SummaryOriginally aired in the UK in 2011 and a winner of an International Emmy in 2012 for Best TV Mini-Series, the drama's anthology-styled episodes explore the dark side of modern technology.
SummaryOriginally aired in the UK in 2011 and a winner of an International Emmy in 2012 for Best TV Mini-Series, the drama's anthology-styled episodes explore the dark side of modern technology.
There are at least two episodes, “Arkangel” and “Crocodile,” which are very much identifiable as classic “Black Mirror” tales. But fortunately, creator Charlie Brooker has taken some big swings with other installments, and the result is proof that “Black Mirror,” as a series, has plenty of mileage left in it.
Amazing series fueled by development of modern society. Visions provided in this show are not so sci-fi when you think it through, let's just look at China... Some episodes are weaker than best ones, but I guarantee that you'll get hooked. Just skip the first episode of first season if you can't stand it and watch an EXTRA Christmas episode! It's an ultimate mindf%^&*, a modern version of Gordian knot. Beyond scale, amazing, awesome, no more words needed! +fav
It’s significantly better across the board [than season 3]. Brooker and company have a firmer handle on the proper architecture for each story (only one, “Crocodile,” really drags), and if the show is starting to repeat itself a bit (the last episode of this batch, “Black Museum,” is basically Black Mirror’s Greatest Hits), the execution tends to compensate for the spottiness or familiarity of the ideas.
Season 4 is uneven. Three stories--“USS Callister,” “Black Museum” and “Hang the DJ”--are far superior to the others. There is much more graphic sex (albeit hilariously depicted in “DJ”) and violence than in past seasons.
Too often, this season skews too heavily toward bleakness, is weak on character development, and strains so hard to shock that it ultimately frustrates more than transfixes. All six episodes, directed by filmmakers ranging from Jodie Foster to David Slade, are elevated by strong performances and incredibly detailed production design that makes the settings feel credible, even when the characters in those settings engage in behavior that isn’t.
The allure of Black Mirror has always been his incisive sensibility, riddled with the same anxiety and fear of surveillance as the viewers who love it. But if this new batch of episodes are any indication, the series is merely treading water, as Brooker’s paranoid approach to an imagined future begins to lose its sense of nuance.
I can't believe that this show after four seasons is still as amazing as when it started. In fact it's getting better in its production, its acting, its writing, its directing, I think in pretty much every aspect! I loved all episodes, the only one I didn't like as much is "Metalhead" but that was still an pretty good, thrilling and intense episode with a unique visual style, different from the rest of the series. "USS Callister" is just amazing, mindblowing and probably my second favorite of this season. "Arkangel" a shocking story of a overprotective mother watching after her daughter. "Crocodile" is a wonderful, dramatic and thrilling story with some breathtaking twists and turns. "Hang the DJ" Is just mind-blowing. "Metalhead" the weakest but still great. "White Museum" probably one of the best episodes of the entire series, simply incredible, shocking and depressing story.
getting tired of brooker's pompous certainty that he knows what's right v. what's wrong in the world, and his relentless interest in providing targets for the audience to feel gratified in punishing; too much media these days seems to focus on these certainties: these values, people, ideals are wrong! screams the content of so much work out there; when the world of entertainment seems to be bending over backwards to convince me of the correct social position, i start feeling a little 'they live' coming on; brooker exemplifies this with his snarky certainty of what's right and wrong in everything from politics to murder; the most derivative of his episodes, 'black museum', deals squarely in the obvious wrongs, and they are wrongs, but does so by co-opting hellraiser's superior treatment of the now worn-out theme of pleasure v. pain, roald dahl's superior treatment of what it's like to hold someone hostage, and anyone else's superior treatment of what it means to be tortured by white jerks; having been hit over the head daily by what is right and wrong in our world from every corner of the media room, here it is again; where are the shows that leave me puzzled and uncertain? where are the shows that question the creator's own certainties? sadly, with this episode of black mirror it feels like brooker has exposed the truth in himself, that he is, in reality, no different inside than any of the power-hungry supremacists he likes to target, and they are such easy targets, aren't they? but all that self-righteous finger-pointing is inevitably going to slip, and the mirror reveal that the dark side is in him in brooker too! this series alone is enough to deter me from consensus-building television; after all, when the tv is showing me entertainments that basically argue the same points of view that everyone on facebook argues incessantly, maybe it's time to cash it in; after all, i can get everything brooker offers in any given single conversation thread online; cash it in, brooker, you've run out of real juice on this, and i question whether the series ever had any real juice, other than brooker's own certainty in his superior pov, which finally reveals it's ugly internal great-white savior bias; save yourself first, then you can tell me who else might need saving, but in the meantime i'm finally done with black mirror