Black Mirror Season 4 (1 Viewer)

[mattCR]

The binge worthy series makes a return today; off to a great start.

 

[Hollywoodaholic]

Hot damn. Know what's on my schedule tonight. But you can't binge this show; there's only so much dark side of technology you can take in one sitting.

 

[Hollywoodaholic]

Only Black Mirror could turn the benevolent universe of Star Trek into a form of hell, lol.

The only thing that would have made the "USS Callister" episode more perfect is....

Spoiler

... if that last gamer voice you heard was punctuated with a beautiful Jesse Pinkman "BITCH!"

 

[mattCR]

Hang the DJ, USS Castille, Black Museum were all fantastic; Metalhead is underrated and terrifying. Was not so much a fan of Crocodile, and Arkangel was "OK" .

 

[Hanson]

I was amused by the fact that Black Museum is an anthology episode set in an anthology series. The call backs to other Black Mirror episodes in the museum was a nice touch.

Cristin Milioti has gigantic anime eyes. I'm sure they didn't CGI them, but the way they shot her in USS Callister made her look like a Margaret Keane painting, moreso than I remember from HIMYM.

Arkangel was meh. Once you got past the horrible consequences of the tech (which was readily apparent in the first act), the rest of the episode fell into place about exactly how you would expect it. It really could have been half the runtime without losing anything.

Still have Crocodile, Hang the DJ, and Metalhead to go.

 

[benbess]

Did not care for USS Callister.

In an interview with star Cristin Milioti, she says, "My 12-year-old self was just flipping out: To sit in a captain’s chair in a spaceship and say, “I got this” is crazy! That’s not who we see in the chair growing up as a girl."

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/l...stin-milioti-space-epic-uss-callister-1070670

Actually, when she was 12, Star Trek: Voyager, starring Kate Mulgrew as Captain Janeway, had been on for 2 years. I guess she didn't watch it. But I thought the episode was a poor parody of Star Trek from the 1960s-1980s. No one in my family liked it much, including my wife and my daughter. Anyway, just our 2 cents.

 

[Josh Dial]

The USS Callister episode was my second favourite after Hang the DJ. Hang the DJ joins Nosedive and San Junipero in my top three favourite episodes of the series.

USS Callister unknowingly (and unintentionally, of course) mocked the "fans" that criticized Star Trek Discovery from a backward, outdated, invalid point of view. Loved it.

 

[MarkMel]

I don't know, for me this season of episodes don't seem to be as good to me as the previous seasons. I did like Hang the DJ and the fact that they played the song at the end. I'll have to go back and watch Black Museum. I think I fell asleep during it. USS Callister was meh.

 

[MarkMel]

Rewatched Black Museum. It was good. I think some of the stories this year would have worked better in a 30 or 45 minute format. I also think it would be cool if they just edited it to its perfect story flow regardless of the final time length. Netflix does not need to be in 30/60 minute box. There are some of this series that go over 60 mins though.

 

[Hollywoodaholic]

"Hang the DJ" great great episode, perfect twist.

"Arkangel" was directed by Jodie Foster. It's a powerful little horror story of how taking helicoptering parenting too far can seriously backfire.

"Crocodile" goes about as dark as you can get.

 

[Hollywoodaholic]

Provocative article on the "Arkangel" episode from UK's The Guardian.

What if we, the helicopter parents are the ones not growing up and who are being infantilized in the digital age?

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-...losing-their-minds-in-the-digital-age-parents

I've used the Find Friends app on iPhone to check where my son is (did he go to class at college, stay over at his girlfriend's?), and he agreed to have it and is aware of this monitoring ability (friends use it to check where friends are at), but this episode just takes off with that premise to an extreme, but not so unbelievable degree.

 

[Josh Dial]

I also think it would be cool if they just edited it to its perfect story flow regardless of the final time length.

Black Mirror episodes are made without any regard to runtime (except to the extent runtime influences budget). The episodes take as long as the creative team want.

 

[Hollywoodaholic]

"Metalhead" Episode 5. Anyone else totally get a "The Invaders" vibe from The Twilight Zone on this? A black and white episode about a lone woman relentlessly pursued by some nasty little metallic things. Practically no dialogue. Just run, kill, or be killed. Very well directed. The robots are called dogs, but to me they looked more like huge cockroaches, which is a lot creepier. And might explain why they survived some apocalyptic event.

 

[Hollywoodaholic]

I truly enjoyed every episode this season and didn't think there were any 'clunkers,' though "U.S.S. Callister" and "Hang the DJ" were my clear favorites.

The last episode, "Black Museum" was very much like an episode of Night Gallery, with three inclusive stories plus one related to the host, and a bit of a different tone for each. My least favorite part of Night Gallery were the Jack Laird attempts at funny shorts, but this episode had some quick, dark-but-funny bits that worked quite well, IMO. I'll never look at a stuffed monkey the same way again.

 

[mattCR]

"Metalhead" Episode 5. Anyone else totally get a "The Invaders" vibe from The Twilight Zone on this? A black and white episode about a lone woman relentlessly pursued by some nasty little metallic things. Practically no dialogue. Just run, kill, or be killed. Very well directed. The robots are called dogs, but to me they looked more like huge cockroaches, which is a lot creepier. And might explain why they survived some apocalyptic event.

I took it as though at some point, humanity designed Robotic guard dogs, and they went all wrong. I did find the end reveal - what it was they were hunting for in the warehouse, to be very sad. Some parts of it reminded me of the Playstation4 game: "Horizon Zero Dawn"

 

[NeilO]

Did not care for USS Callister.

I just watched USS Callister last night. While I admit it was well done, the internal logic of the episode doesn't hold for me. There are just too many layered requests to suspense disbelief

Spoiler

The ones that came to mind:
We are asked to believe that the digital clones have all the memories of the originals, but that Daly has never used any of their memories to advance his situation in the real world.

He seems to have good security on his front door, but no other security for his apartment.

It is a forced update to a game which doesn't require the user to restart it.

He is working on his private development build which had no safeguards from being destroyed by the update. Is this really the first update since he started that version?
------------
And then there is the added darkness of the episode of Daly apparently dying while playing the game, which if found out means that eventually the whole company will go under and the game will end.

 

[Greg.K]

Season 5 coming June 5! Yay!

Only 3 episodes! Boo!