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Just finished the Season, my rankings before I read the thread, worst to best. 6. Hotel Reverie There's a lot to like about this one but the concept just makes NO SENSE to me. Why do all this just to remake the film with an actor changed for some reason? They even said at the start its not just like AI deepfake stuff to replace the actor but literally why not just do that? And even if there was some benefit to doing it this way, why does it have to be done in one take in real time? None of it made any sense to me, it felt like Doctor Who level sci-fi rather than Black Mirror, just a bit too soft and not really thought through. My instant thought for a version to do this story that makes more sense would be if it was about an experience that lets you go in and live in your favourite movies. You could still have the same plot with the game glitching and the player falling in love with the character but it would make more sense for why any of this exists imo. E: The more I think about it the less it makes sense. If you can AI all the other characters, why not AI the lead too? Wouldn't the performance be better if the lead also thought it was real rather than having to learn lines and act? 5. Bête Noire This was fun, classic Black Mirror stuff, no notes really. 4. USS Callister: Into Infinity. I enjoyed having this last, it feels necessary to end a Black Mirror season on a light one. I love that its not afraid to lean into the camp sci-fi of it all and just make these fun sci-fi films. I like the fact that they are willing to do these sequels and call-back episodes, makes the whole thing more rewarding knowing that they are willing to return to these stories if they have more to tell. Been a long time since I watched the original so not sure how much of this one is really groundbreaking but it was enjoyable. 3. Common People Classic depressing Black Mirror stuff. I'm kind of glad this one gets out of the way first and we get some more light hearted stuff later on. I'd forgotten how hard Black Mirror can go and its not necessarily enjoyable just watching people be broke and struggle in a super realistic grim way. Gripping stuff though. 2. Plaything Loved this. Thronglets looks so fun, really gave me the urge to get into a simulation game. The aesthetics and attention to detail are great. 1. Eulogy This one hit me hard. Anything looking at nostalgia and looking back over your life usually hits me easily, I could tell from the start this would be a hard one. I only have one thing I didn't like, him discovering his girlfriend left a note that he never noticed seemed a bit over the top and depressing for depressing's sake. I think I would have preferred no big twist and the episode just exploring how different his perception was from what actually happened. Paul Giamatti was incredible, one of his best performances of all time. Annabel Pee fucked around with this message at 09:22 on Apr 14, 2025 |
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Apr 14, 2025 08:58
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socialsecurity posted:dudes were ripping out teeth for $20 I'm assuming maybe there was massive deflation in the future or shits just that bleak paywise I was confused by that too(and apparently they have a house, which they didn't even consider selling?) but I assume it's just to make the story more relatable to the middle class white target audience. In real life this would likely be some Appalachian redneck family or a working class minority couple with less relatable jobs. But ultimately the exact figures don't matter. Everyone but the actually rich can end up in a situation where they can't afford a new experimental treatment or medication. It happens just the same in countries with socialized healthcare and it can happen with a hypothetically nationalized pharma industry. The real horror is the nickel and diming of the couple and dehumanizing her by turning her into a walking ad machine for shareholder profit. That's something uniquely hosed up about free market economies.
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Apr 14, 2025 12:01
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Alright I'm done with S7. I thought it was good, but I haven't seen the old seasons in a really long time. Watching it did make me want to go back and see the rest again, so I think that's a successful season. 6. Eulogy Liked the twist with the daughter and the ending was sweet. Overall was not much to enjoy about the sad old man reliving his trauma 5. Hotel Reverie The best bit was when the guy spilled his coffee on the computer and the actresses got to hang out. Low stakes - even Brandy wasn't sure if she cared about resolving the core conflict, lots of moments where I'm questioning the logic of how this whole setup is suppose to work, but at least the core idea was interesting enough 4. Bête Noire I loved the bit with nutallergy like she was speaking some alchemical nonsense, and the tension of wondering how Verity was doing it was cool. Seemed like they had to wrap it up too quickly though so we powered through to the end after the reveal of parallel realities. A fun watch 3. Common People This is black mirror. Truly a masterpiece of making me very angry about capitalism. I couldn't watch the scene where the guy does his tongue with a mouse trap, but then a few minutes later I'm chuckling at a guy getting run the gently caress over by a dump truck or something. The brain is bad. 2. Bandersnatch 2 / Plaything Yeah the human brain does suck. On the downside it made me want to take acid but I have none. On the upside the little bunnies are cute and I choose to believe they were benevolent rulers. 1. Callister 2: into infinity I'm not a film critic and my language to do such is limited. It was a joy to watch the clones try to escape the gamers and McPoyle rules
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Apr 14, 2025 15:56
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catpiss analdream posted:2. Bandersnatch 2 / Plaything  
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Apr 14, 2025 16:04
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JosefStalinator posted:Only seen the first episode so far, but Jesus Christ that was depressing even by Black Mirror standards. Agreed with much of the criticism about predictability and passivity. I also was sitting there wondering how a welder and a teacher with no kids are truly struggling to come up with $300 a month for lifesaving medicine - are they already in some horrible debt spiral or trapped in some heinous mortgage or something? Maybe I'm out of touch but they didn't seem THAT destitute in their overall living situation This bothered me a bit too, he's a welder, he makes good money and at first it started out realistically with him only needing to do an hour or two of overtime every few days but then all of a sudden he's doing overtime at every possibly opportunity even though the costs haven't gone up yet? There were definitely some writing decisions made in that episode to up the misery quotient, drat the logic.
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Apr 14, 2025 16:15
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WampaLord posted:This bothered me a bit too, he's a welder, he makes good money and at first it started out realistically with him only needing to do an hour or two of overtime every few days but then all of a sudden he's doing overtime at every possibly opportunity even though the costs haven't gone up yet? I just assumed they started out dipping into savings and the well ended up running dry
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Apr 14, 2025 16:31
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rivermind cto gone and throng 2? Life is good Rarity posted:I just assumed they started out dipping into savings and the well ended up running dry makes sense, there's a scene where the wife is surprised they still had baby money.
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Apr 14, 2025 16:39
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WampaLord posted:This bothered me a bit too, he's a welder, he makes good money and at first it started out realistically with him only needing to do an hour or two of overtime every few days but then all of a sudden he's doing overtime at every possibly opportunity even though the costs haven't gone up yet? The initial $300 became $800 real quick when they wanted to remove the restrictions due to poor signal coverage (neglible for most of the time, just stay in your county) and, more importantly, had to get rid of the ad-spam, which threatened the couple's second fulltime job and income. The average welder wage is ~$23, so that's 40 extra hours each month to cover the Plus tier ("Plus is now 'standard'"). Add some dystopian fuckery we don't know about and it makes sense.
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Apr 14, 2025 16:56
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I haven't started watching yet, but from and oursider looking in this season feels weirdly more metrics driven than past seasons. Two sequels, and a spiritual remake of one of their most famous stories (San Junipero). Can anyone confirm/ deny?
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Apr 14, 2025 16:59
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mcbexx posted:The initial $300 became $800 real quick when they wanted to remove the restrictions due to poor signal coverage (neglible for most of the time, just stay in your county) and, more importantly, had to get rid of the ad-spam, which threatened the couple's second fulltime job and income. Yeah, but I'm pretty sure he goes "calendar shows overtime for the full week" mode before they even know about the $800 tier. It would have been an easy fix to have them upgrade first and then we see him increase the overtime amount after to make up for the extra cost. Ultimately it's a minor quibble, the analogy still holds for healthcare costs impacting a working class family.
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Apr 14, 2025 17:07
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WampaLord posted:Yeah, but I'm pretty sure he goes "calendar shows overtime for the full week" mode before they even know about the $800 tier. It would have been an easy fix to have them upgrade first and then we see him increase the overtime amount after to make up for the extra cost. I would have to rewatch (eh, naaaah), but I think that was when she already had been sacked temporarily and he needed to step up to close the financial gap AND secure the $800 monthly fee to have a chance for her returning to teaching. But you're right, discussing all this is kinda moot, the story has been told the way it is. I just think the way it has been depicted is not that big of a leap.
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Apr 14, 2025 17:21
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I don't understand how they were still living in a house in Common People. Just downsize. Two adults in two well paying professions can't foot a 1200 one bedroom in some shithole town?
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Apr 14, 2025 18:00
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Two more down and two more thoughts! Hotel Reverie I find pretty interesting I see some saying there wasn’t much chemistry but she had just got dumped in there, had a cookie popped on her and asked to do the whole film no cuts real time and improv if needed. Bound to be jarring. A sapphic love story based in black and white 1940s film is a pretty interesting concept as a film and I think that they did dance around it a bit too much and then things going wrong with the computer and suddenly for some reason it’s on fast forward? A bit of a plot hole. I think the general idea is great but the execution was a bit rough Plaything pretty much had Charlie Brooker written all over it both with PC Zone (where he was a journalist) and Computer Exchange (which he founded and is now CEX) being in there is pretty good. The idea of a bunch of little digital creatures with AI essentially wanting more power and processing power and taking over civilisation is pretty neat and I think it was short enough and pace good enough that it was alright. It did however turn me off James Nelson-Joyce being the next Bond which I have heard rumours about - I don’t see it. and the game is worth a play as it seems to go along the process of looking after little dudes who then with exponential growth make it hard to look after them and added to that a bunch of objectives, and then your decisions guiding the game and how they react to you.
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Apr 14, 2025 18:21
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Starbucks posted:It did however turn me off James Nelson-Joyce being the next Bond which I have heard rumours about - I don’t see it. He was pretty cool in This City is Ours and you can see his Bond appeal there. I agree though in stuff like this he comes off really differently and plays smarmy creep rather than suave.
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Apr 14, 2025 19:04
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catpiss analdream posted:3. Common People One of those is a sympathetic character forced into humiliating acts by capitalism loving him over, the other is a class traitor taking glee in humiliating the former.
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Apr 14, 2025 19:53
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Watched the front half of the new season today. Common People was pretty good, very standard Black Mirror stuff, I didn't think it was as shocking or infuriating as some of y'all. The comic relief (like the lady selling the service turning up her own 'nonchalance' slider) took the edge off of what was otherwise a biting indictment of the healthcare system. I liked the little details though, like the fact that bees are extinct and replaced by drones. What did O'Dowd's character do for a living, besides 'welding boat propellers'? I feel like there was some sort of commentary about industry/environment/economy in there beyond 'blue collar' but it went over my head. In any case, it's probably clickbait but I'm seeing a lot of "BM fans are calling this the most hosed-up episode ever" headlines and it wasn't nearly that depressing to me. Bête Noire AKA 'Gaslit By A Witch' was fantastic. Really kept me hooked trying to figure out how she was doing all this Mandela Effect stuff. I agree with the poster above who felt that the last act was too rushed, and I felt that her turning the tables at the last moment was pretty far-fetched. But the payoff in the last shot was pretty good. Hotel Reverie didn't do much for me. I kind of nodded off when they actually started playing Claire de Lune.
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Apr 14, 2025 20:49
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Doltos posted:I don't understand how they were still living in a house in Common People. Just downsize. Two adults in two well paying professions can't foot a 1200 one bedroom in some shithole town? There was a lot of implied "everyone is not well off" - their car was really old, people ripping teeth out for 20 bucks, the initial 300 monthly charge being something they had to seriously consider, going out for a burger as a once per year treat etc.
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Apr 14, 2025 22:51
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Some on-brand meta mindfuckery ... Black Mirror gaslights viewers by releasing subtly different versions of Bête Noire Mild spoilers, obviously. quote:One of the first instances of this comes when Maria gets into an argument with colleagues at work about the name of a fried chicken franchise. Because her boyfriend used to work there and still wears a cap with the logo emblazoned on it, she knows it was called Bernies. I skipped back to the start of the episode and at first thought they deliberately kept the front of the basecap out of frame, but in the final shot of the scene it's on the counter and I had the "Barnies" variant. Anyone rewound and distinctlly remembers theirs said "Bernies"? mcbexx fucked around with this message at 08:32 on Apr 15, 2025 |
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Apr 14, 2025 23:59
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mcbexx posted:I skipped back to the start of the episode and at first thought they deliberately kept the front of the basecap out of frame, but in the final shot of the scene it's on the counter and I had the "Barnies" variant. I skipped back to look at the hat too and for me it was barnies, which was what she said it was to her colleagues now I wanna see the alternate version of the conversation to see how much it differs in mine she said barnies and spelled it and they said that's not even how you would spell barneys and she explained that she thought it was like, animals who lived in a barn, like chickens and cows and they told her chickens don't live in barns and they all laugh at her
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Apr 15, 2025 00:18
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I also got the Barnie's hat version, it was the first clue that Verity wasn't just a super good hacker, though at that point I thought she was just going full gaslighting effort mode and had snuck in a fake hat to Maria's apartment and stolen the original. Another interesting detail I liked from that episode is that in the painting of Verity as Empress of the Universe it looks like one of her male worshippers is Maria's boyfriend, and I assume the other one was Natalie's husband since we never see him. Just an extra little bit of revenge she felt like doing.
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Apr 15, 2025 00:34
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Was it Love, Death, Robots where everyone got the episodes in a different order? I thought that was a cool use of streaming
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Apr 15, 2025 01:08
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My dream project for a mindfuck film would only work on a streaming service. It would be Christmas in the City, a Lifetime style, cozy red and green sweater romcom with an unlikely romance between a rich guy named Bruce and a public defender. I don't give a poo poo about the actual plot, farm it out. 98% of people get a standard rom com third act, but 2% get the gimmick. For those lucky few, the color temperature changes, the film gets grainy and the love interest gets got. The camera pans back and the city is Gotham and whoops it's a secret Batman film.
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Apr 15, 2025 02:35
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mcbexx posted:Anyone rewound and distinctlly remembers theirs said "Bernies"? Yeah went back and checked and it was Bernies for me
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Apr 15, 2025 02:39
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Originally Barnie's for me. I've watched the first four episodes, and I found Bête Noire to be the most memorable and thought-provoking. Both main characters are terrible people. Maria is hostile to Verity because Verity's an ugly duckling who has trouble forming friendships. Then it turns out Verity is a complete monster, but Maria had no idea about that when she was bullying her. I agree with the posters saying it could have been a Red Mirror episode - quantum infinite multiverse stuff is so far from any realizable technology that it's magic. The Mandela effect scenes were interesting. I know the feeling of being absolutely sure about something and then finding out the memory was wrong. I like that Maria's boyfriend described the effect by name, but in this case the universe actually was gaslighting her.
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Apr 15, 2025 04:50
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WampaLord posted:I also got the Barnie's hat version Does the Bernie's hat version exist? It'd be on brand and quite impressive if Netflix added an episode-specific Mandela Effect hack to their streaming tech to perform in-client buffer substitution triggered by first-time linear playthrough.
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Apr 15, 2025 05:31
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No in my version it was called Burnie's I distinctly remember it
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Apr 15, 2025 07:04
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Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:Was it Love, Death, Robots where everyone got the episodes in a different order? I thought that was a cool use of streaming Kaleidoscope was the Netflix show that specifically used this as its gimmick.
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Apr 15, 2025 07:57
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frumpykvetchbot posted:Does the Bernie's hat version exist? It'd be on brand and quite impressive if Netflix added an episode-specific Mandela Effect hack to their streaming tech to perform in-client buffer substitution triggered by first-time linear playthrough. Bernie's is real, and strong , and my friend. 
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Apr 15, 2025 14:59
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Chef Boyardeez Nuts posted:Bernie's is real, and strong , and my friend. So how does the work argument play out in this version? Are the coworkers the ones arguing that it’s Barnies like a barn?
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Apr 15, 2025 16:25
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Burnie's and the chicken is smoking a joint.
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Apr 15, 2025 18:07
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Common People: It's excellent drama and a perfectly accurate social critique, it's just also like drinking a cauldron full of Makes You Sad juice. A deeply demoralising episode in a lot of ways, but I think it's less hopeless than people are saying: it's a vision of right now and the message is, we absolutely cannot allow this to keep happening. It doesn't really glory in the awfulness it shows you at all - it doesn't feel gratuitous or like it's enjoying its own bleakness. Instead it feels like an urgent cry for the things it's talking about to stop. That's still not very reassuring because it's not as though one hour of television can have this effect, but I do think it's something.
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Apr 15, 2025 21:20
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Bete Noir: Amazing horror story, no notes. It's very cynical about the human condition - both the bullied nerd and the bully are exactly the same grasping, clawing narcissist once you get under the surface - but it builds suspense really well and is the exact right mix of entertaining and unsettling.
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Apr 15, 2025 22:05
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UnbearablyBlight posted:So how does the work argument play out in this version? Are the coworkers the ones arguing that it’s Barnies like a barn? Yes, the main character argues that that's not even how you spell Barney's and he replies that Barnie can spell his name however he wants.
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Apr 15, 2025 23:26
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drat Eulogy was really good 
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Apr 16, 2025 00:18
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Watched the remaining 3 episodes: Plaything Plaything was worse than Common People. Where I really didn't like Common People, I didn't care about Plaything in any way whatsoever, not even enough to actively dislike it. The closest I come to dislike is the cop being a needlessly belligerent rear end in a top hat the whole time, seemingly for the sole purpose of demonstrating Capaldi's characters' monologue about the human condition. That monologue seemingly also being not just the characters but also the writers' point of view on human nature, which is very sad, because it's wrong. We didn't used to need violence in caveman times but nowadays need cooperation and we know that but just can't quite shake our operating system or whatever. We're herd animals. Our closest relatives in the great apes are herd animals. Are common ancestors are herd animals. We have needed cooperation to survive literally since before we existed as a species. You've even done an episode in this very show that is about how terrible being socially outcast and alienated is. All the characters except for the psychologist were assholes, and not in an entertaining way. The psychologist was all business during the episode, so ultimately I couldn't really give a poo poo about any of these characters. The story was either an adaption of the idiotic Roko's basilisk idea it explicitly referenced, or it was "everyone who has ever tortured their Sims or little dudes in Populous" is a bad person. I mean really? Who gives a poo poo? Then in the end the Throng win I guess, and it is ambiguous whether that means humanity just got wiped our or reprogrammed to maybe be better somehow? So what though? There didn't appear to be anything anyone could have done about it anyway, and it might even be better? The actors and acting where good, but none of it was enough to overcome this terrible script and get me to care about any of the people or any of the tech. Easily one of the worst episodes ever. Eulogy I really liked making the main character the unreliable narrator and a specific and very believable type of rear end in a top hat. Really liked calling him out on it also. The process of slow discovery was very well done, and while the letter may have been a bit over the top, the story hit its notes well and didn't overstay its welcome. Though I do think they are overusing the temple nubs as a device at this point, the tech was interesting, and had a real nice twist reveal near the end when she turned out to be her daughter. I briefly thought she may have been the woman in question all along, but this worked even better. This was just good TV, imo, and probably the best episode of the season the more I think on it. USS Callister: Into Infinity The episode I was most skeptical of going in, both due to length and revisiting a previous episode to extend it, but I gotta say they got it right. Plenty of new ideas were explored and the already establised facts were expanded on to really earn this episode. It also didn't take itself too seriously, allowing for quite a lot of comic relief. In general what I noticed throughout the whole season is that Charlie Brooker really seems to have fallen in love with all his references more than ever before. I think San Junipero got referenced like every single episode this season? And this one had the Matrix blue pill / red pill choice and Castaway and Star Trek and Star Wars and probably a bunch more I've already forgotten. Not sure if he was self-aware enough to be making fun of that with the references to the not-Star Trek episodes done by characters in this episode or if that was just him loving loving references so much again. Either way, I could generally do with a little less of that and a little more good writing, but in this episode out of all of them it certainly fit the best. The ending was interesting enough that I really wouldn't mind a third episode of this story and this cast, because both of the USS Callister episodes, while not the absolute best Black Mirror episodes, have just been good fun. So I guess that puts my order for this season from best to worst as: 5-6-3-2-1-4 Honestly only really liked 3 out of 6 episodes, and they still weren't bangers, which makes this the worst season of Black Mirror so far for me. Orange Devil fucked around with this message at 10:23 on Apr 16, 2025 |
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Apr 16, 2025 10:20
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Everyone's talking about Giamatti, but I think Emma Corrin did an even better job. One of those roles where you absolutely can't see the actor anymore, and it's just the character
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Apr 16, 2025 10:32
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The temple device thing is fine. It's now just an understood shorthand for tech that interfaces with the brain. That or accessing the spinal cord on the back of your neck. Both avoid the need for exposition.
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Apr 16, 2025 10:34
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What if phones but too much, but too much?
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Apr 16, 2025 11:44
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Lemur Crisis posted:What if phones but too much, but too much? I thought that was Black Museum?
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Apr 16, 2025 12:07
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Eulogy: I don't think Phillip was supposed to be an arsehole, he was just portrayed as rather bad at seeing what is in front of him. 1) the note on the floor of the hotel 2) Carol's engagement ring she was wearing when he first met her 3) missing out that she was pregnant. 4) that his co-worker was hitting on him.
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Apr 16, 2025 14:10
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