The first few seasons sorta did this in some capacity. I remember the intensely British early episodes mostly all included a social critique of some kind. A lot of the times that critique was sorta liberal in nature, but at least it was present. Early Black Mirror was almost like a Twilight Zone for gen z and millennials.

But wow did it have a sharp decline, especially after Netflix got it. Season five and Bandersnatch were especially terrible. I'm not even sure if the show has been renewed. If it ends up getting cancelled, I would hazard a guess that maybe it wasn't covid but those last two releases that did it in.

Imagine if Black Mirror retained the quality of episodes like Fifteen Million Merits all the way through its run. In this thread let's come up with actually good Black Mirror episode concepts. I always get a kick out of people doing the whole "wot if ur mum ran on batteries" bit.

    • cosecantphi [he/him, they/them]
      ·
      4 years ago

      Personally I liked San Junipero just because it was a short break from the bleak and depressing episodes it is surrounded with. It wasn't totally dystopian like the rest of the show, but it was bittersweet in a way. Also the idea of perhaps one day being able to upload my brain into a computer has always been something I've found interesting.

      But yeah, the show had several noticeable drops in quality after Netflix adopted it. I enjoyed season three, just not as much as I did the first two seasons. Then I felt season four was maybe just a tiny bit worse than season three. But the worst drop in quality was the jump to season five, by far. I think they simply ran out of interesting stories they could tell by that point. Either that or they started massively phoning it in.

    • cilantrofellow [any]
      ·
      4 years ago

      I liked the Callister/Star Trek season 4episode but I am a huge sucker for anything set in space or having a techy sci-fi plot. I put up with a lot of garbage and that was awesome by comparison.

          • StolenStalin [comrade/them,they/them]
            ·
            4 years ago

            No it's not a simulation on their deathbed. It's for after you die. You just get to test it when you get a terminal illness. Literal virtual afterlife.

                • meme_monster [none/use name]
                  ·
                  4 years ago

                  Easily disproved by the multiple universe theory. If I die in a random accident in this universe I'm still dead even if my counterpart in other universes lives on. If you dub off a copy of the living, breathing me then that copy is just an impostor.

                • ToastGhost [he/him]
                  ·
                  4 years ago

                  what if you copy it then dont die? are you the original? the copy? both? what happens when you die after some time.

                  I dont think your perception would jump over, it would be like an identical twin dying.

          • carbohydra [des/pair]
            ·
            4 years ago

            I saw it more as "heaven is a place on earth", how utterly banal and hopeless the Heaven they created was

        • glk [none/use name]
          ·
          4 years ago

          It was cute. It was years ago so I don't remember many specifics. I disagree that it needs to be dystopian so that explains the difference.

    • Awoo [she/her]
      ·
      4 years ago

      San Junipero is one of the worst episodes of anything I have ever watched

      Why do you say that?

        • joseph [he/him, they/them]
          ·
          4 years ago

          it's only a happy ending if you think having your brain uploaded into a megacompany's supercomputer is a good thing.