Charlie Brooker's BLACK MIRROR

Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan

Iain M Banks did a great flip side take (obviously before BM) on San Junipero called Surface Detail.

I cracked the seal on this last weekend by watching San Junipero first, fully aware that it's atypical of the rest of the series. Since then, I've watched the pig fucking one, the xmas episode with Jon Hamm, and the one where the girl buys an AI version of her dead boyfriend/husband only to get completely freaked out.

Not sure what to hit next. Guess I'll just keep jumping around.

Nosedive and Playtest are my favorites from S3.

watched the 1st three seasons over the past week. like 10 episodes total. occasionally clever, but i basically hate this show. like, half the episodes are tired (and inevitably male) sexual anxiety nightmares in paper thin sci-fi drag. oh no, she cheated on me. oh no, she done a porn. oh no, i fucked a pig on the telly.

Sounds about right. I couldn't take it, because it seemed so shallow and lazy, even when it had a good idea/cast.

did you just name all of the male sexual anxiety nightmares in those 3 examples?

feel like that's a super reductive take and i'm not even one of this show's true believers. it's all "x anxiety nightmares" of some sort.

xp

I'm sorry you had this experience. it must have been very difficult for you.

I'm not surprised Charlie Brooker has sexual anxiety nightmares, no-one can work out how he ended up married to Konnie Huq.

Is the she did porn episode the one where they bicycle for credits all day?

The setups are less of a problem to me than the show having almost nothing interesting to say about the situations it's portraying. Social media is taking over our lives!!! Yes, and...

It's more like OK, here's this extremely specific dead-end dystopian situation, OMG, they can't get out of this extremely specific dead-end dystopian situation!

Here's one: we're in the future, where a giant public pool is filled with robot piranhas, and once a year, a child is chosen to throw in to be eaten by the robot piranhas, and when the child is chosen her parents step up and volunteer to be eaten by piranhas instead, and they are, and then we see the child film it on her cellphone and post it to the internet to share with her friends, and it turns out the children are the ones that devised the robot piranhas because they are psychopaths who like their screens more than mom and dad who want their parents eaten by robot fish. What sort of sick society have we become!?!

cant wait for the fidget spinner ep in seies 4

did you just name all of the male sexual anxiety nightmares in those 3 examples?

yeah, i figure infidelity, porn sadness and the telly pig pretty much cover it

"what if phones, but too much?" is a lot of these episodes... great fb group, i recommend it

feel like the dystopia we're living in is tonally more nathan barley than black mirror

Watching over 12 hours of a show you "basically hate" in one week is pretty good fodder for a Black Mirror episode, it has to be said.

lol otm

https://irishkirsche.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/tumblr_neqzq9kmrk1u3o8rto2_500.jpg

cant wait for the fidget spinner ep in seies 4

― kurt schwitterz, Thursday, June 1, 2017 10:58 AM (twelve hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I read this while holding my fidget spinner so you best believe i'm excited too

Bring on the war with the fidget cubes

In a dystopian future, all citizens must spin their fidget spinners at all time. If they stop, they lose a finger. Episode ends with the entire nation fingerless and helpless. And then you see someone spin one ... on their TONGUE! DO YOU SEE WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN NEXT!?!?!

the severed fingers are used to make more fidget spinners

fidget spinners are PEOPLE

In a dystopian future, everyone is glued to an outlandish, ott reality TV show featuring totally insane, depraved acts. They just can't stop watching because it is so crazy. But then it turns out ... that crazy reality TV show *is* reality, and the people on the "shows" have all been watching everyone else, amazed at how boring and "fake" their lives are!

In a dystopian future, we replace our teachers with perfect robots, and the schools improve significantly. Grades and tests are up, our kids are smarter and more competent. And then we discover ... the robot teachers have replaced all our kids with robots!

In a dystopian future, a new strain of addictive pornography proliferates. Almost everyone becomes entranced, despite the fact that it eventually literally makes you go blind. It turns out this strain of pornography was devised ... by blind people! They have a big victory party and assume control until - twist! - they are beset by a newer strain of addictive audio pornography ... devised by deaf people!

"what if phones, but too much?" is a lot of these episodes... great fb group, i recommend it

credit where due to CB, apparently that phrase can actually be seen in a newspaper headline or something somewhere in s3

what if robot sex, but too much?

In a dystopian future, an insecure man spends his life's savings to get a cybernetic robot penis installed and becomes a literal sex machine. But then it turns out his lover has been a secret robot sub all along, and his partner long ago left him for another man ... who turns out to be a robot! With a REAL penis! Irony!

Brilliant work by Josh in Chicago in this thread.

Basically, sure, but my love for this series isn't lessened.

I thought we went over all that way back when

Ok I hadn't seen this before. Lol.

Ahead of its time.

now I feel old because all of Black Mirror seems to have aired recently, or at least in the "now," but I guess it did start in 2011

I just watched season 1 episode 1.

"Jane...... please"

Episode 2 sucks

Season 4 coming soon. Episode titles & credits:

“Arkangel”
Cast: Rosemarie Dewitt (La La Land, Mad Men), Brenna Harding (A Place to Call Home), Owen Teague (Bloodline)
Director: Jodie Foster
Written by: Charlie Brooker

“USS Callister”
Cast: Jesse Plemons (Black Mass, Fargo), Cristin Milioti (The Wolf of Wall Street, Fargo), Jimmi Simpson (Westworld, House of Cards), Michaela Coel (Chewing Gum, Monsters: Dark Continent)
Director: Toby Haynes (Dr Who, Sherlock)
Written By: Charlie Brooker & William Bridges

“Crocodile”
Cast: Andrea Riseborough (Birdman, Bloodline), Andrew Gower (Outlander), Kiran Sonia Sawar (Murdered By My Father)
Director: John Hillcoat (Triple Nine, Lawless)
Written By: Charlie Brooker

“Hang the DJ”
Cast: Georgina Campbell (Flowers, Broadchurch), Joe Cole (Peaky Blinders, Green Room), George Blagden (Versailles, Vikings)
Director: Tim Van Patten (The Sopranos, Game of Thrones)
Written By: Charlie Brooker

“Metalhead”
Cast: Maxine Peake (The Theory Of Everything, The Village), Jake Davies (The Missing, A Brilliant Young Mind), Clint Dyer (Hope Springs)
Director: David Slade (Hannibal, American Gods)
Written By: Charlie Brooker

“Black Museum”
Cast: Douglas Hodge (The Night Manager, Catastrophe), Letitia Wright (Humans, Ready Player One), Babs Olusanmokun (Roots, The Defenders)
Director: Colm McCarthy
Written By: Charlie Brooker

Teaser is out..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oH85obU350E

Premieres December 29th
https://pitchfork.com/news/netflix-announces-black-mirror-season-4-premiere-date/

still excited for the possibility of a fidget spinner episode

I know it was deeply flawed but Nathan Barley was a deeply accurate glimpse of the future pre-Black Mirror, but the future is now

josh az otm, massive own-goal if they do not feature

let's do this then. Enjoying the first one so far.

[as a parent] fuck you brooker for putting that image in my head

I know EXACTLY what image

I'm watching "Arkangel". Parents, please have a full glass of wine before you spin this one up.

Seriously, this is devastating stuff.

I’m watching that one right now and alternating between cringe and outrage and hoping this doesn’t go the way I’m worried about but ohhh nooo

is USS Callister any good? I'm not interested in Star Trek or any of that stuff so I'd be inclined to avoid it.

yes, it’s about a simulated world, just happens to be trek themed

I think I'd rather watch an hourlong interview with Brooker than an episode of his show, but I'll give the Star Trek one a go.