I binge watched season 3 of “Black Mirror” with my mum yesterday. We just thought we could take it one at a time, maybe watch two new episodes and see what it’s like, and we ended up watching all six episodes in one night.
If anyone is familiar with “Black Mirror”, they also know that its writer and creator is Charlie Brooker, a man whose satirical and dark reviews of domestic (UK, that is) policy shows how much the world needs people who can easily call ‘bullshit’ on certain events. Personally, I watched everything Brooker had created to date because I have immense respect for him and his creative genius but I can’t guarantee he wouldn’t call me a buffoon as well if I told him I was a fan of his work; I just have a feeling he might, I don’t know.
The first season of “Black Mirror” was something very new on the market, despite having stories about technological advancements and science fiction drama from the dawn of time (I should look that fact up, though). This season really showed how technological advancement can hurt humanity, since people will stay people no matter how many gadgets they have; Toby Kebbell perfectly played the jealous husband in a world where he can access his and others’ memories from a hard drive. The other two episodes focused on the society’s obsession over reality TV. It was exciting to see this, even the first episode, in which the PM of Britain is blackmailed into having sex with a pig on national television. Years after the premiere of that episode, David Cameron was enshrouded in the scandal of doing something similar back in his college days – Brooker saw right through everything and went, “well if this happens, the world will have gone mad by then!”. Or maybe he knew more than many of us.
Season 2 followed the same thematic path but it wasn’t as memorable as the first one. The issues of technological advancement were very emotionally approached in the first episode where Hayley Atwell’s character can’t quite cope with the loss of her husband and decides to sign up for a service that can recreate him and keep him in her head the entire time. This can be devastating for numbers of reasons, as love and loss are two incredibly powerful emotions that can affect us, at most times, permanently. This was the best episode of the series, although the slowest one in terms of pace. Other two episodes simply deal with societal issues of publicly (and violently in public) judging an individual, as well as the entire absurdity of elections, candidates, politics and political games.
But, the arrival of season 3 made everything different. The release of this season was a bit under the radar for me, since I wasn’t sure it would continue after the second one. I thought maybe Charlie Brooker had had enough of making up stories about broken ideals and society. I was terribly wrong, though, since he wrote 6 episodes (well, five, if we don’t count “Nosedive”, which was only his idea but not his screenplay) and they all combined the emotional aspect, alienation and general humanity with the technological advancements, replacements and larger-than-life inventions. Episode called “Nosedive” was really stunning in both visual and dynamic aspects; somehow, the pastels in which the world is tightly wrapped can’t lighten up the darkness of the loneliness behind chasing ratings and online popularity. Reality of us getting to that place in time kicks in when our main character, played by Bryce Dallas Howard, can or can’t use daily amenities because she’s judged by her ratings. Yikes.
Other episodes, like “Playtest” show the advancement of video games, and how much that universe has expanded and how dangerous it can get; it delved into facing one’s fears in a truly dangerous way. That can be done in a gentler and kinder way, definitely. The story about the army man who is programmed to see only what the government wants him to see (and kill) is probably the scariest. Actually, they’re all scary. Fascinating and scary at the same time.
The best part is, the final episode is as long as a feature film, almost 90 minutes.
I fell in love with “Black Mirror” again. I keep thinking about the episodes all day today and I envy the people who still haven’t seen it. Whatever could possibly go wrong with society was depicted in the series and despite it being truly depressing, it’s actually riveting and exciting – the dialogues are exquisite, the visuals are impeccable and the universe of each episode can pull us in and make us think about it for hours after watching it.
Someone more adept would say it lacked something, they’d criticize it more objectively but I love Brooker’s vision and I love that his thinking takes us to some very possible outcomes; I also love that, however dark, he’s also a bit of a romantic. He understands how far someone would go for love, for success and for simple, pure happiness. He also understands that people are still people once released from the gadgets, and that our inner workings will always need care.
‘Til next time.
Anja
The Roll of a Lifetime 