Why I've seen enough of Black Mirror

Although it made my 10-best list and the lists from many others as well, we've reached a point where we've seen enough of the Netflix series Black Mirror (midway through season 3). In a word, it's just too creepy. As noted previously, w/ the exception of the boring episode 2 every episode is compelling and engaging start to finish. All explore some way in which technology can change (and has changed) our lives, mostly for the worse. Some are speculative and set in the indeterminate future (imagining that we can, for example, have implanted devices that allow us to replay scenes from or post or to "block" people we don's to see, hear, or acknowledge); others could take place right now. The episode saw last night was one of the latter: it's about a teenage boy whose laptop is invaded by malware that enables someone, somewhere to see and record him through the camera eye. They record him watching some pornography and masturbating; then they message him w/ blackmail - they'll send the video to all of his contacts unless he follows a set of instructions. I won't give anything away, except to note that the outcome is grim and horrid. Possible? Yes. Believable? Possibly. A fair warning? Sure - be careful what you download, and don't act like an idiot. But the overall mood of this episode and of most of the others is bitter and dark and cynical. Is technology evil only? Can only bad things happen in this world? As with all of the Black Mirror episodes (this is an anthology series and it doesn't matter what order you watch or which you watch; each is independent), at the end you're tense and unsettled and feel a little bit contaminated. I give the series full credit for accomplishing its goals and attaining its ends; I just don't want to go there any more.

A futuristic series that is more about the people than about high-tech

Season 2 of of the Netflix series Black Mirror is strong start to finish, each of the narratives standing up well as intense interpersonal dramas as well as staying with the theme of the series: the potential effect of technology on life in the future. The world of these dramas is recognizable and familiar in every way except that, in each, there have been significant and at present almost incomprehensible advances in technology: virtual reality in particular but also social media, spyware, robotics. The final episode in the season, for example, has John Hamm running a live dating-advice service (through some kind of cranial implant he speaks to a young man guiding him - like "Bogart" in Play it Again, Sam" as he tries to pick up a woman at an office party, with tragic results) and also as an expert in downloading brains: through some sort of operation scientists and doctors are able to download an reproduce the entire electrical code of a human brain and make a copy, so the person is actually leading two simultaneous lives. It sounds cumbersome and kind of hoaky, and it could be, except that the technology an scifi elements are never what the show is about - they are accepting aspects, part of the fabric of future life. In another episode a virtual figure, a cartoon character seen only on a video screen, runs for Parliament. Hm. Could happen. A theme that runs through most of the episodes is martial infidelity - the technology plays a role in the discovery of the infidelity, but again the story is about the people their difficult, sometimes violent, often confused inter-relations and not about the wonders of high-tech.

Extremely uneven yet extremely provocative series about future-tech: Black Mirror

The British series Black Mirror, picked up by Netflix for season 3, is unlike any other - which in some ways is good but not always. First of all, it's an anthology series rather than a serial drama (I didn't realize this until the end of episode one, when it became clear we would not follow these characters across 13 episodes). I wondered how they could develop a full season with each episode an entirely new concept, but then I saw that "season 1" consists of only 3 episodes - I believe there are 13 altogether over 3 seasons. In any event, what makes it a series is the consistent theme - examination in various forms as to how technology - VR, social media, digital storage, etc. - will change our lives in the future, in a dystopian future, anyway. My opinions about the first 4 episodes vary so widely I can't even say whether I would recommend this series or not, so see for yourself. But the first episode - which is the only one out of the 4 I've seen in which the future has caught up with the futuristic narrative: the premise, in 2011, was that social media would displace mainstream media in news coverage, and that via social media politicians could have instant readings for public moods and views - we're already there! This episode was extremely tense and kept us entirely focused, but it is so bizarre and disturbing that I would recommend extreme caution before you watch. The 2nd episode, about a world in which people, for no clear reason, are confined to an ultramodern fitness center where they earn "merits" by miles cycled - an they can trade these merits for various pleasures. I found this so incredibly boring I couldn't watch more than 25 minutes - I have enough screen time in daily life, thanks. But then, things changed: episode 3 - in which people have implanted devices that capture all experience and can be played again repeatedly via a "re-do" was a terrific drama about marital stress and failure, infidelity, and anxiety - even without the scifi premise it could stand alone as a really good play or drama. Episode 4, which kicked off the 2nd season, is about creation of a virtual life using a superexpansive search engine - in the way the Google anticipates what we're going to type and FB what ads we "want" to see, this is about service that can re-create a dead person to speak to and comfort the surviving, in this case, spouse. Another excellent drama, disturbing and provocative - will remind some of the movie Her, but is stranger in that the VR presence is an uncanny re-creation of the late husband. So, yes, I'm still in.