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Author Topic: Black Mirror  (Read 10436 times)

StarCarly

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Re: Black Mirror
« Reply #50 on: November 29, 2016, 10:28:22 AM »
I found this series right around Halloween and spent a couple days watching almost nothing else. Quickly became one of my favorite series.

Be Right Back
White Christmas
San Junipero

The Entire History of You
The National Anthem
Shut Up and Dance

Fifteen Million Merits
Nosedive
Playtest

The Waldo Moment
Men Against Fire

White Bear


I need to try to finish Hated in the Nation again, I was so bored!
"I've been very lonely in my isolated tower of indecipherable speech."

Films Watched in 2017

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1SO

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Re: Black Mirror
« Reply #51 on: November 29, 2016, 10:34:55 AM »
I was looking for a consensus of what were the best and worst of the new season and it seems there isn't one, though everyone I've skimmed is calling the show amazing.

According to USA Today:
6. 'Shut Up and Dance'
5. 'Men Against Fire'
4. 'Playtest'
3. 'Nosedive'
2. 'Hated in the Nation'
1. 'San Junipero'

According to The Independent:
6. 'Men Against Fire'
5. 'San Junipero'
4. 'Playtest'
3. 'Hated in the Nation'
2. 'Nosedive'
1.  'Shut Up and Dance'

According to Variety:
6. Hated in the Nation
5. Shut Up and Dance
4. Nosedive
3. San Junipero
2. Playtest
1. Men Against Fire

That difference is reflected by our group too.

I think the next 6 episodes premiere in Jan. 2017.

StarCarly

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Re: Black Mirror
« Reply #52 on: November 29, 2016, 10:37:31 AM »


That difference is reflected by our group too.

I think the next 6 episodes premiere in Jan. 2017.

I was just noticing that too, no consensus whatsoever. Cool!
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IDrinkYourMilkshake

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Re: Black Mirror
« Reply #53 on: January 03, 2017, 01:02:50 PM »
Three episodes in to the new season. I didn't like Nosedive all that much, but Playtest and Shut Up and Dance, the two episodes Brooker actually wrote, have been great.

EDIT: Playtest was good, not great.
« Last Edit: January 03, 2017, 01:11:19 PM by IDrinkYourMilkshake »
"What should have been an enjoyable 90 minutes of nubile, high-school flesh meeting a frenzy of blood-caked blades, becomes instead an exploitational and complex parable of the conflicting demands of agrarianism and artistry. I voted a miss."

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Re: Black Mirror
« Reply #54 on: December 30, 2017, 11:05:57 PM »
Season 4

USS Callister
What a way to start. This is the series at its best, attacking hostile nerd culture entitlement this time with the series typical cutting humor and clever storytelling. A great cast, featuring a fearsome no B.S. performance by Cristin Milioti, Jesse Plemons ability to transform into the type of person the story needs him to be at any moment and Jimmi Simpson, who is always a delight. One of the best endings for a Black Mirror ep, which is saying a lot.

Arkangel
The final moments and closing credits song made me think this was going for something else. The relationship between mother and daughter doesn't connect because the script spends more time interacting with the technology and not enough dealing with the human consequences. This was the first in a sad trend this season, being able to easily guess where and how the tech is going to go wrong.

Crocodile
If you didn't like the darkness of last season's "Shut Up and Dance", you might want to skip this one. At least Dance packed a punch with its final scenes. This one, I kept waiting for a surprise and instead I was unsurprised when a sociopathic solution presented itself and it went there. This could've really used a twist.

Hang the DJ
I don't want to say too much on this one because its those final minutes that really put it over the top while a good deal of the middle I thought was setting up something darker. If you liked San Junipero, this is another look at the danger of turning over our dating instincts to new technology.

Metalhead
I'm not sure what the point of this was. I mean, I get the point of the final scene, but the rest of the episode is a low tech version of The Terminator. The shortest episode, but so lacking in content it felt the longest.

Black Museum
Curious structure. A crime museum where the owner tells stories of tech gone wrong. The first two-thirds could stand as their own episodes if the show ever went to 30 minutes. Only in the final tale does it lead somewhere, but again as soon as that one began and I know exactly how it was going to end.

Bondo

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Re: Black Mirror
« Reply #55 on: January 01, 2018, 03:22:52 AM »
USS Callister: My new favorite episode. It is just so precisely written, wasting nary a moment. Perhaps lets the CEO off too easy as a sympathetic figure given his pretty overt sexual harassment in the real world. But as a dismantling of a certain nice guy nerd whose undercurrent of rage and impotent frustration leads to violent fantasy that is battled within that realm to prevent it from exploding into the real world as often it does. Though the way they draw up the game versions makes the stakes seem completely and totally real. It is the overwhelming theme this season...the morality duties to digital sentients.

Hang The DJ: My fear in watching this dating system at work is I'd be the one for whom it just never assigns matches. I do like the twist. Ultimately this succeeds on the chemistry of the characters but also in ways it adapts real dating concerns into the nature of this system. We do probably think too much about how long a given relationship is going to last and set arbitrary goals, either short or long, rather than just letting it unfold to the proper length and no further.

Black Museum: This is a peculiar beast and in some ways feels like the final episode we'll get as it retroactively creates a shell for the entire series. But that is only half of the episode. The other half is a pair of sub-stories that, while tying into the broad theme of transferred or digital consciousness, also have distinct transgender implications. In one a device allows a doctor to feel the physical sensations of his patients for diagnosis, and those romantic sensations of his wife. This is basically a perfect piece of tech for my peculiar orientation. The second episode transfers a comatose wife's consciousness inside her husband's head. Admittedly it takes it in a more domestic tension direction, but having this female voice in his head could easily have been taken in a more gender study direction. It is a messy episode but intrigued me.

Arkangel: Capable exploration of parental supervision in a tech landscape. But nothing really stands out stylistically, and it pretty much goes the places you expect.

Crocodile: If Arkangel was predictable in how it implemented its tech, Crocodile seems a little confused and just makes for a muddy presentation of the concept.

Metalhead: I needed more worldbuilding to set up the context we find the characters in. I don't know what they are fighting for which lessens the stakes and makes it feel like an exercise in brutality. This season truly was the best of times and the worst of time.

Updated ranking:

USS Callister
Hated In The Nation
Fifteen Million Merits
San Junipero
Hang the DJ
White Christmas

Shut Up And Dance
Be Right Back
The Entire History Of You
Black Museum
Playtest

Arkangel
Nosedive
The National Anthem
Men Against Fire

Crocodile
White Bear
The Waldo Moment
Metalhead
« Last Edit: January 01, 2018, 03:41:55 AM by Bondo »

1SO

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Re: Black Mirror
« Reply #56 on: January 01, 2018, 09:10:22 AM »
Black Museum:
It is a messy episode but intrigued me.
Well said. I have to watch White Christmas again because in my mind the stories go down the same path, which I have to think is deliberate given the titles of the episodes.


This season truly was the best of times and the worst of time.
Also true. The bad episodes haven't put me off on the series because the good episodes are so great.

I mentioned with Season 3 how everyone has radically different lists of best and worst Black Mirror episodes, but this Season there seems to be agreement on the two great ones and three not good ones with Black Museum in between.

sdb_1970

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Re: Black Mirror
« Reply #57 on: January 02, 2018, 08:56:07 AM »
I mentioned with Season 3 how everyone has radically different lists of best and worst Black Mirror episodes, but this Season there seems to be agreement on the two great ones and three not good ones with Black Museum in between.

As was the case with TZ, the touchier, feelier episodes generally don’t do it for me.  Also, Season 4 was a bit of a disappointment.

Fifteen Million Merits
USS Callister
The Entire History of You

Be Right Back
White Bear
Shut Up and Dance
Nosedive
The National Anthem
White Christmas
Black Museum

Playtest
Metalhead
The Waldo Moment
Arkangel
Crocodile
Hated in the Nation
Men Against Fire

Hang the DJ
San Junipero
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Solid Blake

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Re: Black Mirror
« Reply #58 on: January 03, 2018, 02:00:51 PM »
Of course John Hillcoat would direct the most depressing episode of the most depressing series I’ve ever seen. I feel... I don’t think.. yep.. I can’t feel anything anymore.

Junior

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Re: Black Mirror
« Reply #59 on: January 03, 2018, 10:59:30 PM »
Of course John Hillcoat would direct the most depressing episode of the most depressing series I’ve ever seen. I feel... I don’t think.. yep.. I can’t feel anything anymore.

Yeah, the credit at the end was both surprising and not at all shocking.
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