Simone Reddington

Last month saw Charlie Brooker’s dystopian television series Black Mirror return to our screens for its seventh series.  Originally a Channel 4 production when the first series was aired in 2011 before being picked up by Netflix four years later, the show is an anthology of various stories that warn us of the dangers to society that future developments of technology may impose.  I am not normally a fan of science fiction, but Black Mirror is a genius piece of television that uses contemporary themes to force the viewer to question the world around us.  Here are the six episodes in the latest series, ranked (in my own opinion) from worst to best.  

6) Plaything- Despite an impressive cast which included Peter Capaldi and James Nelson-Joyce (fresh from BBC’s This City Is Ours), I thought this episode was really poor.  Set in the year 2034, Plaything centres around a reclusive murder suspect who explains in his police interview how he used technology from computer games consoles over the last forty years to develop a Tamagotchi-style game that he was asked to review back in the 1990s for his own sinister purposes.  I just thought the concept was too niche and detached from reality to be genuinely frightening, and I completely lost interest halfway through watching it.     

5) USS Callister: Into Infinity- The final episode of the season is a sequel to an episode from season four, USS Callister.  Robert Daly (played by Jesse Plemons) is a computer game programmer at a company called Callister Inc., where he is under-recognised for his part in developing the poplular online game ‘Infinity’.  He takes revenge on his colleagues by creating digital clones from their DNA, and places them on a spaceship in the game called ‘USS Callister’ where he was the captain and demonstrated his power to torture them if they disobeyed orders, as he had complete control of the game.  In the sequel, the CEO of Callister Inc, James Walon (played by Jimmi Simpson), discovers there are players in the game who don’t have a subscription and, not knowing that they are actually illegal clones of himself and his employees, makes it his mission to destroy them.  The original USS Callister episode was critically acclaimed and won four Emmy awards back in 2018, but I personally wasn’t a huge fan of it.  I enjoyed the sequel even less, as I found it far too long and complex.  I’m really not a fan of sci-fi and stories set in space so it was not for me at all.   

4) Common People- A lot of people online are saying that Common People, which opened the seventh season was the best episode, but I would respectfully disagree. Starring Chris O’Dowd and Rashida Jones as Mike and Amanda, a working-class couple who dream of starting their own family, but their lives are turned upside down when Amanda is left in a coma after being diagnosed with a brain tumour.  A tech company offers them the chance to resume their lives through a subscription service, ‘Rivermind’, which will restore her cognitive abilities through an online server for $300 dollars a month. However, this lifeline turns out to be too good to be true when it transpires that the company is constantly updating its services, which are offered to its users on a tiered payment plan.  The couple therefore find themselves in a very difficult financial position when they realise that they must pay the extortionate premium package prices to stop Riverview from using Amanda to convey their automated sponsored ads.  I did find it very interesting that Netflix appeared to satirise itself, as the company introduced a cheaper, ad-supported service in 2022.  Don’t get me wrong, it was very powerful, but I personally preferred other episodes this season.   

3) Bête Noire– The second episode explores the premise of the Mandela effect, which is when a large group of people incorrectly remember something that didn’t actually happen.  When Maria (played by Siena Kelly) has a blast from the past when the unpopular girl, Verity (played by Rosy McEwen), whom she bullied at school starts at the company she works for, it suddenly turns out that a lot of things she remembers from the past aren’t what she remembered.  What was the name of the chicken shop that she used to for work for, for example, Barney’s or Bernie’s?  Although I wouldn’t describe ‘Bête Noire’ as frightening, as the tech element wasn’t realistic, it was a thrilling and suspenseful watch that had me gasping until the final scene.  

2) Eulogy- Using technology to connect with loved ones after death is a commonly explored theme in Black Mirror.  In Eulogy, Paul Giamatti delivers an incredible performance as Philip, an older American gentleman who receives the news at the beginning of the episode that his girlfriend, named Carol, of many years ago had passed away.  He is then contacted by a tech company, who invite him to upload photos for Carol’s funeral through a digital chip.  The digital chip also allows him to step into the photos and revisit his past with Carol with the wisdom provided by age and hindsight.  Eulogy is different to other Black Mirror episodes as it doesn’t warn us of potential catastrophes that technology can cause but instead reminds us of how it can help us.  Although we are not quite at the stage where we can immerse ourselves into our photos, it is nice that we can easily take snapshots on our smartphones and store our happy memories on the cloud where we can keep them forever  

1) Hotel Reverie- I think the rise of artificial intelligence is one of the most terrifying things that humanity has ever faced, and this theme is explored in a really interesting way in my favourite episode of season seven.  Hotel Reverie is the name of a fictional 1940s classic movie starring the tragic Hollywood starlet, Dorothy Chambers (played by Emma Corrin), who later took her own life in a way that makes the character appear to be based on Marilyn Monroe.  When a modern film company remake Hotel Reverie, they cut costs and filming time by sending Hollywood actress Brandy Friday (played by Issa Rae) into an AI simulation of the black-and-white movie where she plays the role of the film’s leading man, switched as a female.  When technical problems strike and Brandy finds herself trapped in the film, she learns more about Dorothy and understands her in a way that nobody else did in her short lifetime.  I found the satirical viewpoint of the entertainment industry interesting, and I loved the gorgeous relationship depicted by Corrin and Rae.