To be clear, I still think it’s a very good show. I just think in the 10+ years since it came out the volume of other high quality shows has increased a lot so it doesn’t stand out as much.
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I get you.
Could you pick it apart one more fictive level?
Do you feel like there are other shows delivering a better OVERALL experience?
Or would you say there are other shows doing Black Mirror experiences better than Black Mirror?
I see it more like it’s the best at what it does and often surpasses prior greatness. High basement, high ceiling.
Whereas virtually everything else I put on this list of 200 movies/TV shows in comparison is only ever worthy of being compared to Black Mirror while never being executed as well as even the worst Black Mirror episode.
That’s fair.
I do think it’s a little underrated because of the obvious comparisons to the superior San Junipero.
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Also fair.
Idk I haven’t seen it in a long time. I want to revisit it and see if it’s like what you said. Maybe better than I remember.
Joan is Awful ending thoughts
Having taken a law course in Contracts, I did find it hard to buy the premise.
That aside, isn’t the obvious solution to Unsubscribe? Hard to use the NIL of a non customer? But then, it is a show on Netflix. . .
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I couldn’t even really say. Maybe I’m not a smart enough cultural critic! But I feel subjectively that in 2011-2014 new episodes of Black Mirror felt like a bigger deal, one of maybe 5 elite shows along with Breaking Bad, Mad Men, and Game of Thrones that were all cultural events. Nowadays I feel like there’s dozens of great shows on TV. Maybe none of them are objectively better than Black Mirror, maybe none of them do what Black Mirror does (let alone do it better), but it feels like more of a small piece of bigger, richer TV tapestry.
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Everything is content. The worst C word there is.
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If that bothers you, then Beyond the Sea is going to drive you up a wall (why is this set in the 60s? Wouldn’t it make more sense to keep the people on Earth and send up robots instead? They don’t have one spare? etc.).
loving how class of 09 is about the logical conclusion of the woke agenda in the hands of deep state activists. it’s e8 and free speech is literally under attack. but it’s fun! it’s really good
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Awesome thanks! Peak Black Mirror is prob my favorite stuff I’ve watched, so I’m always on the lookout for similar content. Looks like you’ve given me a lot to watch!
I loved Ex Machina, Humans, Better Than Us, Her, etc. and would say that those 3 are better than all but maybe the top third of Black Mirror stuff.
I was disappointed that there wasn’t a single Black Mirror episode in this latest season with an outlandish, futuristic premise.
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Joan is Awful
Probably contracted in perpetuity once you ever subscribe. As you noted, probably not going to be found legally binding until it goes before this Supreme Court.
Beyond the Sea?
It was the closest thing, but was a fairly standard story once you get beyond the jumping into avatars thing. In the episodes like 15 Million Credits they created entire new, dystopian worlds.
Agreed. I think that made it more resonant. Having real people tackling real problems in bizarre circumstances is part of BM’s panache.
15MM was also a “fairly standard story” once you get past the premise.
Black Mirror demon 79
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Easy!
Demon 79 had to end with the end of the world in order to complete Nina’s character arc.
Before Gaap shows up, Nida is already thirsting for blood, imagining in detail how she’d attack those who cross her, including notorious wife-murderer (or man-slaughterer?) Keith Holligan. Maybe Nida, who’s been desperately isolated since the death of her mother, is so overcome with rage and loneliness that she creates an imaginary friend to give her companionship, purpose, and an excuse to lash out at the ruthless world around her.
Nida’s shown reading a book earlier in the episode, before Gaap shows up, that could also be a clue. After a bad day at work, she’s eating chips at home while reading Creative Visualization: Use the Power of Your Imagination to Create What You Want in Your Life by Shakti Gawain and Marci Shimoff. Published in 1978, the book aimed to educate people on the cognitive process of generating mental imagery to change how you feel about the world around you. So, this could be what Nida is doing — using this self-help book to help herself make the world a better place, as she sees it anyway.
Nida’s violent fantasies aren’t proof that she’s making everything up. They are actually why the demon calls to her. Gaap explains she had to be corruptible for the curse to take hold. Notably, her imagined attacks against others are set apart in music and visual noise, but her scenes with Gaap and her homicides have neither.
The cops leave the room, feeling this is an open-and-shut case. A young woman, pressured by the racism around her and ongoing news reports of nuclear threat, snapped and went on a killing spree. “Her mind’s gone, that’s for sure,” says the senior officer. And then nuclear annihilation hits.
In this reading, Nida retreats from the oncoming hell into her mind, reconnecting with her literal dream man (and personal demon) to embrace oblivion together. Her inability to complete Gaap’s commands ultimately had no bearing on the impending nuclear war.
The twist is not “will the world really end,” but a subversive answer to a deeper thematic question throughout the entire season about the authenticity of experience.
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Loch Henry
Lol at the girlfriend falling in the little stream, that was awful even for tv/movie clumsiness
Episode was ehhh pretty boring
S02E01 of The Bear left me with a lot of confidence that it’s another good season ahead.
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Did anyone else catch the Junipero reference at the end of Loch Henry?
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