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‘Black Mirror’ Finds Terror, and Soul, in the Machine

nytimes.com

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Re: ‘Black Mirror’ Finds Terror, and Soul, in the Machine

#111

Post by aaron695 »

JackFr wrote: post #108

I guess it's just me. I simply don't find Black Mirror to be that good. To me it's like a revamped and overhyped Tales of the Unexpected ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_of_the_Unexpected_(TV_se... ) It tries to be smart by attempting to address social changes we see to today, but it's clumsy and overbearing and the writing is not up to the task. I look at classic Twilight Zone and I feel they did more with less…

I agree in some ways.

It's one if those shows I don't think people get...

Everyone thinks it's great, but is it...

It's has amazing production values. Great actors. Good dialog.

Buuuut it's missing plot. It uses emotion as a replacement. And as each story is separate I think you don't seem to notice.

But for some reason I think I enjoy it. So perhaps we don't need a good story for a TV show. Or perhaps it's a cheap trick that might wear out if everyone jumps on board.

PS try re-watching TZ. It wasn't as good as I thought when I re-watched it. Most episodes were at best OK.

Re: ‘Black Mirror’ Finds Terror, and Soul, in the Machine

#112

Post by ashark »

kerbalspacepro wrote: post #110
ashark wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4 and 6 were the best and among the top 5 for the series, easily. 1 was my least-favorite episode of the entire series. Flabby editing, could have trimmed a solid 5 minutes, and something about the shot choices and/or the editing made every serious conversation look like watching two people ACTING, which is not a good thing. 5 was a bad episode in an interesting world. If 1 hadn't had technical issues I'd definitely…

If by "1" you mean Nosedive... then maybe it was /supposed/ to look like you were watching two people acting?

No, I mean specifically the scenes where the characters were being more genuine, mainly between the main character and her brother and a certain sage-character later in the episode (trying to avoid spilling too many details). The parts where characters were being fake were mostly pretty good, though a little more subtlety might have sold it better.

Re: ‘Black Mirror’ Finds Terror, and Soul, in the Machine

#113

Post by ashark »

JackFr wrote: post #108

I guess it's just me. I simply don't find Black Mirror to be that good. To me it's like a revamped and overhyped Tales of the Unexpected ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_of_the_Unexpected_(TV_se... ) It tries to be smart by attempting to address social changes we see to today, but it's clumsy and overbearing and the writing is not up to the task. I look at classic Twilight Zone and I feel they did more with less…

A lot of what's great about Black Mirror is what it doesn't show you. It's great at showing you enough of something to know what's going on, but not hammering it home to make sure you got it like a lesser show might.

As an example, in the first episode of Season 3 (no spoiler here I think) a character leaves an area where there's a billboard with her and a guy on it, and her image fades from it. Personalized images in ads are something we've seen in other media so I'm not claiming the idea is novel, but a lesser show might still have felt the need to show someone else walking up and their image appearing on the billboard, replacing the one that had been there. Black Mirror is content to show the image fade, then cut without replacing it. This is good taste and confidence, and it's one of the show's greatest attributes. It manifests in many small choices like this in every episode.

Similarly, it sometimes uses what it doesn't show us to carry most of the weight of an entire episode's central theme (Fifteen Million Merits does this, for instance). It may also throw sensation at the viewer as a bait, as it pointedly does in The National Anthem, revealing this when the camera chooses to entirely ignore the sensational event toward which the episode has been building to instead show us something both more mundane and far more disgusting in every way that matters. The subjects of that scene push the viewer to reflect on themselves—showing us the watchers when we are watchers—which is one hell of a smart gut-punch.

There are a couple bad episodes, though (well, there was one, but now season 3's out and by my reckoning there are now three), and if I were walking a n00b through the series I'd probably show them the series' first episode last because it's both structurally different from all the rest and I think easier to appreciate when you've got a better feel for what the show's doing. It's a bad introductory episode, IMO.

Re: ‘Black Mirror’ Finds Terror, and Soul, in the Machine

#114

Post by ashark »

danso wrote: post #41
JoeSloth wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the last episode was great, although maybe slightly long. It was a good example of how a seemingly good piece of technology can be disastrous if a back door is put into it. Also it was a decent nod to Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds"

I think my problem with it was how plot-driven the last episode ("Hated in the Nation") was. It ended in a way as if it mattered whether the cops catch the bad guy. I love cop shows, but the procedural bits here took time from all the interesting tech concepts that had been brought up. Another reviewer described it as feeling like an episode of X-Files, which I think is an apt way to describe it: Good, but not the ki…

I think in an episode largely concerned with revenge and justice it does matter, thematically, that at least one character is very driven to catch the bad guy, right up to the end.

Re: ‘Black Mirror’ Finds Terror, and Soul, in the Machine

#115

Post by ashark »

stouset wrote: post #43
TwoBit wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see episode 3 being sub par. It's classic Black Mirror.

Yeah, just saw this one and it's very reminiscent of the very first episode. Incredible.

I'd say it's closest to (SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER I guess?) White Bear.

Re: ‘Black Mirror’ Finds Terror, and Soul, in the Machine

#116

Post by ashark »

worldsayshi wrote: post #101
intrasight wrote: post #34

Ok I'll admit it - "San Junipero" both made me cry and scared the shit out of me at the same time. Didn't know that was even possible. Thank you Netflix. And thank you for last Monday too.

What do you think was so scary about it?

Not who you were asking, but there are definitely some implications worth thinking on that the episode mostly avoids directly addressing, but which the song choice and choice of shots during the credits assure us they did intend to raise, and I think it'd be fair to describe those as "scary". There's a real twist of the knife in those final seconds that color the intent behind and the mood of the whole episode.

Re: ‘Black Mirror’ Finds Terror, and Soul, in the Machine

#118

Post by dharma1 »

worldsayshi wrote: post #105
dharma1 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree with you, but for me you still need to retain some plausibility or it just feels sloppy. The perfect memory recorder in the previous episodes - that was my favourite one, because we are not very far off from it, yet the implications are profound. But indefinitely flying, self-replicating nanobees, just because one of the writers read about drones, 3d printers and bees dying out? Feels forced and lazy…

Self replicating bots are feasible in some form, probably not in the one presented. Also, it isn't plausible that the rest of world would look as similar to ours presented in the episode as such technology would have many far-reaching implications on the rest of society. Still, at some point you have to limit yourself. Having this one change and not change the rest of society makes it possible to imagine and relate t…

I agree with you, it's walking a fine line between the two.

But in ways science fiction is in ways like chess - the author thinking more than one move ahead makes it more enjoyable.

There are many interesting topics to explore though.

For instance, I'd like to see a Black Mirror style exploration of a world where CRISPR use (on everything, including humans) is rampant and genetic evolution has become subject to memetic evolution, to cultural/technological/financial selection pressures. It's within realms of possibility with profound implications on everything

Re: ‘Black Mirror’ Finds Terror, and Soul, in the Machine

#119

Post by madaxe_again »

Paul_S wrote: post #85
madaxe_again wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've known about sesame since last year at least - it's getting more attention now but it was definitely public knowledge when this series would have been at the writing stage. It's an idea from sci-fi - I can't remember who wrote what, but there was a society where citizens got more or fewer votes depending on their behaviour (edit: Alastair Reynolds? Banks? Feels like it was one of them.), and knew each other's sco…

Funny coincidence, I'm reading The Prefect by Alastair Reynolds right now (literally). It has exactly what you say. People whose votes are vindicated get their votes weighted accordingly. They end up lobbied to but can't outright still their votes or their weights would go down.

Yup, that's what I was thinking of!

Re: ‘Black Mirror’ Finds Terror, and Soul, in the Machine

#120

Post by [deleted] »

dharma1 wrote: post #118
worldsayshi wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Self replicating bots are feasible in some form, probably not in the one presented. Also, it isn't plausible that the rest of world would look as similar to ours presented in the episode as such technology would have many far-reaching implications on the rest of society. Still, at some point you have to limit yourself. Having this one change and not change the rest of society makes it possible to imagine and relate t…

I agree with you, it's walking a fine line between the two. But in ways science fiction is in ways like chess - the author thinking more than one move ahead makes it more enjoyable. There are many interesting topics to explore though. For instance, I'd like to see a Black Mirror style exploration of a world where CRISPR use (on everything, including humans) is rampant and genetic evolution has become subject to memet…

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