So. An episode of this was forced upon me this week at a gathering, annoyingly, as the person kept saying "it's the best show ever" and proceeded to show me the episode where []
...yeh. Best show everrrrrrrrrr.... not.
So. An episode of this was forced upon me this week at a gathering, annoyingly, as the person kept saying "it's the best show ever" and proceeded to show me the episode where []
...yeh. Best show everrrrrrrrrr.... not.
Last edited by Dukefrukem; 11-10-2016 at 11:56 AM.
Season one, episode one has still not been topped imo. This show is tough watch. Every episode is heavy. I feel emotionally tired after every one.
Pleeeease spoiler that Duke. I literally just watched that episode for the first time yesterday and if I'd read that I would've been pissed.
But I also loved it.
Last 11 things I really enjoyed:
Speed Racer (Wachowski/Wachowski, 2008)
Safe (Haynes, 1995)
South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (Parker, 1999)
Beastie Boys Story (Jonze, 2020)
Bad Trip (Sakurai, 2020)
What's Up Doc? (Bogdanovich, 1972)
Diva (Beineix, 1981)
Delicatessen (Caro/Jeunet, 1991)
The Hunger (Scott, 1983)
Pineapple Express (Green, 2008)
Chungking Express (Wong, 1994)
Sorry, didn't realize this was the generic thread and not a season specific thread.
Can anyone tell me which episode in that spoiler is (just say something like, Season 2 Episode 1)?
Midnight Run (1988) - 9
The Smiling Lieutenant (1931) - 8.5
The Adventures of Robinhood (1938) - 8
Sisters (1973) - 6.5
Shin Godzilla (2016) - 7.5
Peng, the spoiler concerns Season 2 Episode 2. After you watch that, you're good to go on the spoiler.Quoting Peng (view post)
The Boat People - 9
The Power of the Dog - 7.5
The King of Pigs - 7
That episode is very good, though.
This. And so totally not what it is in the spoiler at all.
Midnight Run (1988) - 9
The Smiling Lieutenant (1931) - 8.5
The Adventures of Robinhood (1938) - 8
Sisters (1973) - 6.5
Shin Godzilla (2016) - 7.5
"Be Right Back" My favorite episode of the first two seasons, in part because it takes the complaint I consistently have with the show: the concept and its morality swallowing its human characters whole (and not in a metaphorically fitting way), and reverts that. The technology and the commentary on it are a natural, subtle extension of the story of how grief can stop us from moving forward. Not coincidentally, it also has the most fully fleshed out character, whose agency of choices in her own story make her more than pawns to the plot like most characters in other episodes (only "The National Anthem"'s scale benefits from that kind of inevitability, in my opinion). Of course, it helps that Hayley Atwell is phenomenal in the role, giving each choice of her character's heartbreaking arc full emotional weight. Also nice that even while having humanism countering the show's nihilism more than usual, the episode still doesn't avoid some disturbing touches here and there, including its ending, which manages to be both beautiful but very chilling. A-
"White Bear" Such nightmare fuel of an episode, and the only other time apart from "The National Anthem" where I feel Brooker goes full nihilism and justifies it. Such a great premise and some astounding reflection back on the viewers, to implicate us in questions about mob mentality, the notion of justice, and violent entertainment that are worthy of Haneke. Find the protagonist's journey a bit too repetitively horrific for my taste, but being in Thailand at a nationally vulnerable moment where emotions can run high and flare up in the same manner as depicted in this one, I find this episode highly disturbing. B+
"The Waldo Moment" Torn between finding the drama/story not very effective, blunt and kind of grating, and finding the concept soooo scarily prescient about today's political landscape that I am in deep admiration despite myself. Maybe next time be perceptive about something more utopian and have it come true, please, Brooker? B-
Midnight Run (1988) - 9
The Smiling Lieutenant (1931) - 8.5
The Adventures of Robinhood (1938) - 8
Sisters (1973) - 6.5
Shin Godzilla (2016) - 7.5
I was actually initially confused which episode Duke was referring to.
Movie Theater Diary
"White Christmas"
I tend to not like Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror at his most nihilistically unpleasant, which has a tendency to bludgeon me to death with that sentiment instead of forming something that has a solid emotional and logical throughline, for it to be more truthfully shattering. Two exceptions though: "White Bear", and now the middle section (out of the three) in "White Christmas". It stars Oona Chaplin and the concept of 'Cookie', which is utilized in a story that is swift, fascinating, and very, very nasty, despite not a shed of physical violence to be found. This story if expanded to full episode length might be the best Black Mirror has to offer yet, although I can imagine it being so traumatic one might not be able to crawl out from under the bed for days.
Alas, it is bookeneded by an unremarkable first story, which has a very convenient ending, and the intriguing third one with a fairly haunting concept of Blocking, but which is utilized in a pretty nonsensical real-world context, in order to engineer that gotcha ending. Still, other series can only hope for its middling entry to have a high quality threshold like this one. B
Midnight Run (1988) - 9
The Smiling Lieutenant (1931) - 8.5
The Adventures of Robinhood (1938) - 8
Sisters (1973) - 6.5
Shin Godzilla (2016) - 7.5
Before finally delving into the third series and that season thread, my ranking so far:
1. "Be Right Back" A-
2. "The National Anthem" B+
3. "White Bear" B+
4. "The Entire History of You" B+
5. "15 Million Merits" B
6. "White Christmas" B
7. "The Waldo Moment" B-
Midnight Run (1988) - 9
The Smiling Lieutenant (1931) - 8.5
The Adventures of Robinhood (1938) - 8
Sisters (1973) - 6.5
Shin Godzilla (2016) - 7.5
This is a still from the upcoming season. I cannot wait to see what this is about.
Movie Theater Diary
Haha yeah, same one instantly jumped out to me. Also a full director / confirmation Brooker wrote them all / cast list (without synopses, thankfully):
Last 11 things I really enjoyed:
Speed Racer (Wachowski/Wachowski, 2008)
Safe (Haynes, 1995)
South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (Parker, 1999)
Beastie Boys Story (Jonze, 2020)
Bad Trip (Sakurai, 2020)
What's Up Doc? (Bogdanovich, 1972)
Diva (Beineix, 1981)
Delicatessen (Caro/Jeunet, 1991)
The Hunger (Scott, 1983)
Pineapple Express (Green, 2008)
Chungking Express (Wong, 1994)
This is the first season of this show where I'm actually familiar with the director of every episode.
Movie Theater Diary
Really hoping that "Hang the DJ" isn't a reference to The Smiths
"Arkangel" directed by Jodie Foster.
Release date still unannounced (?!).
Season 4 drops today.
Midnight Run (1988) - 9
The Smiling Lieutenant (1931) - 8.5
The Adventures of Robinhood (1938) - 8
Sisters (1973) - 6.5
Shin Godzilla (2016) - 7.5
The first episode, USS Callister is great and has a very Black Mirror-y twist. The extra budget did not go to waste. Lots of pointed jabs at fanboys, gaming culture, plus a knowing wink nee affectionate homage of classic Star Trek.
They started this Series 4 off with a top tier episode!
"We eventually managed to find them near Biskupin, where demonstrations of prehistoric farming are organized. These oxen couldn't be transported to anywhere else, so we had to built the entire studio around them. A scene that lasted twenty-something seconds took us a year and a half to prepare."
Uss Callister was great.
Arkangel I didn't like. Not sure if its the fault of the episode or similarity to having to deal with a teenager irl.
Two eps in and the core ideas are kind of retreads of previous episodes. Not complaining too loudly, just an observation.
Two episodes in. Skitch is right that these themes have been run before by the show but it's no big deal.
Both episodes are very good but I liked Arkangel more.
Yeaaaaah. I dunno about that. I couldn't tell what they were really going for. The opening was a superficial parody of "Star Trek," but the ending uses worn-out genre tropes to become a typical chase/thriller. The episode becomes what it criticizes and does it for entertainment value.
And []
I couldn't take it as a jab at gaming, either, because what happens is more or less a dramatic variation on what people did while playing "The Sims," which predates the obsessiveness found in GamerGate and 4chan. I'm not sure what insight Brooker thinks he has, or if he has any at all. (Really, the script boils down to an 80 minute riff on Penny Arcade's "Dickwolves" comic strip from 2013.)
I was disappointed that the writers studiously avoided the main question---whether simulated people in a simulated world are "real" enough to matter. They take the answer on faith, as obvious, and then write characters who dismiss themselves as artificial. So that point seemed muddled to me too.
(Also, as a general criticism and in a fit of super-nerdiness I need to point out that if I made a digital copy of someone's DNA to reproduce them on a fucked up Holodeck that wouldn't include their memories and identity.)
(Also, in another sort of fit, stealing the fucking lolipop would have done nothing because the DNA was digitized, which means the potential for millions of copies of that little boy, tucked away on servers all over the world.)
Last edited by Irish; 12-31-2017 at 01:06 AM.
I, for one, enjoyed that an episode ended and I didn't feel sick to my stomach.
I didn't see it as criticizing it so much as just having fun with it (and the aforementioned tropes).
A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down... -- Mary Poppins
I'm with Skitch on this one.
You have gone so over my head with this response, I'm just going to concede this one to you on points.
Not sure I see your point here as I didn't feel as though the characters were self-dismissing (especially given the []).
Yes but wasn't that intentional for purposes of controlling/torturing them []?
I thought he only uploaded the digital clones locally (ie, they weren't intended to go to the cloud).
But you make some good points. However, seeing as how I loved this episode, It appears that we are destined to agree to disagree.
"We eventually managed to find them near Biskupin, where demonstrations of prehistoric farming are organized. These oxen couldn't be transported to anywhere else, so we had to built the entire studio around them. A scene that lasted twenty-something seconds took us a year and a half to prepare."
Pandering isn't really medicine, is it? It's just sugar. 100% sugar. I like sugar, I can get it anywhere. Network. Cable. A dozen shows off Netflix or Amazon. If "Black Mirror" doesn't leave the audience shaking their heads and mumbling, "Jesus, that was fucked up," then what's the point of it?
"The Sims" was a game where you could create digital avatars and play around in a open-form, sandbox-y suburban universe. People loved the game...but after awhile, they started intentionally torturing the sims to see what these artificial people would do under stressful conditions. Things like putting them in a house with no doors, no windows, no food, and no bathroom. Or placing them in a nice meadow, but the surrounding them with heavy furniture and lighting it on fire. It was both dark and funny, mostly because players went online and swapped stories and screenshots of their bad deeds.
So if Brooker sought to jab nerds by either portraying them as either sadists or sociopaths, I think he failed. Because regular, workaday players in a low-impact, non-combat game went a little nuts in their artificial universe when given the chance. I think rando stories out of "The Sims," and other MMORPGs, say more about human nature than this episode of "Black Mirror."
That's the conceit, which they needed for the lollipop heist subplot. But the core idea is ridiculous for a bunch of characters who are supposed to be professional programers.
"Black Mirror" is a show about the oppressiveness of technology but this plotline ignores exactly what makes a purely digital world equal parts groundbreaking, dangerous, and scary.
Wanna really fuck with someone's head? Don't turn them into some shambling, Star-Trekian monster. Put them in a closed universe that's populated only with 1 billion copies of themselves.
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