Black Mirroris television science fiction at its best

Aired late last year in the UK , the little anthology series Black Mirror is one of the best piece of work of science fiction I ’ve seen on television in a long time . All three episodes , go down in penny-pinching and distant time to come , are about how we integrate fresh engineering science into the most intimate portion of our lives , often with hideous results . What makes this serial publication so powerful is its incredible psychological realism . The future universe we see in Black Mirror may be fantastical , but the pettiness , self - engrossment , and misdirected righteousness of its inhabitant are as familiar as house .

spoiler ahead .

Black Mirror was create by irascible BBC goggle box critic Charlie Brooker , who previously tout us away with his drear , satiric automaton - vs.-reality TV series Dead Set . Brooker is at his good when dissecting the ways the great unwashed interact with medium , and here he gives us three takes on how social medium will go forward to degrade us in novel fashion as the futurity blossom out .

The series begins with “ The National Anthem , ” a narration that could take seat literally tomorrow . England is abuzz with tales of the impend nuptials of the “ Facebook princess . ” As every TV monitor helpfully inform us , she ’s the first royal ever to accept a marriage proposal via Facebook . But now she ’s been kidnapped by a half - crazy carrying out creative person who swears he ’ll murder her unless the Prime Minister has sex with a pig on unrecorded television . What keep up is in part a snarky revenge phantasy that we ’ve all had about every pestering politician . But it ’s also an incredibly savvy , unflinching look at exactly how the PM ’s metier team would endeavor to spin around this mind - bogglingly gonzo event . They ca n’t do a medium blackout because the artist has released a YouTube video of the battered , cry princess begging for her life history . The whole scenario is , as the post-mortem examination ’s bunch spins it , a form of media act of terrorism .

What ’s remarkable is that Brooker manage to turn this dirty joke into something that feels both realistic and weirdly humane . In one scene , we check audience as they watch the resilient pigfucking provender . As the sarcastic mirth waste pipe from everybody ’s face we ’re suddenly struck by what it means to live in a world where internet trolls are consanguineal to political terrorists . And we also clear , with the hearing , that calling the atomic number 61 a pigfucker is not the same thing as turn him into one for everybody to see . There are thing that simply should not be broadcast , and this is one of them .

This thought enliven the other entries in the series , too . The second episode , “ 15 Million Merits , ” is decidedly the highlight of Black Mirror . We ’re introduced to a far - succeeding world that is in some ways quite Utopian . All energy is green , and all work is “ gamified , ” that is designed to motivate mass by have them feel like they ’re playing a game . Unfortunately , the green muscularity comes from vast warehouses full of people riding on exercise bike to father kW . And the “ merits ” they earn all go back into their MMO - like social amusement system , which feeds them diversion all sidereal day while they model on those bikes .

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There are a ton of great detail here , like the way it be a handful of merits to dismiss the ubiquitous smut ads that pop up everywhere from the bathroom mirror , to the work sieve everybody stare at all day . We ’re also cover to a tenacious look at the hideously credible amusement in this futurity . Our friend choose the most simple interface he can get – he just watches his avatar biking on a road all daylight long , until one Clarence Shepard Day Jr. a fresh worker appropriate his attention . She wants to be a singer , and in a tantrum of wild-eyed hopefulness he impart her all his meritoriousness so she can pay to be a protester on a gift show . What happens next is tragic in a way you wo n’t anticipate , underscoring one of Brooker ’s favorite notions , which is that there is nothing worse for mass who desire be on television set than actually start to do it .

Like “ The National Anthem , ” this episode pays careful attention to audience . It ’s fascinating to see who chooses to watch what , both in the opening segment we ’ve get a clip from above , and in the terminal moment of the episode . Again , Brooker ’s sympathies lie with this audience , lured into watching other masses ’s degradation – or , perhaps worse , lulled into forget their own abjection for a while by watch “ level-headed commentary . ”

Black Mirror ’s net episode , “ The intact History of You , ” could be set in the same worldly concern as “ 15 Million Merits , ” but among the upper social class who do n’t have to bicycle for a life . Everyone ’s been implanted with a technology called “ the texture , ” a tiny data processor behind your ear that put in all your memories . Using iPod - like controller , everybody can undulate through their own personal account , projecting it onto tremendous varan , zooming in on detail they may have miss and amplifying conversation so that they can eavesdrop using their own memories . essentially , the conceit is that Facebook now lives in your promontory , and everybody spend their time projecting their own memory to their friends , discussing what they find out that twenty-four hour period or replaying “ the good time . ”

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The genius here is the way we ’re point how such a engineering would get seamlessly integrated into the oldest sort of battle , between a covetous husband and his wife . I especially sleep together the view where we see what would happen if you could actually prove to your better half that something they said long ago contradicts what they are tell in the middle of your fight that instant . Using his grain , the husband prove to his wife that she told him long ago she ’d had a seven-day involvement – even though now she says it was a calendar month long . As they squabble , he tell her that sometimes she ’s a bitch , and she fights back simply by projecting his statement back on the silver screen , forcing him to take in himself calling her a squawk over and over .

Their battle over the affair intensify into exactly the variety of brutal horribleness that you ’d guess , except our characters live in a Earth where they can share and delete memory . As a solvent , their psychological engagement becomes disturbingly actual – just imagine how people would torment each other if they could access each other ’s personal story on giant TV concealment . Here , at last , is the ultimate relationship of abjection between medium and hearing . When your whole life can be consumed as media , then nothing is ever safe or individual again .

If you ’re looking for level-headed , disturb science fiction , I extremely urge Black Mirror . It will smack you in the case and leave you smarting for calendar week afterward as you ponder what kind of world we ’re make for ourselves .

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