TV Review: Black Mirror Season 4

Black Mirror Season 4 created by Charlie Brooker

I remember a story in Plato's Republic about a guy traveling along a road who noticed a group of people gathering on the side up ahead. He asked what they were looking at. Someone told him it was a dead carcass that looked horrible. At first, the guy's attitude was, "I don't want to look at that." But he had that nagging feeling that it would be interesting in a macabre way. He debated with himself--it was far too late to help out; he had places to be; he'd be giving in to baser instincts to take delight in the suffering of others. He still felt the nagging, which only became stronger. By the time he got to the spot he was very worked up and shouted, "Feast yourselves, you damn eyes of mine!" I feel that way about Black Mirror--it's often about the misery that technology inflicts on us, though we are the ones who came up with the tech, so the blame isn't in our gadgets but in ourselves. Bleak pessimism can be cathartic or just annoying, depending on how you feel about it. Here's an episode-by-episode rundown of Season 4...

Episode 1, USS Callister--A brilliant coder is co-founder of a company that provides a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) set in a Star Trek-like universe. He's a creative genius but also awkward and too nerdy for his own good. He has his own version of the game with his own rules and own modifications. One disturbing modification is how he has characters that are copies of his co-workers. These characters are totally subservient to him (unlike their real-life counterparts). A new female coder joins the company, setting a new twist to what's going on in the co-founder's private MMORPG. The episode is a little predictable. The final plan and the ending don't make a lot of sense, undercutting a reasonably intelligent setup. The show presents an interesting but totally artificial problem which makes for ultimately uncompelling viewing.

Episode 2, Arkangel--A slightly paranoid mom volunteers for a trial of a new technology that's about to hit the market. The tech is Arkangel, a chip inserted in her daughter's skull that let's the mom track where the daughter is, her vital statistics, and what she sees. The system comes with a filter that will pixelate anything traumatic that the daughter sees, like a neighbor's barking dog. After a couple of years of use (and after the system was banned partly because the process is irreversible), the mom turns off the tablet linking her too closely to her growing daughter. Of course, the mom doesn't throw the thing away, just stores it in the attic. By the time the daughter is a teen, the temptation is too much not to leave the tablet in the attic. She sees more of her daughter's life than she should. The daughter finds out and goes ballistic. The story was highly predictable for me, which could be okay if there were other compensating qualities. The acting was just so-so and the idea is recycled from earlier seasons. There's no deep insight or understanding of the mother/daughter relationship. The episode is not particularly enjoyable or interesting.

Episode 3, Crocodile--A young couple, Mia and Rob, drive home on an isolated road after a night of clubbing and drinking. Their fun buzz is ruined when they hit and kill a bicyclist. Rob decides to cover up the accident, throwing the body and the bike into a nearby lake. Mia is unhappy about that but promises never to tell. The story then jumps ahead fifteen years. She's now married to someone else and has a nine-year old son. She goes to a conference where Rob drops in on her. He's gone sober and wants to confess anonymously to the wife of the bicyclist. Mia doesn't, realizing anonymity won't work. She winds up killing Rob in her hotel room. She tries to cover up that crime, leading down a spiral of death and hopelessness. The episode is exceptionally bleak (she winds up killing a lot of people in hands-on grisly ways) and the way she is finally caught is so unbelievable it comes off as desperate writing.

Episode 4, Hang the DJ--A seemingly idyllic resort matches people up to test their compatibility with the hope of making a perfect match. Individuals go through several relationships until the system can match two people with 99.8% compatibility. Frank and Amy have their first pair-up which lasts only 12 hours (a number generated by the system based on the data they have collected). They hit it off really well and are bummed that they have to separate. They start going through other relationships which are more or less unsatisfying. Eventually, they start to question the validity of the system. The surprise twist seems obvious and like the other relationships, is more or less unsatisfying. The episode borrows too much from earlier episodes in Black Mirror.

Episode 5, Metalhead--Three desperate people make it to a warehouse in a clearly post-apocalyptic environment. They hunt carefully through for just the right package, but not carefully enough. A four-legged robotic tracker attacks them, killing two of them on the spot. The final person flees in terror, with the episode chronicling that flight. The premise is very lean, a characteristic enhanced by the black and white cinematography. The episode looks stylish without having the emphasis solely on the style. As the woman tries to outsmart the robot, she has many challenges. The story is harrowing and exciting in the right blend. True to the show, the ending is not so upbeat but at least it fits with the story and the humanity of the characters it portrays.

Episode 6, Black Museum--A young woman traveling to visit her father stops to power up her car (it's run on solar panels) and goes into Rolo Haynes's Black Museum, a place collecting all sorts of technological devices used experimentally to help others. All of the devices wound up being parts of crimes. Rolo is the curator of the museum, which only has the young woman as a guest. After explaining a few exhibits, he takes her to the star attraction behind the velvet curtain. The episode starts out as an anthology of shorter stories but they all tie together building to the finale. The gore content gets too high early on and the story gets too predictable at the end.

Overall, the season is a disappointment for me. The only episode I liked was Metalhead. Series creator and writer Charlie Brooker is too focused on the idea of uploading human consciousness with little new to say in episode after episode. The show is very pessimistic about both human nature and technological advances. It really is the sort of roadside carnage that we all should look away from but sadly too often don't.

Available on Netflix, though I don't recommend it.