are increasingly glued to broadly inconsequential stories and ignore all the horrible political shit going on at the same time. (Days of Huw Edwards stories while the govt essentially outlaws asylum.)

[GoGilesGo]

Spoilers are legion below so avert your eyes if you've not seen this season.

My two creds:

Joan is Awful
Probably my favourite episode from this series and one that is most faithful to the vibe of future tech / media being an existential threat. Fabulous seeing all of Joan's colleagues, lovers and friends immediately taking everything they saw onscreen to be the objective truth.

The third act anonymous technician with Michael Cera's face : 'We're not in realty right now. This is Fictive Level One' was the cherry on the cake.

Loch Henry
Superb all the way to it's surprising ending. But was this was a Black Mirror episode? I suppose the despondent final scene with it's commercialisation of human misery was in keeping with The Waldo Moment or even 15 Million Credits, but probably more at home in Tales from the Crypt or Inside Number 9.

Beyond The Sea
Good slow build and I loved the hi tech / low tech mash up: the space ship was all very chunky push button but the androids and consciousness transfer years ahead of present day tech. But... this did not quite earn its ending. Sure, any of us may be capable of murder as a crime of passion but nice guy David as pre-meditated, calculating killer? I don't buy it.

Mazey Day
40 mins in and out. The twist was great, the transformation in real time was supreme and the final shot was a jaw-dropper. Something still nagged at me as the titles rolled. A bit of online research revels  the person she ran over in Czech was a werewolf; the curse transferring to Mazey when she touched the body with the open wound on her cut finger. Just wish that had been made slightly more clear.


Demon 79
Great way to wrap the series. Both leads were absolutely excellent and the central thrust reminded me of the awesome Bill Paxton-directed Frailty from 2001.

Jimbo, I agree that Michael Smart surviving with Nida's frenzied attack being the catalyst for a true  future hellscape would have been excellent but I still think this ending: Nukes plummeting; "I'll give it a go." ; hand holding; Bright Eyes, was amazing.

[M.I.K.]

Just finished Demon '79. Brilliant evocation of an era, funny and charming, but the ending was such a damp squib. They'd set themselves up for something quite clever, whereby Nida's well-meaning attack on Michael Smart inadvertently ushers in a future even worse than the one she was trying to prevent - 'Hero politician assaulted by unhinged immigrant!' the tabloids would proclaim the next day. Cue riots, civil unrest and a landslide victory for either Smart or the National Front.

Instead they did absolutely nothing with any of that foreshadowing. The political subtext woven throughout the episode ultimately goes nowhere, and a random nuclear attack happens instead. Oh well.

I liked the ending. The ending you propose was precisely what I was expecting and therefore would've been far more of a damp squib for me. The "tries to stop something, ends up making it happen, possibly even more so" is a twist that's already been done, thousands of times, in everything from The Twilight Zone to Star Trek to Future Shocks to Bruce Willis films.

[IndigoPrime]

I just got through White Christmas, which is a very special kind of dystopian hell. Easter eggs linking the episode to others, to drive wonks mad over the years, and quite the line in various levels of torture. But also: this isn't the first time even by this point we've had a woman be unfaithful and it send a toxic man off the deep end. Hmm.

[Proudhuff]

I was disappointed with this latest series. It felt like there was no real social commentary. It was more a set of short plays than a twisted taking of a modern idea to its ultimate and absurd conclusion. They were good, but not Black Mirror.

With the exception of Beyond the Sea, which had a mind-boggling plot hole: why were their human bodies in space and replicas on Earth? Surely you'd do this the other way round?.

(I can't find spoiler tags, so have put the plot hole in white after the above colon - highlight to see it)

TBH I couldn't get passed there was no 'Houston' monitoring/controlling or involved in their comms.