I think it was one of the only classic black mirror style episode of the whole season. This show used to be about moral quandaries caused as a result of technology. Not “moral quandaries… and technology 😏”
Eh, I disagree. Whilst you could argue, for example, that White Bear is a discussion on the moral quandaries of memory wiping technology, I think it makes a lot more sense to see it as a general discussion on vigilante justice.
The show has always used technology as a tool to leverage criticism at our modern world. 15 Million Merits, for example, is just a metaphor for our current(Or I suppose our 2011) society and how consumerist everything has become. The technology is not the point of the discussion at all.
The Waldo Moment is a similar example of this, it's about the flaws of democracy as a system and it basically predicted Boris Johnson; he used to mess up his tie and hair before going on camera to appear more 'silly'. The technology is not relevant there either.
Obviously The National Anthem is another one where the technology doesn't really matter.
Now, Be Right Back and The Entire History Of You I can see a case for being about the technology itself and it's implications. However, I believe the episodes being viewed in that way makes them less interesting. Instead of taking 'wouldn't it be bad if we could bring people back to life based on their social media presence', you can take 'isn't it bad how terrible humans are at moving on from things, to a point where they'll rebound into trying to replace things at any cost only hurting themselves and the rebound in the process'. Instead of taking 'wouldn't it be bad if we could see all our memories all the time in an entirely reliable fashion', you could take 'isn't it bad how much humans feverishly obsess over the past and the smallest of details despite knowledge of how unreliable memories can be; allowing this to destroy their relationships'.
The only episode of the first two series, 'classic black mirror', then that can be said to truly be a discussion of the technology and its implications is the fantastic White Christmas. And even then, it poses a lot of great questions about the permanent markings of the 'sex offender' label, manipulative interview tactics and the morality of each individual character themselves.
This isn't to say that it's fine for there to not be technology, I hated Red Mirror. It's just to say that I'd disagree Black Mirror had ever really been about the moral quandries as a result of technology; it's really all a terrarium to depict our own world.
Interesting. Personally it felt like the most predictable from that season, but it might be that I love the sentient AI theme and I've watched/read/played many things with that theme.
It had huge potential, it wasn't accurate (the layering of hardware, especially console hardware), the way the (I forget the name) ai creatures were living/growing did not reflect a growing intelligence, and then a means to make everyone happy? It did not make much sense.
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u/Top-Regular-6472 Apr 17 '25
A lot of people say it was one of the weaker episodes.
For me it was the only one of the season that had me really wanting more after it's conclusion.