Black Mirror: This Dystopian Anthology Will Blow Your Mind

A must-watch to understand the dark sides of new technologies

Like many of you, I am not a series-loving person. When you have a 9 to 5 job, you hardly have time to invest in series. That’s why my Netflix-watch was limited to movies and documentaries. Then, the pandemic hit hard and changed everything. My office turns into home-office, allowing me plenty of time to invest in Netflix.

I deliberately used the word ‘invest’ because I believe spending time to get a pleasant cinematic experience is an investment. It entertains and also widens your thoughts and perspectives.

Anyway, in early March 2020, I decided to watch a few series on Netflix. I started with Sherlock. Then I went for Dark, Stranger Things, The Big Bang Theory, Money Heist, Breaking Bad, and a few others.

I enjoyed Sherlock’s incredible race with Moriarty in Sherlock, Sheldon’s acting genius in The Big Bang Theory, Professor’s inhuman capacity to predict everything in Money Heist, Eleven’s fight in the Upside Down world in Stranger Things, and so on. But the series I enjoyed the most and that left a remarkable impact on me is Black Mirror. I just loved it.

Black Mirror

Black Mirror, a dystopian science fiction anthology created by Charlie Brooker, first aired on British Television network Channel 4 in 2011.

Black Mirror is unlike anything you watched before. It will give you a mind-bending experience with its unsettling and provocative stories. Some of them are thrilling and dark. Others criticize the aggression of new technologies exhibiting the unanticipated consequences of it. Moreover, you will fall in love with the underlying satirical tone and dark humor.

Consider the very first episode titled The National Anthem, where a member of the British Royal Family is kidnapped and will only be released if the PM of the UK, Michael Callow, has sexual intercourse with a pig on live television.

Black Mirror compels you to rethink your relationship with the world. It will never be the same after watching Black Mirror. And you will become a more thoughtful person in the end.

What does Black Mirror mean?

Charlie Brooker described Black Mirror as the dark chocolates. He says you never know what’s you are going to get from one episode to another. This show worried about today’s technologies and our approach to it. He wonders how the world changed so quickly where people start experiencing the world through rectangles(smartphones) in their hands.

As we have become totally dependent on the technologies, we hardly take time to think about the bad or dark sides of it. We don’t realize that smartphones, the internet, algorithms, media are controlling our choices and shaping our day to day life. Black Mirror puts light on those aspects of technology to see both sides of the coin.

Charlie Brooker says Black Mirror is the screen of the devices we use every day including TV, computers, tablets, and smartphones when they are turned off. We see our shadow (reflection) in the Black Mirror.

It’s an extremely powerful metaphor for the dark sides of progress. Because we are responsible for the misuse of technology. These dark sides reflect our behavior and approach to new technologies. This is us.

Total episodes

Black Mirror released 22 episodes in 5 series so far. The last one, Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too, was released on 05 June 2019.

The first two series aired on British network Channel 4, whereas the following three series were released on Netflix.

You don’t necessarily have to start from season 01, as all the episodes are standalone. You can enjoy any of them anytime.

• Series 01 (2011) The National Anthem, Fifteen Million Merits, The Entire History of You
• Series 02 (2013) Be Right Back, White Bear, The Waldo Moment, White Christmas
• Series 03 (2016) Nosedive, Playtest, Shut Up and Dance, San Junipero, Men Against Fire, Hated in the Nation
• Series 04 (2017) USS Callister, Arkangel, Crocodile, Hang the DJ, Metalhead, Black Museum
• Series 05 (2019) Striking Vipers, Smithereens, Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too

Apart from these, on 28 December 2018, Black Mirror premiered an interactive film on Netflix named Bandersnatch, where viewers make decisions for the main character, the young programmer Stefan Butler, who is adapting a fantasy gamebook into a video game in 1984.

Based on the viewer’s decisions, the movie proceeds and finally ends with varied endings.

Episodes I like the most

It’s extremely tough for me to distinguish which episodes I loved the most. I think you will enjoy every episode of Black Mirror, as I did. In the following, I am going to mention one from each series. I am giving you a snippet as I don’t want to ruin the experience for you.

S01 E02 Fifteen Million Merits

In this episode, we see a highly capitalized world where most of the young boys and girls cycle on exercise-bikes to earn ‘merits’ — a type of currency needed to purchase necessities or entertainment. Everyone here lives in a tiny room covered by screens that continuously display multiple ads.

While cycling in the same room, a boy named Bing gets attracted to a girl named Abi and eventually convinces her to participate in a talent show to become famous. But it leads to some unanticipated events.

S02, E04 White Christmas

This one is one of my favorites, and I have seen this multiple times.

White Christmas starts with two men, Matt and Joe, speaking about their past for the first time on a Christmas Day. They have been stationed together in this isolated room middle of nowhere for the last five years. But why?

Matt starts to talk about himself and his profession of helping single men seducing women through optical implants. On the other hand, Jow is a person whose pregnant girlfriend Beth ‘blocked’ him using a technology that turned them into incomprehensible pixelated blurs to each other.

Later, we discover that Matt has another profession, and because of that, he is in this room with Joe searching for the truth. What is that?

I highly recommend this White Christmas to everyone. You will enjoy every bit of it. This is the next-level story-telling.

S03, E01 Nosedive

Imagine a world where people can rate each other on a five-star scale for every interaction they have, and based on that rating, their socioeconomic status changes.

We see Lacie, a young woman currently rated at 4.2, is keen to find an opportunity to elevate her ratings at 4.5 to have a discount on a luxury residence. Being invited to the wedding of her childhood friend Naomi, she finds a great opportunity to elevate her ratings, but several mishaps on her journey made it worse.

People who use social media extensively must watch this episode to understand where it may lead you.

S04, E06 Black Museum

Nish, a young girl, stops near a filling station to recharge her car and enters the nearby ‘Black Museum’ where she meets the proprietor of the museum Rolo Haynes.

Rolo tells Nish several stories about the artifacts of the museum related to illicit technology. One of them involves Dr. Peter Dawson, a doctor who invented a device to experience the pain of his patients to diagnose them quickly and accurately. But he gets addicted to the painful sensation he is getting from the patients. It reaches an extreme point when he kills a man only to experience the feeling of death.

Mr. Rolo tells Nish a few stories similar to this kind. And we see how everything gets puzzled, giving us an ultimate shock at the end.

S05, E02 Smithereens

You hardly imagine how devastating the overuse of social media apps can be. The constant distractions of notifications may ruin one’s life. Smithereens portrays it brilliantly.

We see a taxi driver, Chris, picks up Jaden, an employee of social media company Smithereen, and holds him hostage at gunpoint. Within a few moments, police start chasing the car until Chris ends up in a grass field. But what happens then? Why is Chris acting like crazy?

You will have the answer at the end of the journey. You will be stunned by rediscovering what so-called social media connectivity can do to your life.

Watch and have a wonderful experience

I highly recommend the Black Mirror series to you all because it will make you think deep.

With some wonderful and unconventional stories, it will encourage you to rediscover the relationship between you and the technologies you are using every day. It will make you aware of the dark sides of new technologies only to realize that it is you who should control the technology, not otherwise.

Every episode has a unique story that never fails to surprise the viewer. Watching Black Mirror is like having an awakening experience. I can assure you that this experience will stay with you for long and help you to understand the world better.

Have a Black Mirror experience!

Thank you for reading.

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