11/26/2022 0 Comments The black mirror national anthem![]() ![]() But there has been too much of cynicism already. So, whatever happened to all the digital avatars of Amy and Frank in 998 of 1000 simulations? We forget the people and experiences behind the data. The concept of digital consciousness has been a recurring theme throughout Black Mirror. Only, is it a happy ending? Because we seem to forget one crucial detail. After the utterly delightful “San Junipero” (which we'll come to soon), it is refreshing to see Brooker give us another sweet love story this time of "boy meets girl boy and girl turn out to be simulations boy meets girl in real life and they live happily ever after." Maybe in the near future, we will trust it find us love. We already depend on algorithms to recommend what to watch, what to read and what to buy. What if Tinder promised to find you the perfect match (or even a 99.8 percent compatibile match)? What if it also gave you an expiration date on your relationship? Hang the DJ (Stills: Netflix Artwork: Butcher Billy) Though its condemnation of our growing surveillance state and drone warfare is timely, its commentary on the toxicity of social media #activism delivers the biggest gut punch of them all - giving you hope that the keyboard warriors will think twice before they fill the world with hate and anger. Given that the robotic bees are being used for pollination following the extinction of their biological ancestors, it makes you wonder about the ramifications of their waning populations in the real world. ![]() Tense, mysterious, and thrilling pretty much from the first frame to the last, the episode delivers its broad social critique in a way that’s fresh, timely and biting. The episode plays out like a standard murder mystery until of course the killer bees maker their entrance. “Hated in the Nation” sure holds them accountable and how. Trolls find it easy to hide behind their wall of anonymity, spewing venomous bile without ever being held accountable for their hateful words. Hated in the Nation (Stills: Netflix Artwork: Butcher Billy) So, we’ve ranked every episode - from the pilot "National Anthem" to its Season 5 finale “Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too” - to see which ones most vividly define this landmark series. Although all 23 of them are worthy of attention in their own right, not all episodes are created equal. While each Black Mirror episode explores different themes, they all act as deterrents to our current path where technology seems to be evolving faster than our humanity. So, he often extrapolated existing technology into these scenarios to demonstrate how our tech dependency could have potentially horrifying implications. His attention to contemporary details gave his future-gazing a remarkable plausibility - like these stories were logical extensions of our current obsessions and behaviours. While most sci-fi films and shows imagined aliens, AI and apocalypse of some kind in a distant future, Brooker's scenarios seemed more nightmarish because they are mostly set in the near future. His eerie clairvoyance has after all given us some of the finest short-form storytelling in the past decade. However, this is not a condemnation of the show in any way. ![]() Stranger still, that may be one of Brooker's central points. Black Mirror artwork courtesy Butcher Billy (Twitter/billythebutcher) ![]()
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