Black Mirror

The episode "White Christmas", starring Jon Hamm. The last episode to be aired on the UK's Channel 4 before
the series moved to Netflix in 2016.

Warning: The following post contains spoilers for episode 1 of Black Mirror.

It’s been a while since I came across some good television, so I figured I’d try and check off a box on my ever-expanding list of series to catch up on. It’s worth noting that in the past, I used to get exceedingly attached to the shows I’d watch, at the expense of many of my other priorities. But over the last two years I’ve been able to find a better balance between work and play, and my TV diet has shifted from mere entertainment to more informative programming.

As such, the increasingly popular Netflix sci-fi anthology Black Mirror is different compared to your run-of-the-mill TV drama. For starters, it’s an episodic anthology – every episode features a different cast, crew, story and setting. Therefore, the only thing binding this show’s universe together is the thematic threading woven by its writers, not by any particular characters or stories. Second, the point of each Black Mirror episode is to serve as an allegory for the effects of technology on our everyday lives. The bizarre and surreal scenarios presented in the show are all just series creator Charlie Brooker's observations of how our phones, computers and televisions – the titular “black mirrors” – reflect our changing psyches and interactions with one another. In that sense, the show is simultaneously drawing audiences into its dystopian fictional universe(s) as well as making us more aware of the role technology plays on our real lives. And it does so through some of the most finely-crafted television I’ve come across in years.

Right from the outset, one of the more impressive traits of Black Mirror is how fluidly it strides between genres, themes and narrative structures. From the pilot onwards, we go from a satirical political thriller to a dystopian, existentialist sci-fi tragedy, to not one but two relationship dramas with a futuristic bent. As the series continues, we’re treated to at least two horror-thrillers, a Star Trek-inspired space adventure, a touching retro-futuristic love story, and a 90-minute Christmas special that begins like a sitcom and ends with viewers’ heads both figuratively and literally spinning. But despite this colorful stylistic platter, the show is notorious for using any one of these genres as a means of telling bleak, terrifying stories that carry trenchant social commentary along with them.

Season 1, Episode 2 - "Fifteen Million Merits", starring Get Out's Daniel Kaluuya.

You are now entering spoiler territory…

Take the infamous pilot episode, “The National Anthem”. I’ve heard countless reports of fans of the show hearing from their friends that they were disgusted to have been recommended Black Mirror after having watched this first episode. Why? Well, the plot goes something like this: the fictional prime minister of the UK is threatened with the murder of a beloved princess unless he films himself having sex with a pig for the entire country to watch. And despite his best efforts to thwart or deceive the kidnappers, he ends up actually having to go through with the obscene act. 

As a disclaimer, the other episodes of the series are very different from this one, but what’s immediately appealing about this daring pilot is how brilliantly it’s written and directed, taking this absurd scenario and playing it entirely straight. We get to see dramatic shots of the PM looking out his window in somber contemplation. Tense scenes of him arguing violently with his wife and staff. Frenetic chitchat among media figures deciding which censorship rules to break in landing the scoop on this bizarre national emergency. But what starts as an amusing, seemingly satirical piece of political drama morphs into a truly depressing ordeal that we witness the characters endure. We’re left thinking “he can’t possibly do it, can he?” right up to the point where he actually does, and maybe a minute or so into it as well. Of course, all we do see on camera is a montage of onlookers displaying a smattering of emotions: shock, amusement, horror, confusion, disgust, and almost certainly one or two looks of arousal. But we, the viewer, are part of that crowd as well, perhaps wondering whether it really was a good idea to listen to our friends’ TV recommendations.

"That scene." ("The National Anthem")

I obviously don’t fault viewers for recoiling at the fact that they just witnessed a character fuck a pig in the very first episode of this series. Most of us aren’t exactly into that, it would seem. But I believe that this episode is an appropriate barrier-of-entry to the rest of Black Mirror, despite being starkly different in its presentation compared to most other episodes of the show. Charlie Brooker is testing his audiences’ capacity to look past the raw content presented on screen – starting with a challenging, lurid example – and to actually try and decipher the thematic messaging driving it all. As it turns out, the true horror of “The National Anthem” is not that the prime minister of the UK fucked a pig on live television, but that the insurmountable pressure from the media and from within his government led him to such a decision in the first place. Throughout the episode there is talk of the PM’s plunging approval ratings, his public persona, the accountability of the government, and the celebrity status of the kidnapped princess (perhaps a commentary on Kate Middleton and the superficiality of the Royal Family and its extensive press coverage). Such factors – image, status, social approval – can lead to us entirely corrupting our personal morals and dignity so we can still cohere with the fabric of society. “The National Anthem” shows us how the expanded role of social media only exacerbates this pressure and leads us to increasingly define our roles in society based on popularity, ratings, “buzz”. This could not be more relevant within our current political climate and the nascent “digital age”.

No more spoilers past this point.

Subsequent episodes of Black Mirror have been more ambitious with their production values and thematic depth - also, mercifully devoid of bestiality, though just as merciless with their storytelling. Episode 2 pits its protagonists in a dystopian, prison-like complex that forces its citizens to consume inordinate amounts of advertising while accumulating virtual currency as a means of maintaining their sustenance and socioeconomic status. The episode is in many ways bleaker and more depressing than the pilot episode, not only with respect to the inescapable situation plaguing its characters but to how closely it mirrors modern consumerism and our collective slavery to corporate advertising. The episode to follow returns to the modern world, but where the wealthy can choose to get a digital chip implanted in their heads that stores video recordings of all of their memories (think a “Snapchat story” of your entire life). It focuses on a married couple carrying these chips, where the husband suspects his wife of having an affair. The episode stirringly explores how even in a universe where privacy is almost entirely obliterated by technology, people will still find ways to lie and deceive one another. It’s the endurance of human fallibility in a society where stunning technological breakthroughs redefine the way we interact with ourselves and others. Not that different from the world we live in now, huh?

Season 1, Episode 3 - "The Entire History of You". Memories can be digitally recorded, stored and
replayed via the fictional "grain" technology, seen above.

In fact, Black Mirror’s social commentary is so apt that it predicted several world events prior to their occurrence. For example, the season 3 premiere “Nosedive” features a society in which people’s socioeconomic status is based on a 5-star “rating system” on a universally-used social media app. While the episode’s intent was merely to satirize apps like Instagram and people’s psychological dependency on Internet attention, something frighteningly similar to the technology it depicted is now underway in China. The Chinese government has planned the rollout of a “Social Credit System” by 2020 that blacklists citizens who are perceived to have committed wrongdoings and rewards citizens with more “approvable” lifestyles, using a government-arbitrated “social credit” as its metric. Pilot programs are already in effect: in 2017, the government stated that an estimated 6.15 million Chinese citizens were banned from taking flights due to “social misdeeds.” And this March, the government announced plans to add trains to the transport options withheld from those with poor “social credit”. Multiple news sites jumped to comparisons with “Nosedive” in covering developments on this issue.

Season 3, Episode 1 - "Nosedive", eerily similar to China's "Social Credit System".

Other examples of Black Mirror’s prophetic storytelling include season 2, episode 3, “The Waldo Moment,” which features an obnoxious animatronic television character being put on the ballot as a candidate for Parliament. While the episode was poorly received when it aired in 2011, it has since attracted renewed attention for its relevance to the US presidential election, in which our own obnoxious television character found his way to the Oval Office. And perhaps most absurdly, rumors broke in 2015 that former British Prime Minister David Cameron engaged in sexual acts with a dead pig while a student at Oxford, four years after “The National Anthem” aired on television. Brooker was appropriately stunned, insisting that he knew nothing of this scandal when writing the episode and that it was merely a once-in-a-lifetime coincidence.

As I continue my way through Black Mirror, I always find myself in itching to know “what happens next” despite the independence of the episodes’ narratives and characters. That’s because the real story behind this show is in its parallels to the relationship between technology, society and human nature itself. Never have I seen a TV show make such effective use of its themes, where half the fun is in learning the philosophy encased in the episode’s events rather than just treating that as an afterthought to the “entertainment”. The series rests on the principle of having something to say, rather than just to keep its audiences glued to the screen. But for the record, it is pretty damn entertaining, too.

I "rate" Black Mirror a 5/5! Newcomers out there might want to skip episode 1 and come back to it later. It's a great episode, just not for everybody.

Thanks for reading!