Black Mirror- Netflix [** Spoilers **]

Doge

Just after watching this on 4oD.

I loved this episode, after not been too keen on the first.

I've been locked in my bedroom sick for 2 days,
with only internet forums and media by my bed side, to curb my boredom....
so I was really immersed in the grim dark, enclosed setting of this episode!

I thought it was extremely cinematic, almost felt like I was watching a polished movie, and the acting from leading characters was top notch.

I definitely think the main character was a deep reflection of Brooker himself,
which made it so much more personal.

Not going to bother repeating a lot of what has already been said,
but this episode might be worth watching and thinking about again,

you never know, there may be more refences and messages buried within it.

ScrubsfanChris

Watching now on C4+1, pretty boring so far about 15 mins in.

Colm!

This is the non-Brooker episode, written by someone else. I'm not finding it interesting either, 20mins in 4od.

Fysh

I thought last week's one was pretty good, but this week's one was a bit weak again. Cute concept, but didn't really do all that much with it for the hour.

Overall some interesting ideas in Black Mirror, but the execution was shakier than it should have been, IMO.

Basq

Haven't watched it yet... but seems to be very positive reviews on Twitter.

But judging by the reaction here - maybe Jesse Armstrong should stick to writing comedy.

mike65

Fecking creepy idea (not written by Brooker btw), I thought it a good hours drama. If I had one I'd deffo take it out.

Sir Oxman

Last nights one was excellent. Favourite of the three.
Great effort from the writers and C4 which is doing what it used to do so well.

FloatingVoter

Last nights effort was like a Woody Allen movie with no humour included.

Fysh

In terms of how individulals were affected, "The Entire History Of You" wasn't bad, but personally I thought the most interesting aspects of it were only casually mentioned in throwaway remarks - things like the potential for widespread retrospective legislation, or the impact that such technology would have on things like legal proceedings (imagine how nasty divorce proceedings could get!), not to mention that if there's technology that can record perceptions there will be technology that can insert "false" memories into people's chronology.

I also found it a bit weird that the story overall seemed to be somewhat sympathetic to the protagonist, despite him showing himself to be a massive bellend for the entirety of the episode.

mike65

It wouldn't have worked if he were well adjusted/docile and he was right wasn't he? Behaved badly but that's where the drama comes from.

Fysh

I don't know, "15 Million Merits" showed us a world in which everyone, no matter how self-aware and mentally-balanced, would be chewed up or worn down by their environment and was all the more powerful for doing so.

"The Entire History Of You" showed us an insecure knob-end whose life largely consists of interacting with other knob-ends, and suggests that a particular type of technology made his life worse. Whereas from what I saw, he was a whingeing waste of space and trying to place the blame for that on the technology of his surroundings is daft. There are already plenty of people who behave exactly like that, so it wasn't exactly an amazing insight to suggest that the technology would compound it. It's not the technology at fault, it's the numpties using it. (In a way the episode reminded me of The Slap, in that it depicts a bunch of horrible people, all of whom are angry about problems in their life that seem to be pretty much exclusively of their own making).

I think it would've been better to show several perspectives and how the technology intersects with their lives - for instance, I'd have liked to see more of the political group that's protesting the use of the grain, or the effects on people whose grains have been stolen. What kind of long-term effects might stem from having the grain installed, or having it removed violently? What does it do to the educational system? Does it make traditional education more relevant or less relevant?

jmcc

So it wasn't exactly Philip K. Dick then?

Regards...jmcc

mike65

Fysh wrote: »

I think it would've been better to show several perspectives and how the technology intersects with their lives - for instance, I'd have liked to see more of the political group that's protesting the use of the grain, or the effects on people whose grains have been stolen. What kind of long-term effects might stem from having the grain installed, or having it removed violently? What does it do to the educational system? Does it make traditional education more relevant or less relevant?

Sure and if they had the budget and commitment from C4 for a short TV series to explore such themes an absorbing drama could be made. Maybe someone should email Zeppotron.

goose2005

jill_valentine wrote: »

As would The Queen who, we're told, has made her feelings known.

Which was also completely out of character.

Fysh

It occured to me earlier today - 15 Million Merits reminded me of a somewhat strange Flash film called Smile.

DeVore

I gotta say, I watched Epi 1 just last night for the first time and I liked it a lot! Its rough, sure, but it certainly wasnt fainthearted in hitting the message. Really quite plausible imho.
We've been threatened with people committing suicide if we dont reopen their banned accounts, so maybe the whole thing hits closer to my home than yours.

DeV.

Superbus

DeVore wrote: »

We've been threatened with people committing suicide if we dont reopen their banned accounts, so maybe the whole thing hits closer to my home than yours.

WHAT?! :eek:

Doge

Superbus wrote: »

WHAT?! :eek:

Fysh likes this!

DeVore

Trust me, you have no idea how crazy things can get here...
You know how crazy Boards is sometimes? Thats the stuff we let through!!


So, I watched the second episode of Black Mirror this evening and then had to set up a brand new Kinect.




Yeah. That wasn't weird. O.o

DeV.

Seren_

Really liked the third episode, although I did think the ending was pretty obvious from the start. God knows some of us go mad overthinking situations and how we and others acted without the capability to see exactly what happened, it's only realistic to think that it would be a hundred times worse with that technology.

Well, the three episodes were certainly some of the most interesting and thought-provoking tv I've watched in a while. Sad to see it come to an end.

Vote 4 Pedro

I had hoped this would be good tv but i was a little disappointed with it.
out of the 3 episodes i thought the first one was the best...

bnt

I only just got round to watching the second episode (15 Million Merits) and read some of the comments above. There are some subtleties in there that I think some folks are missing.

First of all: there are some digs at Apple. In early 1984, Apple promised to liberate computer user from IBM - "Big Blue" - and their standardised "Personal Computer". They said the 1984 would not be like "Nineteen Eighty-Four".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYecfV3ubP8

And now here we are, almost 30 years later, and what has Apple become? In the film, everyone's glued to their "Dopple" screens, day and night. Got an iPhone?

About the ending: I don't think it was quite as simple as Bing being "defeated by the system". In that "system", just what would it mean to "win"? Note that we did not see any "masters" in that system, no overlords, only varying degrees of imprisonment. It's Totalitarianism, but not as we know it.

The hosts of that "talent show" were just as much prisoners as the contestants; they were stuck in those chairs, doing their part in producing fodder for the masses. But just who is imprisoning who, there? They're only doing what the "people" want, and if they tried to stop, what would it cost them? They probably had more privileges, like Bing had at the end. What was the view like out their windows? More "real" than Bing's?

Doge

Hehe, i find that video very ironic nowadays,

in the sense I find the prices of the "IBM-PC" far more "liberating" than the price of apple products and their communism/proprietary lock-in!

Fysh

bnt wrote: »

First of all: there are some digs at Apple. In early 1984, Apple promised to liberate computer user from IBM - "Big Blue" - and their standardised "Personal Computer". They said the 1984 would not be like "Nineteen Eighty-Four".

And now here we are, almost 30 years later, and what has Apple become? In the film, everyone's glued to their "Dopple" screens, day and night. Got an iPhone?

TBH Nintendo are as good a target for that as Apple, given that the Dopples' design is clearly inspired by the Mii design (and that they're at least as bad as Apple in terms of platform lockdown and how they treat third parties working on their platform).

I suspect that aspect of the narrative is intended more as a judgement about how people are increasingly interacting with others with machine-based mediation - even where it's not necessary.

bnt wrote: »

About the ending: I don't think it was quite as simple as Bing being "defeated by the system". In that "system", just what would it mean to "win"? Note that we did not see any "masters" in that system, no overlords, only varying degrees of imprisonment. It's Totalitarianism, but not as we know it.

The hosts of that "talent show" were just as much prisoners as the contestants; they were stuck in those chairs, doing their part in producing fodder for the masses. But just who is imprisoning who, there? They're only doing what the "people" want, and if they tried to stop, what would it cost them? They probably had more privileges, like Bing had at the end. What was the view like out their windows? More "real" than Bing's?

Well, Bing's defeat by the system is that he makes a protracted effort to get a platform to speak to the masses and make his case against the society they live in - but instead of a popular uprising, he merely gets lapped up as an acceptable entertainment, and when forced to choose between killing himself or becoming a slightly-more-priviledged peon in the system that he rails against, he chooses to take the privileges.

I don't think it's a judgement on him specifically, but a comment on the way that social systems can pit all members of a society against one another. Bing's rebellious stance was assimilated and incorporated into the world mechanism in much the same way that "rebellious" "alternative" music that claims to be about independence of production and freedom of choice and self-expression are heavily promoted through mass market communication channels owned by the same large companies that run channels featuring "safe" "pop" music that the "alternative" bands are rebelling against.

(To put it another way, how independent and truly alternative can you be if you're signed to Sony, making music videos with a $50K-$500K budget and those videos are being aired on MTV2 et al?)

1984 is a good comparison for 15 Million Merits, because in terms of the effect on self-expression and invention and self-development, the world of 15 Million Merits looks an awful lot like a giant machine designed to function as a giant boot stamping on humanity's face for ever and ever.

Colm!

Fysh wrote: »

TBH Nintendo are as good a target for that as Apple, given that the Dopples' design is clearly inspired by the Mii design....

I'll say that I'm pretty sure that's STILL Xbox.


Apple and Microsoft are the two main targets of the episode if the episode is even "targeted" at anything. Which is odd because I much prefer the direction Microsoft has been going as opposed to Apple's control over their devices, which ironically can even be called Orwellian at this point...

johnny_ultimate

Finally caught up with the third episode last night. It's certainly the most consistent in tone and pace: actually has a strong dramatic momentum behind it. Of course, the problem is it doesn't really make amazing use out of its central gimmick. Yeah, it does drive the story forward, but just kind of played out like a soap opera with some added sci-fi elements. Definitely devoid of comedy this time around, though. It was a solid enough piece of work, even if it was ultimately a fairly standard story with an unusual gimmick.

Overall a curious mini-series, if unavoidably let down by the uneven nature of anthologies. Plenty of good ideas, but it was the inconsistency of delivery that was always destined to make Black Mirror a mixed success.

James T Kirk

I thought all three episodes were brilliant. Especially number two.

Sure, stuff was borrowed and stolen from other films, books and TV. But Charlie Brooker never pretended otherwise, and art has been eating itself since forever.

It was the most original and fresh drama series I've seen in a long time, and I hope they make more.

amacachi

Just finished watching the first episode, thought there were a few hilarious bits. :pac:

Fysh wrote: »

1) A population that has long known its government has a "no negotiation with kidnappers/terrorists" policies rolls over in less than 12 hours because of a (fairly tame) kidnapping video and threats to the "facebook princess?"? The same population that saw Ken Bigley's death on video less than a decade ago? Give me a break. (Or at least, make her popularity more believable - if this was "Imagine Ken Bigley was Princess Diana", it wasn't presented very well)

Yeah, not like they've ever negotiated with terrorists before.

2) The elected leader of the ruling political party goes along with a blatant exercise in undermining his authority and retains power? You're kidding me. No matter how much "he did what was necessary to save the princess" spin is released, from the second that broadcast started, that PM was forever doomed to be The Man Who Made Love To A Pig On Television. If a bit of extra-marital rumpy-pumpy can ruin a political career, there's no hope in hell that porcine penetration is survivable.

It's all about how it's spun. The point of him ****ing a pig was to be ridiculous, but on the extra-marital note look at Boris Johnson.

It doesn't help that most of the investigation team were a bumbling bunch of twits - when it's one of your SWAT team telling you that the kidnapper used a proxy for the file upload, that's a good sign someone's doing it wrong. And we never did get an explanation for how this Turner-prize-winning Damien-Hirst-alike managed to sedate two security agents from the Royal security team, get information in damn-near realtime from within a government team set up to respond to the kidnapping, or any of the rest of it. As villains go, he was about as convincing as Jason Voorhees.

I didn't like that line in the raid but it can be hard to check such things at times. Also it was explained (during the programme no less) that he found out it was the pornstar because of the tool taking a pic.

Fysh wrote: »

It may be satire, but it wasn't very good or in any way deep.

I don't think it intended to be subtle.

It set itself up for this kind of criticism by presenting itself as a serious drama, but all it really had to say was "Wow, social networks are so prevalent that politicians concerned about public opinions expressed there could be compelled by them to go at it with a pig in the right circumstances". That's not enough to serve as an underpinning for a straight-faced satire.

I generally don't like straight-faced satire. Not straight-faced on the consumer's end anyway.

There was no understanding that social networks are just tools, and that as with all tools they can be used to good or ill intent. There was little examination of the tensions that can arise in a constitutional monarchy. There was hardly any interesting commentary on how, exactly, a Prime Minister is beholden to the electorate at large.

As a result, the PM's decision to go ahead with Operation: Porking Peppa felt utterly ridiculous, because in a country whose PMs have ignored marches of millions of people against going to war or cutting public sector funding, the notion that "public opinion" would be enough to force a PM to do that is just ridiculous. Between that and the Omniscient Artist Of Doom as the villain of the piece, I found it marginally less believable than Jason 2013: Jason Voorhees In Space.

If there was an election tomorrow the Tories would probably match Labour. Political power doesn't usually depend on those who shout loudest.

Da Shins Kelly

Watched the first episode last night. Very suspenseful and awkward viewing, but I didn't think it said anything we don't know already about the uncensorable nature of the internet and how out of control a lot of it is. However, it did present the issue in a pretty hard-hitting and shocking way, and there were some nice, awkward laughs in it too, which I enjoyed.

Flashgordon197

Just watched "national anthem" - I wonder if it was real would you watch it? I would not but perhaps thats easy to say when it aint?