As mentioned in part 1 of this blog, Playtest, the median episode, scored a solid 8 out of ten. Thus, the nine episodes I am running through today are all 8.5s or more, a testament to the general strength of Charlie Brooker’s dark, twisted, but constantly thought-provoking series.
09. USS Callister
Black Mirror does Star Trek in this epic take on fanboys, nostalgia, and when you weaponise your interests for less than salubrious purposes.
Rather than calling them out on this behaviour though, he gets revenge by creating ‘cookies’ (digital re-creations of the people) of all of his co-workers and forcing them to re-enact episodes of Space Fleet, which he plays when he gets home from work every day.
Plemmons is extremely good at playing creepy loners. He did so with comic aplomb in Game Night, but his role in USS Callister has a far darker soul, which he telegraphs with chilling calculation.
It’s a stagey, talky episode, but Cristin Milioti is brilliantly ballsy as the woman who won’t take spending an eternity in digital captivity lying down.
USS Callister also astutely highlights the detriment of fanboys who act as gatekeepers of geekdom, something which happens all too often (it's also very prevalent in football).
The insidious nature of toxic masculinity and gatekeeping in sci-fi was felt all too real by poor Kelly Marie Tran of Star Wars, who was recently hounded off Instagram due to an onslaught of racist and misogynistic abuse from trolls.
08. National Anthem
With the very first episode of Black Mirror, Charlie Brooker did not deign to ease the viewer in to his warped imagination. The plot revolves around a British Prime Minister who must copulate with a pig, or else the country’s beloved princess will be executed.
Despite the unappetising plot conceit, the topic is handled with wit and a surprising amount of class thanks to a knowing screenplay and committed, convincing performances, especially from underrated British actor Rory Kinnear as the hapless protagonist.
And the episode’s intended cautionary tale – of the folly of the masses being fixated with a ‘spectacle’, and the part that social media plays in aiding and abetting it, is astutely made.
The fact that years after the episode’s release, David Cameron was caught in a scandal where it was revealed that as part of an initiation ceremony at Oxford, he actually had sex with a pig, shows that for all of Charlie Brooker’s pessimistic worldview, perhaps he has society’s number better than most.
07. Hang the DJ
One of Black Mirror’s rare episodes to feature a happy ending, this instalment revolves around a society where a Siri-style software will find your soulmate for you, but only after the individual has endured many dates with people who aren’t right for them, so that the system can observe their responses to discern who their perfect match is.
Georgina Campbell and Joe Cole play Amy and Frank, who share and awkward first date, which is underscored by a bittersweet feeling when they check their apps to find out that the ‘expiry date’ on their relationship is 12 hours.
However, on moving onto other people, both find that they can’t forget about each other as easily as they’d like, and they begin to question ‘The System’’s robustness, if it keeps setting them up with people they’re patently not right for, when they could just date each other again.
This witty, shamelessly sentimental episode perceptively highlights the soul-sucking nature of consistently going on fruitless dates, and how it erodes one’s self-belief to the point that the whole joy of dating disappears.
But atypically for the show, Hang the DJ suggests that technology can actually help us find our soulmate. The way in which it is done is shown in the show’s penultimate shot, and it is as cerebral as it is sweet.
06. Black Museum
The only episode of Black Mirror to carry an 18 certificate, this anthology episode plays like a more disturbed sibling to White Christmas – and God knows that was unsettling enough.
Letitia Wright, who stole the show as Tchalla’s cheeky sister Suri in Black Panther, plays Nish, a tourist who stumbles upon a ‘Black Museum’, an exhibition of crimes committed, often with the help of technology. The quirky proprietor of the museum then talks her through three of the most memorable stories relating to artefacts in the museum, events which he had no small role in enabling.
For those who like in-references and Easter Eggs, you’re in for a treat, as Black Museum features callbacks to 15 Millions Merits, San Junipero, Arkangel, Shut Up and Dance, Crocodile and White Bear, among others.
These are blink and you’ll miss them moments, however, which only go to enhance the three stories, which depict the full depravity and base human behaviour that technology can sometimes help to bring out.
Thought-provoking and stomach-churning in equal measure.
05. White Bear
A woman wakes up in an unfamiliar room. She has no memory of everything up until that moment, and thus, no idea what she’s doing there. When she goes outside, she finds strangers in weird masks shooting at her, and bystanders, rather than aiding her, just record the event, whilst grinning.
She encounters Jem, a resourceful woman with designs on shutting down the ‘White Bear’ energy plant, believing that malevolent signals delivered via people’s mobile phones are what are causing them to act so violently, and the two set about achieving this.
While the plot conceit sounds like a brazen rip-off of Stephen King’s Cell, the spectacular rug-pull in the episode’s closing minutes reveal that the situation we thought we were in, was something entirely different.
The range of characters met and endurance tests inflicted upon the protagonist and Jem throughout their mission makes White Bear compelling viewing, but what really elevates it from popcorn TV is the sense of unease that you’re certain to leave the episode with.
Charlie Brooker postulates a question about the nature of crime and punishment; if someone has done something truly heinous, how far would be too far in terms of the justice meted upon them?
04. 15 Million Merits
Jordan Peele chose to cast Daniel Kaluuya in Get Out after watching him in this episode, and it’s no surprise, since the actor’s intensity and gravitas is the driving force of this episode.
In 15 Million Merits, characters spend their entire days on futuristic exercise bikes to generate energy, for which they are paid in ‘merits’. The only route of escape from this endless cycle of monotonity is by appearing on ‘Hot Shots’, an X-Factor-type show where if you’re talented and you win over the judges, you can become a megastar, and leave the exercise bikes behind.
However, it costs 15 million merits just to get an appearance on the show.
Bing (Kaluuya) donates all of his merits to buy Abi, a co-worker, an appearance on the show, after hearing her haunting rendition of ‘Anyone Who Knows What Love Is’ and falling in love (the singing’s quite good, too).
But when her performance takes a dark turn and the judges take advantage of her at a weak point (induced by a drink call Complicity), Bing spends all of his waking hours trying to avenge Abi’s downfall.
Acerbic, creative, heartbreaking and punchy, 15 Million Merits epitomises Black Mirror’s bleak beating heart. In addition to being entertaining and clever, there are two additional reasons why I love this episode.
Firstly, it kickstarted Daniel Kaluuya’s career, elevating him from sidekick-type roles (Sicario, Johnny English 2) to Oscar-nominated leading man.
Secondly, it was the first episode of Black Mirror to establish the prominence of Anyone Who Knows What Love Is, an indelible elegy which appears at pinnacle moments in other Black Mirror episodes: White Christmas, Men Against Fire and Crocodile.
03. Nosedive
The addictive nature of social media validation is conveyed, to mania-inducing effect, in this episode directed by Atonement’s Joe Wright. Lacie lives in a society where people’s desirability when it comes to jobs, social standing and dating is determined solely by their social media score, which is given from 0 to 5. She wishes to live in a swanky new apartment complex, where, if her average exceeds 4.5, she will be eligible for a discount on the rent.
Currently, she’s on 4.2, but when a former frenemy from secondary school with a high score invites her to be her Maid of Honour at her upcoming wedding, it represents the perfect opportunity to boost her score past the magical 4.5 point.
Given the ubiquity of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and countless other social media accounts, Charlie Brooker nails the toxic need for validation that having all these accounts create. The scoring system itself was taken from Uber, and given that drivers and customers alike choose whether or not to use each other depending on their Uber rating, the ideas postulated by this episode are not far from reality, albeit on a minor scale.
Amongst the escalating drama and increased stakes, is a very strong performance by Bryce Dallas Howard, thumbnailing a woman is slowly going insane by the unattainable goals being dangled at her by society, but wearing a fake smile throughout all of the distress.
The pastel colour scheme of the episode, the distinctive backdrop (this episode was shot in South Africa), Max Richter’s stunning score and Wright’s clinical, knowing direction render Nosedive one of Black Mirror’s most watchable, original instalments.
02. Hated in the Nation
Another episode which explores the pitfalls of social media, Hated in the Nation clocks in at 90 minutes, making it Black Mirror’s longest episode. The running time, high stakes and intentional hat-tip to The Birds mean that this episode feels positively cinematic.
When two seemingly disparate public figures, a journalist and a rapper, die by an unidentified illness, two days after each other, DCI Karin Parke (Kelly Macdonald) notices that what they had in common was that on the day they died, they were the most reviled person on Twitter, according to a Twitter hashtag #DeathTo.
Further investigation reveals that a swarm of robotic bees are being controlled by a tracking device to murder the individual who, every day, is the most unpopular person according to the hashtag. The instigator of all of this mayhem is a tech wiz who wants to prove a point after his former flatmate was nearly driven to suicide by the angry social media crowd.
Part morality tale, part demonstration of how advanced – but simultaneously terrifying technology can be, the 90 minutes of Hated in the Nation absolutely whizzed by. Macdonald and co-star Faye Marsay share an unusual chemistry, and it’s great to watch two intelligent, driven, women counter the depraved sense of justice of an entitled man. Benedict Wong’s appearance in the episode adds a dose of star power.
And the climactic scene, where DCI Parke and DC Coulson try to protect a potential victim of the mob from being attacked by the killer robotic bees, is a set piece so terrifying that Alfred Hitchcock would have been proud of it.
01. San Junipero
Throughout the existing 19 episodes of Black Mirror, Charlie Brooker has not attempted to hide his dark misanthropic streak, and he clearly believes that the chief function that technology has accomplished is that it has enabled humans to unleash their more base tendencies.
So San Junipero, which celebrates the redemptive power of love, and depicts how it can be used to prolong love into the afterlife, was an incredibly welcome surprise.
Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Mackenzie Davis are Kelly and Yorkie, a charming (not to mention extremely photogenic) couple who find themselves meeting in a place called 'San Junipero' in 1987, during the 90s, and in the new millennium. They enjoy each other’s company, connect with each other, and the love between them is clear to see, but at the strike of midnight, their dalliance ends.
I’ve purposely been vague in my description to as to avoid giving away any spoilers, but the unusual, yet innovative story behind San Junipero makes use of the various time periods to kit the actresses in a range of outfits of the era, not to mention suggesting that if the bond between two people is so strong, it will transcend the boundaries of time (this sentence sounds like a direct lift from Anne Hathaway’s monologue in Interstellar, haha).
The actresses' chemistry, the stellar performances, especially from Mbatha-Raw, and the episode's perceptive take on emotions, and whether after a lost love, one should shield their heart, or to continue to feel, makes this easily Black Mirror’s most moving episode.
I wasn’t conscious of how invested I was in Kelly and Yorkie’s relationship until the life-affirming closing credits, where I found myself crying tears of happiness.
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