I really didn't like the 'bee' episode because it brushed a frightening ecological disaster under the table so it could have an episode about how mean people are on twitter. Really? Even if we could construct something like those robot bees, what effect would that have on the surrounding eco-systems? What happens when a bird or a frog eats some little carbon-fiber robot? I feel like they squandered a more interesting…
How “Black Mirror” Gets Its Barely Sci-Fi Tech Just Right
61–70 of 117 posts
Re: How “Black Mirror” Gets Its Barely Sci-Fi Tech Just Right
#62Are people liking the latest season of Black Mirror? I'm only three episodes in and haven't yet gotten to San Junipero, which everyone says is the really good one, but so far I've been a little disappointed. This might be regression to the mean, since I felt that the first six episodes were six home runs in a row and it must be tough to keep a streak like that going, but so far season 3 seems to have lost something.…
It's shallow intellectually, but it doesn't even have any depth emotionally. At least with most other popular TV shows there's depth in terms of personal relationships. There's drama that's more emotionally interesting. Black Mirror seems to be optimized for people who are blunted both in terms of intellect and social emotion. It's one of the most boring TV series on Netflix, which is a shame because there's not much else that even attempts to be interesting in a more sci-fi way.
I think the only reason why people find value in Black Mirror must be because of references. Like how they love jokes on Reddit when they refer to something they all know. People must be like, "Ahaha, they're referencing how people are always on their phones. So true. LOL look, it's trollface!! Dude, look, trollface is on TV. I know trollface. Haha this show is great." What else would people be getting out of it?
Re: How “Black Mirror” Gets Its Barely Sci-Fi Tech Just Right
#63Are people liking the latest season of Black Mirror? I'm only three episodes in and haven't yet gotten to San Junipero, which everyone says is the really good one, but so far I've been a little disappointed. This might be regression to the mean, since I felt that the first six episodes were six home runs in a row and it must be tough to keep a streak like that going, but so far season 3 seems to have lost something.…
The first episode is the very worst of the whole serious. "Fan-fiction" level of writing. Everything so obvious with tired tropes. A critique to social media that could be done by an imaginative high school kid. The other ones are good, interesting and worth watching. Although only San Junipero is great. Edit: Shut up and dance is great too.
It was as much as 10 minutes too long and something was wrong with the editing, like they didn't have enough good meaty shots to fill out some kind of required run time so the editor had to hold shots too long. Then there was the climactic scene where they kept repeating similar shots and beats over and over for what felt like forever, like the story's needle was dislodged and skipping. That was a mess and killed the remaining investment I had in the story. There were also several important but very flatly filmed scenes of dialog that made the acting come off as weak (I think it was the editing/shot choice and not the actors, though). My least favorite episode by far, replacing The Waldo Moment, which was then bumped one notch higher again by the soldiers/VR episode later, which had several (maybe too many) decent ideas and an interesting world but needed a couple more passes on the script.
Other four were really good. San Junipero might be my favorite episode of the series.
[EDIT] I've just checked Wikipedia and S3E1 is the only episode that Brooker didn't write or co-write, just a "story by" with the teleplay by two other people (from Parks & Rec). Maybe that's where the trouble started.
Re: How “Black Mirror” Gets Its Barely Sci-Fi Tech Just Right
#64Re: How “Black Mirror” Gets Its Barely Sci-Fi Tech Just Right
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
They can only reuse the same tropes so many times. Season 3 takes most of the "mind blowing" ideas from the first series and repackages them in a weaker presentation. The first episode was a weaker repackaging of Fifteen Million Merits (intrusion of social media rankings). I think there were two rehashes of White Christmas (protagonist being in an alternate universe where time moves slowly, which is always revealed a…
And really, Fifteen Million Merits wasn't all that great either --- it was kind of all over the place narratively, and once you get the intrusive ranking trope, there's really not much more interesting about it. It felt sort of like badly plotted Vonnegut. Again: if you haven't seen the MeowMeowBeenz episode of Community: it's a pretty good chaser to either of those episodes.
I think the moral of that story was the inherent futility of ever rebelling against the System. Most people don't try, most who try fail, and even for the one-in-a-million who succeed, the System just instantly reconfigures itself to absorb your rebellion as part of it. Other works have done the "revolutionaries always become the new dictators" shtick, but Fifteen Million Merits did it better because it shows that this process doesn't even require a villain (like in, say, Animal Farm). Everyone in that episode, even the Simon Cowell stand-in, was just punching a clock and doing their job; the suppression of revolt was purely an emergent property of the system... as it usually is in real life.
It was the bleakest, most nihilist bit of television I think I've ever seen, made better by the fact that it wasn't empty "dark for dark's sake" like Twilight Zone-esque twist endings tend to be. I had to go for a walk afterward. I don't see how you can't like it... but like I said, the fact that people can disagree so profoundly is one of the show's best qualities, so I'll upvote you anyway and not hold it against you :)
Re: How “Black Mirror” Gets Its Barely Sci-Fi Tech Just Right
#66I wouldn't consider using people on bicycles to power society good science. It's probably one of the most inefficient methods of energy generation. That episode seemed a bit far fetched to me.
Sitting around "spinning your wheels"
Re: How “Black Mirror” Gets Its Barely Sci-Fi Tech Just Right
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
The first episode is the very worst of the whole serious. "Fan-fiction" level of writing. Everything so obvious with tired tropes. A critique to social media that could be done by an imaginative high school kid. The other ones are good, interesting and worth watching. Although only San Junipero is great. Edit: Shut up and dance is great too.
You think that was a worse episode than the first episode of the series? Or The Waldo Moment? I really think Black Mirror is suffering from the Internet hype machine. If you never saw the show and only read the buzz online you'd think the first 2 seasons were masterclass and this one was a disaster..I thoroughly enjoyed all 3 seasons and thought some episodes were stronger than others but there was no large change in…
Re: How “Black Mirror” Gets Its Barely Sci-Fi Tech Just Right
#68Are people liking the latest season of Black Mirror? I'm only three episodes in and haven't yet gotten to San Junipero, which everyone says is the really good one, but so far I've been a little disappointed. This might be regression to the mean, since I felt that the first six episodes were six home runs in a row and it must be tough to keep a streak like that going, but so far season 3 seems to have lost something.…
I found no value in the first two seasons. It's been on the front page of HN at least 4 times in the past couple weeks. I tried watching the third season hoping it was better. It's still stupid. It's like they just take some very plain 1:1 observation about exactly how the world is right now, focus on one specific demographic, then create a skit around it that has no depth. They create imaginary worlds, but they're n…
It does this well because the science fiction elements of the show are not the focus. They are merely instruments for driving very human narratives.
When you say It's shallow intellectually, but it doesn't even have any depth emotionally. At least with most other popular TV shows there's depth in terms of personal relationships. There's drama that's more emotionally interesting. I wish you would use an example so I can understand where you're coming from since I find myself completely on the other side of your comment.
Re: How “Black Mirror” Gets Its Barely Sci-Fi Tech Just Right
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
And really, Fifteen Million Merits wasn't all that great either --- it was kind of all over the place narratively, and once you get the intrusive ranking trope, there's really not much more interesting about it. It felt sort of like badly plotted Vonnegut. Again: if you haven't seen the MeowMeowBeenz episode of Community: it's a pretty good chaser to either of those episodes.
I have to disagree. Fifteen Million Merits is still my favorite episode, and what's more, I don't think it's about the intrusive ranking at all (meta-point: one of the best things about Black Mirror, IMO, is that people will often disagree on not only the quality of an episode, but what the episode was even about. That's how you know it's good). I think the moral of that story was the inherent futility of ever rebell…
The real hook wasn't the lame virtual-points Zynga oppression, it was how the main character reacted to their situation and then how the system reacted to them.
It's all ground that was covered before (and arguably better) in Network 40 years ago, but it does it well.
Re: How “Black Mirror” Gets Its Barely Sci-Fi Tech Just Right
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
There was a trailer a few years back with a bunch of 20-something white gamer dudes in some kind of dystopian future gamer den playing a CoD style shooter, which was in reality --- well, the same plot twist as "Men Against Fire". I thought (a) the trailer was much more evocative than the Man Against Fire episode, and (b) that it was possible that "Man Against Fire" borrowed its idea from that trailer. Later Found it!…
Both UV and the BM episode strongly reminded me of an Outer Limits (I think?) episode about a perpetual war between humans and aliens in some underground cave. The reveal is pretty similar to that in Men Against Fire, except the justification is different.