Charlie Brooker's BLACK MIRROR

the very end of "playtest" has the most intentionally bad punchline in the ironic Twilight Zone style

playtest was a mess. did the guy also hallucinate those CRT security cam images showing us it was all fake?

He never even played whack-a-mole

watched Nosedive and Playtest last night, really don't think I can continue with this series. Nosedive was horrifying enough, but the ending of Playtest really fucked me up. .004 seconds. Fuck me running

Thoroughly enjoyed all of the new series, to the extent that I'm almost a bit embarrassed about it.

Like I couldn't really argue with anyone saying that a lot of this is just trench-thread fodder spun out via predictable plot beats, but something about the basic format, with each episode its own self-contained little world, just works really well for me.

imo more tv shows should be one-shot or season-long things

Probably agree with the consensus that Hated In the Nation was the highlight. Nosedive was probably the most trench-y, but still funny, and the bit near the start where the main character is photographing & uploading her coffee and biscuit might be the most perfectly observed little moment of the whole series.

Would be great if each episode was bookended with a cackling robot warning us about the dangers of technology via a stream of bad puns.

some kind of...mirror master.

Watched Nosedive, Playtest, and Shut Up And Dance one each evening this week. Nosedive felt like someone attempting to write the most Black Mirror episode of Black Mirror ever, and was entertaining enough. Playtest was kind of scary but didn't get me the way some people on this thread seem to have been affected.

But Shut Up And Dance. Holy fuck. I spent 55 minutes thinking it was the most mundane episode ever (technologically everything in it seemed pretty possible right now) and wondering why a certain character was reacting in a certain way, thought the final fight to-the-death scenario seemed implausible and ill-balanced, and then the last five seconds going "holy shit". I went to bed and woke up thinking about it; best thing Brooker's ever done.

Usually I feel like most episodes would almost be better treated in half the length, as they're basically just a conceptual riff on a certain aspect of technology and society, and not actually about character or plot really. I'm not sure Shut Up... was about either of those things any more or less than other episodes, but it just suckered me.

This is one of those thing where, I don't actually like the show, but the Twitter backlash against it has been so smug, I kinda wish I liked it

Not read the full thread yet. Watched Nosedive which was really slight - well-acted though - and Playtest. That was a bit better but was expecting a bit different than literally all other VR type plots (also it reminded me of this: http://business.panasonic.co.uk/visual-system/le-petit-chef-brings-visual-mapping-to-the-restaurant-table) I guess the 2nd end bit was ok. Again, it was stretched out so long I thought they'd do something more edgy or twisty. I dunno. I guess I got scared imagining what my own mind would come up with in that situation rather than the obvious. My friend made the 'creature' on it btw.

A lot of these are decent ideas stretched past sense.

Playtest was probably the most enjoyable, San Junipero best concept.

Shut Up and Dance made basically no sense (what was the point of the robbery or the fight to the death???!?!?) Hated By The Nation was just too long and not well put sequenced and frankly too obvious even by BM standards. Men Against Fire just too on the nose (too bad I did like the concept initially). Nosedive I just could not get into.

Music was generally excellent throughout though (beginning to think this might be Netflix series greatest contribution to popular culture between this, Stranger Things, and Luke Cage.)

Yeah I thought Hated By The Nation was boring and stupid. Firing off into too many ideas and failing to bring them together. I'm amazed that people rate it highly. Kelly MacDonald is a fucking terrible actress too. She's bad in everything I've seen her in.

what was the point of the robbery or the fight to the death???!?!?

uh...

The robbery is to put the prize money in place which is part of the theatre of the fight, which is vigilante justice for the benefit of the blackmailers. It's psychological torture inflicted because they can. It's also to psychologically push the protagonists beyond the law to the point towards where they are prepared to kill either the other or themselves.

Hated IN the Nation, you GGDummies.

Spoilers I guess:

So, was the kid in Shut up and Dance meant to have been watching child porn or was that just 'social media twists things'?

I guessed what San Junipero was about but still enjoyed that one probably the most.

lol will not stand for the impugning of kelly macdonald

I like her generally, but I thought she was perhaps not well cast here (maybe I'm showing my age but it's hard for me to picture the teenage girl from Trainspotting as a stuffy technophobic DCI).

I didn't get why it serves the blackmailers for one of these two guys specifically to be dead if they're going to release the incriminating info in the end anyway and I felt like there were probably better ways of getting the prize money if that was the point....

What does GGDummies mean and why is someone so outraged about people mixing up prepositions?

I didn't get why it serves the blackmailers for one of these two guys specifically to be dead if they're going to release the incriminating info in the end anyway

presumably, they're meant to be internet vigilante "kill the paedos" types. In this case, they end up with one of their prime targets being dead and the other being arrested for his murder/everything else, without getting their hands dirty themselves. Everything leading up to that is just "trolling".

Right I guess I thought if the whole thing was "pedos pedos pedos" then what the other three presumably non pedos were just being harrassed to set up the pedos? Maybe that's how these things work but I found it thematically muddy.

it's paedos all the way down

I thought one lady was a racist emailing CEO and the other guy was just hiring hookers and scooter dude unnamed perversions.

GGDummies: Those unfamiliar with the work of Kevin Michael Allin, whose 1987 ROIR cassette (later re-released in other formats) gave the episode its name. Jeez.

the "point" of it was torture the people who'd been caught out with the promise of getting off the hook by forcing them to do various things, which ratcheted up in intensity, only to smear them anyway once they'd done what they were told to do, because ultimately the game was only for the nihilistic lulz.

seriously guys it's a kinda dumb twilight zone ep for a world that includes 4chan and smart phones, not a physics exam.

So, was the kid in Shut up and Dance meant to have been watching child porn or was that just 'social media twists things'?

presumably, they're meant to be internet vigilante "kill the paedos" types.

also, if you remember how the vigilantes got access in the first place, it's very non-targeted. they put out their dodgy anti-malware software out there and saw who they could get with it. they didn't target any of these people, it's who they got that was useful.

thinking back on it now, though, there's a pretty big plot hole - why wouldn't he just put a password on his laptop? It seems weird he'd put a lock on his door but not that.

So, was the kid in Shut up and Dance meant to have been watching child porn or was that just 'social media twists things'?

He definitely was - look how queasy he looks when the other guy says "how young?" and the call from his mother. And there's no way anyone would do those things if it was something legal.

I (and Mr Kinder) thought these were all kind of ambiguous -
1 - he looks queasy all the way through and I thought this was a disgusted reaction to the other guy's suggestion
2 - "They're saying it's kids", well yeah, of course 'they' are, it's the work of trolls on a show about how social media distorts things.
3 - I can see this - although thought Robson Jerome's bit in the car about how the impressionable young boy's life would be ruined covered that

Think you're right though particularly as it's not like Black Mirror to do anything subtly and the boy was shown interacting with a kid so I guess definitely = paedo

But the whole feel of the episode changes depending on whether "twist! paedo" or not, which is annoying. Either way it seems really clumsy.

no way. you'd deny it if it was untrue. even a timid kid like that isn't going to rob a bank for the chance of avoiding humiliation. the things the others had to do were relatively innocuous; everything he did towards the end escalated to the point that if caught, his life would be ruined. so why do it?

he also says "I only looked at some pictures" which to me came across as him trying to minimise it.

finally, his mother says that there's a video and his sister has seen it. put together with the fact they scanned his hard drive (this is how they had Robson's chat logs and other evidence) and he knows there's no way out of it.

the episode is very white bear in the sense that it's about trying to get you to empathise with someone who's done something wrong/argue that even people who have committed the most reprehensible crimes don't deserve torture.

I don't think it makes any sense at all if he's not a paedo. If it's just normal porn - everyone does that. He wouldn't have tried to kill himself for something legal.

"the "point" of it was torture the people who'd been caught out with the promise of getting off the hook by forcing them to do various things, which ratcheted up in intensity, only to smear them anyway once they'd done what they were told to do, because ultimately the game was only for the nihilistic lulz."

I guess the torturing makes more sense to me if it was more making them run around and do random shit, not commit armed robbery and/or murder.

Even without the twist/morals, "Shut Up and Dance" is still terrifying, or should be.

gyac, yeah I think you (and literally everyone else) are right. I think also I thought White Bear had done something so similar I was surprised to see it again.
Whole thing was depressing though.

hated in the nation was really bad, haven't watched the other new eps yet

so 'Playtest' is basically a twist on the old 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge' idea? all this shit goes down in his mind in the time it takes for the rope to snap his neck?

Part of the reason people are questioning Shut Up and Dance is because of the casting of a young weedy guy as a paedophile. He doesn't look like any paedophile we've seen on TV which is clearly very deliberate to postpone the realisation and make you question your preconceptions of what a paedophile would look and act like.

obviously a callback to PAEDOGEDDON that everyone's so scared of being even accused of being such a thing

that wasn't why I was questioning it

Kept waiting for the social media episode to get better, never happened.

Men Against Fire (terrible title) was done quicker and better in this thing forks posted upthread: Charlie Brooker's BLACK MIRROR

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71Zs7X3NjAL.jpg

Pedophile stereotype = pasty weedy white guy so I don't think that was the disconnect at all (possible people didn't like to be made to feel sorry for him for first 50 minutes and then have that yanked away at end--I guess maybe the point though).

Nah, it was definitely misdirection with the main character

The stereotype is generally pasty white middle-aged dude. Not a hapless teenager

Seen the first four of s3 now. Shut Up and Dance and San Junipero both great, great episodes, even tho complete opposites. Nosedive felt like a warm-up episode, nice enough. But Playtime: good god man, the lead character completely ruined it with his overacting 'omg' 'wtf' stuff. Interesting to hear how teh Americans on here saw that: for me it was insufferable, bordering on the unwatchable.

Shut Up and Dance though, that one'll stick with me for quite some time. Damn. The kid acted great imho, not over the top, but frozen with terror and fear beyond belief throughout.

Yeah I hated him. Still dug the episode, and it helped that he died in such a brutal way. Did the same schtick in Richard Linklater's latest movie. Irritating as fuck

Acting like that is his schtick? Oof. What a stinker.

Lol did not put together that the obnoxious actor in Playtest was the same obnoxious actor in Everybody Wants Some

he's Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn's son!

and yeah, he's extremely annoying