Black Mirror often takes little details that we add in software, like a rating system, and takes them to their extreme and logical conclusion. Its premises are mostly sci-fi, but as thought experiments on how what we do could lead to a severe dystopia, it is superbly engaging. I recommend watching no more than one episode per day - I've been thinking about its topics quite a lot recently.
At the least, it's refreshing to see updated versions of Huxley/Orwellian dystopias or even departures from them. And to have all of that in condensed 50min netflix episodes, so free for anyone who uses it already, with absolutely no padding to waste your time, is such a unique thing to have. I hope it spawns many more shows following this format, as sort of a counter movement to 24- or Lost-like continuity with tons of baggage.
I've watched the first episode and had some existential questions pop up while on a walk today. Isn't that end-all rating system, like you mention, the final form of many companies like Facebook or Instagram? When the value generated on the platform grows beyond its platform to other important parts of society. I think this is only just starting to happen, like Air BnB's usage of Facebook profiles as host validation, or a social media marketer using the size of their instagram following etc. on a job application.
It's scary how relevant some of Black Mirror's themes actually are. This one in particular is so close, I wonder whether the show's creators used it as a template.
Edit: Apparently not, as this information is only publicly available since this September. Zeitgeist at work?
Charlie Brooker, the author of Black Mirror has had quite a few prescient moments: A previous series had the UK Prime Minister having sex with a pig, a year later it turned out that David Cameron had done something obscene to a pig as part of a college initiation ceremony.
Brooker claimed he was spooked by this coincidence.
I've known about sesame since last year at least - it's getting more attention now but it was definitely public knowledge when this series would have been at the writing stage.
It's an idea from sci-fi - I can't remember who wrote what, but there was a society where citizens got more or fewer votes depending on their behaviour (edit: Alastair Reynolds? Banks? Feels like it was one of them.), and knew each other's scores, and Tom Disch's 334 is explicitly about scoring people, and one segment is dedicated to "Baz" desperately trying to get his score up by producing a piece of state-loving prose, before narrowly failing and being consigned to life as a faceless "g[ue|o]rilla" soldier - although in that the state scored you, not other people.
Funny coincidence, I'm reading The Prefect by Alastair Reynolds right now (literally). It has exactly what you say. People whose votes are vindicated get their votes weighted accordingly. They end up lobbied to but can't outright still their votes or their weights would go down.
Unless it's changed significantly recently, this "credit score" is only being used by Alibaba, and is more akin to a regular old karma system like that used on HN or reddit.
The article claims that Alibaba's solution is one of 8 private pilot schemes, and claims there are government planning documents for a much more comprehensive system.
Some of the aspects portrayed in the episode "Nosedive" seem pretty far-fetched and probably are just that, at least for the duration.
But other aspects tangential to the rating system portrayed in the episode are already very much of interest to technology companies as potential future undertakings, with far-reaching consequences. Whether such undertakings have actually been green-lighted as live projects with lots of momentum, is unknown to the public at this time.
On December 29, 2015, Facebook has acquired a patent [1] "that would allow creditors to assess your creditworthiness based on the credit ratings of the people in your social network."
Facebook applied for the patent in 2012 as part of a bundle of
patents it purchased from now-defunct social networking site
Friendster. The patent was first noticed by SmartUpLegal. This is
how the patent describes the invention:
When an individual applies for a loan, the lender examines the
credit ratings of members of the individual’s social network who
are connected to the individual through authorized nodes. If the
average credit rating of these members is at least a minimum
credit score, the lender continues to process the loan
application. Otherwise, the loan application is rejected.
Yes, Friendster was actually quite "forward-thinking", and I would argue, if had they not liquidated their IP to Facebook, and had been able to hang in there, their IP could probably crush any modern social media concern in operation today (i.e. made a killing in license fees).
I have zero faith in rating systems. Absolutely useless 98% of the time. The only time they work is if there are thousands upon thousands of negative reviews with hardly any positives.
I have not had a single bad experience with buying from eBay sellers with >99.8% feedback, but multiple bad experiences buying unusual items from <99% sellers that I couldn't find with better sellers. It's worked well for me.
Generally on ebay I assume you are buying a mass produced product. If you receive it in time and it's not broken then you're happy? How about more subjective things like Yelp reviews?
Edit: I don't buy on ebay however rating brigading has made reviews/ratings on amazon practically useless for products I've never used before.
Generally, I'm buying old camera equipment (25-60 years old). The condition of these items varies widely. The 99.8% sellers take every trouble to find every scratch / fleck of dust / etc. and photograph/document it. The <99% sellers take photos in more flattering light and don't mention things that wouldn't be grounds for a dispute. I only buy from a <99% seller if the item can't be found elsewhere.
For Yelp, I've found that a 4+ star restaurant with >100 reviews is almost always good, although I wouldn't say that I can detect a difference between 4-star and 5-star places.
That's not quite true. Money has value because a lot of the demand for it is enforced by law (taxes and repayment of debts). Those act as a real anchor for its value beyond collective agreement.
I was so nervous when I saw they were being done with Netflix and in a massive season of six episodes. I actually don't think there was a truly weak episode in the bunch. Literally my only complaint was the stupid little explanation taglines Netflix shoved in my face meaning I didn't get to go into most of them completely free of expectation.
Whats wrong with Netflix? They are one of the few publishers creating large amounts of content specifically for mature audiences. Their revenue model is not based on advertising so they are free to create quality content rather than content that will simply appeal to the most people.
Netflix bloat is what is sometimes wrong with Netflix. Scenes are sometimes a little bit too long in a lot of series. For example, unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt's second season was weaker than the first because the original was made for TV but the second was made for Netflix. This led to the same number of jokes being placed in a longer block of time, and therefore a decrease in the #ofJokes/minute.
That is highly subjective. You are referring to a single show where the quality of writing that season may have suffered rather than anything related to the Netflix platform. Pulling at straws.
Sorry, to be clear I have no issue with netflix. However doubling the length of the season and any switch of sponsor carries some risk of deviation from the norm - which was very very high quality imo.
I didn't mean to imply that I thought netflix bad Channel4 good (i think it came from there).
None were weak, but some may have improved given more time to work on them.
The British way of writing for TV can be quite different from the american one; less concerned about narrative cohesion/logic/dramatic principles and more focused on taking the audience for a crazy ride (see also: Sherlock, Dr. Who).
In Black Mirror s3, the double-twist episode originally only had a single twist according to Charlie. It feels like they tacked on the second twist without adjusting the entire narrative to align with it.
by the second half of the season I'd trained myself not to look, but I was just reading without really meaning to when they came on screen. It really ruined some of the surprise in San Junepero (sp?)
> Black Mirror often takes little details that we add in software, like a rating system, and takes them to their extreme and logical conclusion.
I can't tell if you're dismissing the logical conclusion as unlikely. The proliferation of ratings systems, from Facebook likes to Tinder swipes to Uber drivers who have to stay above 4.7 just to keep their job, tells me that we're a lot closer to that logical conclusion than you think. And it is far from logical, sane, healthy or kind!
you read that from the word 'extreme'? I don't think 'unlikely' follows at all from that classification. Of course this is subjective, but I'd argue looking at world history, what we deem 'extreme' has shown its face again and again - may actually even be humanity's natural (i.e. lower energy) state that we have to constantly push back against. From the perspective of a person or cabal in power, keeping everyone under control with the threat of extreme physical or psychological violence is probably easier, i.e. lower energy, than to allow a free society. What makes Black Mirror so scary is that it hints at us being on a trajectory to actually make such mass control effective and feasible, through technology.
While I do that (it's the only time I have anyways), I also gotta mention that it did reduce some of my sleep, especially after White Christmas, that one really got to me.
Black Mirror tackles one of the hardest problems about technical: How society changes around it.
We spend such a long time talking about the latest cutting edge hardware, new algorithms, new problems that can now be solved, but it's too easy to forget that people are part of this system too.
There's a great film from the 60's [1] that talks about the house of the future. It predicts online shopping and other modern appliances easily, however it is completely blind to any social change. The wife is still a housewife, the husband still goes to work and so on.
As we produce more and more new tech I think media such as Black Mirror are a great way to explore some of the more human implications.
> How society changes around it.
> [a classic old film] is completely blind to any social change. The wife is still a housewife, the husband still goes to work and so on.
And how our technological evolution is way out of step with our societal evolution. Give a cave man a ray gun, he's still a cave man. We still run to the same hierarchy structures that we developed tens of thousands of years ago - the tribes are just bigger.
I've only watched 3 of the episodes (Playtest, Shut Up and Dance, and Hated in the Nation)...I've heard the other 3 episodes were better, but the 3 that I have watched seemed subpar compared to the previous 2 seasons. Not terrible as far as overall TV goes, but after the plot thrills were over, they just didn't leave the same queasiness-about-possible-future-dystopia that "White Bear", "White Christmas", "Entire History of You", "Be Right Back", and "Fifteen Million Merits" do (5 out of 7).
I am looking forward to watching "San Junipero", because unlike the other episodes, I have no idea what it's about based on its episode description (or 80s-themed screenshot).
> they just didn't leave the same queasiness-about-possible-future-dystopia
Actually for me they do. Maybe I'm more sensitive to this than others but I've seen the first two and both left me rather disoriented, alomst detached from reality, the first minutes after watching them. I only reach such a state through brilliant (from my point of view, I guess) film or music, or by using drugs. So: no complaints here :]
E.g. I really like how the first episode makes you not only reflect on a possible-but-too-close future that looks horrible to live in, but at the same time reminds you to realize maybe it's already a reality for some people today - possible including yourself, and that in a broader sense it has been like that all throughout history.
Watching the first one I joked about how a horror movie can be done with only beautiful people with perfect hair talking politely and dressed in pastels.
I don't see why a lack of queasiness is a reason for disliking an episode in the first place. This season is more nuanced, and explores worlds in which the characters are in varying degrees of rebellion against social mores.
San Junipero was nice in that it was the only episode in the season that wasn't completely dystopian, I won't give it away any more than that.
Personally, Shut Up and Dance was my favorite episode, as it was on the level of White Bear as being so insanely messed up. Also one of my favorite albums is OK Computer by Radiohead, so when Exit Music (For a Film) played, just wow.
You might like "Everyone in Silico" too [1]. Almost felt like San Junipero was based on that. EiS paints quite a dystopia, but was more believable. Looking forward to reading Rabin Hanson's "The Age of Ems".
I thought the first three episodes were brilliant. The rest are also good - San Junipero is quite enjoyable - but the last episode was somewhat underwhelming for me.
S3 is probably not as good as the rest of the series, but it's much better than anything else currently on TV, except for Westworld of course.
I thought the last episode was great, although maybe slightly long. It was a good example of how a seemingly good piece of technology can be disastrous if a back door is put into it. Also it was a decent nod to Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds"
I think my problem with it was how plot-driven the last episode ("Hated in the Nation") was. It ended in a way as if it mattered whether the cops catch the bad guy. I love cop shows, but the procedural bits here took time from all the interesting tech concepts that had been brought up. Another reviewer described it as feeling like an episode of X-Files, which I think is an apt way to describe it: Good, but not the kind of good that Black Mirror is uniquely positioned to deliver.
I understood "Hated in the Nation" to be taking the piss out of the standard cop show format, with their happy endings, flashbacks from the debriefing, master villain, etc.
I think in an episode largely concerned with revenge and justice it does matter, thematically, that at least one character is very driven to catch the bad guy, right up to the end.
It might have been more believable if it wasn't just the work of a single person. I just couldn't suspend my disbelief because of that. I mean, we are on HN after all :P
So far I am enjoying season 3 the most, one of the main reasons is the obvious higher production value. The first two seasons had that low-budget cheesy feel to them, which I find slightly distracting.
I think the episodes so far (1-4) are more hard hitting than the rest of them (playtest + shut up and dance, especially), but it might be because they are more recent in my mind.
Do you feel like the earlier episodes could be applicable to anyone in future society, but the current episodes are too specific to apply to "anybody" - rather, "This is the dystopian future, but only for these personality types."
Affecting society versus affecting the self?
Additionally, not sure if anybody agrees, but I considered the end of episode 1 season 3 a happy ending.
4 and 6 were the best and among the top 5 for the series, easily.
1 was my least-favorite episode of the entire series. Flabby editing, could have trimmed a solid 5 minutes, and something about the shot choices and/or the editing made every serious conversation look like watching two people ACTING, which is not a good thing.
5 was a bad episode in an interesting world. If 1 hadn't had technical issues I'd definitely rank this one under it. Story needed more work.
2 and 3 were mid-tier. 2 is pretty much a really great Outer Limits episode and 3 is just... well, Black Mirror. Good, but not amazing like some others in the series.
I'd say that puts its average under either of the other 3-episode seasons, yeah. Still some good stuff in there.
No, I mean specifically the scenes where the characters were being more genuine, mainly between the main character and her brother and a certain sage-character later in the episode (trying to avoid spilling too many details). The parts where characters were being fake were mostly pretty good, though a little more subtlety might have sold it better.
I share your opinions about the first three episodes of the newest session. Still, I strongly recommend watching San Junipero. Don't read anything about it lest you encounter spoilers. In my opinion, it more than makes up for the mediocre first half of the season.
I've only watched "Nosedive" of the new set, and it has had more of an impact than any of the other episodes. I find it the closest to "real" and "frightening" of the bunch - only the first episode is closer in terms of "This is possible", but it wasn't nearly as existentially terrifying.
Two of those three episodes you saw are actually the worst (or least-good?) of the new season. They're definitely not as good as previous seasons, but the three you're missing are a lot better.
I did consider "Shut Up and Dance" to have a pretty interesting progression though.
For people who like Black Mirror, I highly recommend the YouTube Red series from College Humor, Bad Internet. In the exact same genre, the episodes have nothing to do with each other, so I'll link to my favorite episode, "Amazon Foresight":
Who is "we"? I like this content and know that content like this can't exist if the people at CollegeHumor don't get paid, and I hate all the side effects of advertising as a business model, so not only do I pay for YouTube Red but if there were a way to just pay CollegeHumor specifically for this series I would do so in a heartbeat: paying for work is how I use my labor to buy food and other consumables for all the people who work on the things that I consume in my life, not encouraging people to work on things I need or want or simply enjoy but actually allowing that to be possible.
I was really sad at how short season 3 was, but quality over quantity, at the very least I am grateful that Netflix revived one of my favorite shows.
If all netflix does is pick up popular shows that arent popular enough for time slot tv, and inject new life into them I will be a netflix subscriber forever.
Huh? It's already 6 episodes, compared to the first two seasons that were just 3 episodes each, not including the one-off "White Christmas" special. The runtime of the season 3 episodes are longer too.
Ok I'll admit it - "San Junipero" both made me cry and scared the shit out of me at the same time. Didn't know that was even possible. Thank you Netflix. And thank you for last Monday too.
Also not the GP, but I think San Junipero goes beyond just the inevitability of aging and death. It hits upon the meaninglessness of both life and a hypothetical afterlife. Although the people of San Junipero “live” in paradise, their existence borders on the hedonistic: thrill-seeking, sex, and drugs (alcohol.) Is a life of this nature worth living? The characters in the episode certainly seem to think so. Yet, I’d argue that living in this manner is a kind of hell.
Not who you were asking, but there are definitely some implications worth thinking on that the episode mostly avoids directly addressing, but which the song choice and choice of shots during the credits assure us they did intend to raise, and I think it'd be fair to describe those as "scary". There's a real twist of the knife in those final seconds that color the intent behind and the mood of the whole episode.
I guess that we are transitioning to a time where our digital identities are owned and operated by private companies. The afterlife aspect just makes more scary what is in a sense already a reality.
It tries to be smart by attempting to address social changes we see to today, but it's clumsy and overbearing and the writing is not up to the task. I look at classic Twilight Zone and I feel they did more with less. In some respects even the writing from Tales from the Crypt offered more believable characters.
A lot of what's great about Black Mirror is what it doesn't show you. It's great at showing you enough of something to know what's going on, but not hammering it home to make sure you got it like a lesser show might.
As an example, in the first episode of Season 3 (no spoiler here I think) a character leaves an area where there's a billboard with her and a guy on it, and her image fades from it. Personalized images in ads are something we've seen in other media so I'm not claiming the idea is novel, but a lesser show might still have felt the need to show someone else walking up and their image appearing on the billboard, replacing the one that had been there. Black Mirror is content to show the image fade, then cut without replacing it. This is good taste and confidence, and it's one of the show's greatest attributes. It manifests in many small choices like this in every episode.
Similarly, it sometimes uses what it doesn't show us to carry most of the weight of an entire episode's central theme (Fifteen Million Merits does this, for instance). It may also throw sensation at the viewer as a bait, as it pointedly does in The National Anthem, revealing this when the camera chooses to entirely ignore the sensational event toward which the episode has been building to instead show us something both more mundane and far more disgusting in every way that matters. The subjects of that scene push the viewer to reflect on themselves—showing us the watchers when we are watchers—which is one hell of a smart gut-punch.
There are a couple bad episodes, though (well, there was one, but now season 3's out and by my reckoning there are now three), and if I were walking a n00b through the series I'd probably show them the series' first episode last because it's both structurally different from all the rest and I think easier to appreciate when you've got a better feel for what the show's doing. It's a bad introductory episode, IMO.
It's one if those shows I don't think people get...
Everyone thinks it's great, but is it...
It's has amazing production values. Great actors. Good dialog.
Buuuut it's missing plot. It uses emotion as a replacement. And as each story is separate I think you don't seem to notice.
But for some reason I think I enjoy it. So perhaps we don't need a good story for a TV show. Or perhaps it's a cheap trick that might wear out if everyone jumps on board.
PS try re-watching TZ. It wasn't as good as I thought when I re-watched it. Most episodes were at best OK.
"The problem isn't machines, it's letting machines do your thinking for you." - Leto III (Dune)
A friend suggests that Black Mirror is "about screens". I see what he's saying on a surface level, but, screens are just how we interface with machines doing the thinking for us, instead of people.
On the other hand, isn't bureaucracy a machine, running on meat? "Screens" used to be "Paper" - see the crazy movie "Brazil". Replacing something hard (actually getting to know someone and their situation) with something easy (the output of a system) has been with humanity for a really long time, if not forever.
Most [of the prior] Black Mirror episodes are about, I think, man's inhumanity to man, just mediated by modern technology. Most of them are about some way that people are failing to connect to each other.
One interesting thing about this show (to me), which probably applies to just about every science fiction, is the gap between the imagination of what technology may achieve and the actual engineering timeframes.
I was a fan before it came to US Netflix, and was thrilled to get home and watch it on Friday. Unfortunately, that first episode was painful to watch, but I realized why when the closing credits didn't have Charlie Brooker as the writer. It seemed to follow Netflix's obsession with quantity of hours of content rather than quality. The idea of a social rating system is interesting, but to drag it out for over an hour was so boring that I nearly wrote off the whole season. The prior Christmas special was like 3 episodes in one and it was only 10 minutes longer. Fortunately the rest were on par, but the series feels slightly tarnished to me now. Why the fuck were Radhika Jones and Mike Schur in charge of the one episode all of Netflix's users would have autoplay on their home screen instead of the series's creators?
I think that it wasn't really bad but rather the theme is very uncomfortable. It sort of hits close to home. It is over the top but that's also the point.
I've never seen the show. The PR, both on news sources and also from personal recommendations has been unreal. good for them. It's almost like what i gather an episode would be like.
I liked the previous episodes and watched a couple of the new episodes. I really wanted to like them but it's like the writers are both trying too hard to capitalise on the obvious "trends" and not really understanding the tech deeply enough at the same time.
Self replicating, 3d printing miniature robot drone bees, that fly indefinitely on solar power and handle pollination for a whole country? And yet nothing else in their future tech (mobiles, cars, computers) has changed from what it is like now? Cmon
Same with the social status rating episode. Couldn't finish watching it, very implausible and cringeworthy
plausibility isn't the point - the scfi devices used are for reduction-ad-absurdum, to zoom-in on aspects of our current society.
Also, in the real world some things develop faster than others. In San Junipero they can perfectly simulate a world and upload people into the cloud (heaven), but they can't cure quadriplegia with stem-cells. That's ok because all science and tech doesn't move at the same pace: some tech grows very fast while other techs never get funding and die by whatever market-force fashions.
I don't disagree with you, but for me you still need to retain some plausibility or it just feels sloppy.
The perfect memory recorder in the previous episodes - that was my favourite one, because we are not very far off from it, yet the implications are profound.
But indefinitely flying, self-replicating nanobees, just because one of the writers read about drones, 3d printers and bees dying out? Feels forced and lazy, even if it's just a prop to a bigger story about bullying on social media
Self replicating bots are feasible in some form, probably not in the one presented. Also, it isn't plausible that the rest of world would look as similar to ours presented in the episode as such technology would have many far-reaching implications on the rest of society.
Still, at some point you have to limit yourself. Having this one change and not change the rest of society makes it possible to imagine and relate to that one tech.
One bite sized chunk at a time.
Edit: Interesting example: What if we had teleportation technology that you can carry in your pocket? It's extremely hard to figure out all implications of this and if you manage to figure out how the world would look like it would probably be hard to relate to because it would change everything. So we have to keep a balance between relateability and plausibility.
I agree with you, it's walking a fine line between the two.
But in ways science fiction is in ways like chess - the author thinking more than one move ahead makes it more enjoyable.
There are many interesting topics to explore though.
For instance, I'd like to see a Black Mirror style exploration of a world where CRISPR use (on everything, including humans) is rampant and genetic evolution has become subject to memetic evolution, to cultural/technological/financial selection pressures. It's within realms of possibility with profound implications on everything
So let's say we'd make a Black mirror episode about CRISPR. What could it be about? Biomachines making most of our stuff including houses? Designer babies that glow in the dark and can communicate telepathically? Both? 10 other things? Let's choose one. It's difficult enough to imagine the social impact of that. If we choose multiple such inventions in one swoop you would have to make a lot of assumptions that each would be enough content for a single episode. Then audience will no longer be able to use what they know about today's society because they don't know what assumptions the author has made.
edit: I realize I might be overselling a point that you're already agreeing on...
but thing is, nobody can predict which technologies are more of less likely to take-off, it's a mysterious thing but many smart people poo-pooed the internet, cinema, cars, computers
I think you've sort of missed the idea. The writer, takes one or two ideas and runs through with them. Developing an entire future world is distracting from that goal.
Edit: have not watched the first one yet, didn't realise Brooker didn't write that one.
At the least, it's refreshing to see updated versions of Huxley/Orwellian dystopias or even departures from them. And to have all of that in condensed 50min netflix episodes, so free for anyone who uses it already, with absolutely no padding to waste your time, is such a unique thing to have. I hope it spawns many more shows following this format, as sort of a counter movement to 24- or Lost-like continuity with tons of baggage.