I never watched it, but I've heard about this show both in passing and in "left spaces." Are any of these things true about it? Thanks.
--It is too on the nose with its social commentary. --The criticism it makes is obvious. --The subjects it tackles are low-hanging fruit of the digital era. --It is the stupid person's idea of a profound show. --Something about it being British led to more dunks on it. --The reason it entered left discourse in the first place is because it had potential as a critical text, but ultimately failed at it.
If you've ever indulged in Sci-fi/Speculative fiction short stories (anthology collections, author collections, magazines, websites) the episodes felt like somebody trying to make a 1 hour long show out of a short story premise.
For me, that's my kinda slop. But not for everybody and most of the episodes could have been way shorter, which would have probably made them better.
I like it quite a bit. Sure, it lacks the strong anticapitalist message you want to see but it's still a pretty good series that shows how new technologies can turn into dystopia because of the way capitalism utilizes them.
Yeah I wouldnt call it a leftist show per-se but the underlying message is certainly better than what you get in most tv productions.
It is too on the nose with its social commentary.
I think that's more of a case of reality being too on the nose - the episode where the british prime minister fucks a pig was released 4 years before british prime minister David Cameron was revelead to have fucked a pig
cw: death
('s decapitated head)
Its british twilight zone but with cell phones. The first two episodes are arguably the best two episodes, the one where the prime minister fucks a pig and 15 million credits are great. After netflix bought it the show hasnt been as good, but they did make shut up and dance and nosedive which is arguably the third and forth best episodes, but the quality seems to drop over the seasons. Like one season they tried to introduce continuity and overused these AI egg things and some of the episodes do lean too heavily into “fones r bad” view of technology, and other episodes are just a bit too happy. A good black mirror episode should leave you feeling dirty.
- Sometimes, although there have been some where that’s more in retrospect or became that way because of future events.
- Mmm, yeah
- Ehh I wouldn’t say that. Maybe as compared to an academic work by a cyberethics expert, sure, but by mass consumption standards it’s good.
- The Venn diagram of intelligent people and people who think your intelligence is determined by what show you watch has no overlap.
- Not sure. Maybe? I know that “make fun of everything British” meme made the rounds a year or two back so it wouldn’t surprise me.
- I think it typically presented capitalism in a negative light, but because it was more about the observation on the dystopia than a solution for it, it couldn’t be truly revolutionary.
Wot if ur mate was a tv wot if ur baby was an iphone wot if ur dog could connect to wifi wot if ya had to charge ya shoes before going outside
I thought it was entertaining. Thats it. I wouldnt call it deep or anything. Got a couple of good episodes and some weak ones. Not every show needs to be some great piece of art. I agree that its a bit silly at times but I had fun with it.
it's black! And a mirror! Its an intentional oxymoron, Jerry! George doesn't like intentional oxymorons. Never liked them. They bother me. Now, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep"? That's techno-dystopia fiction I can get behind.It's even worse. The black mirror is a phone screen. Muh phones
Most episodes feel like a half-baked sci-fi and/or dystopian premise, but really long and drawn out. It's like a whole season of filler episodes.
I watched the first season or two.
It was pretty fun and often the social commentary was decent.
At its best it does a what-if with regards to the direction society is moving towards, except in typical sci-fi fashion it's a bit ostentatious (which is built in because every[?] episode is a single, self-contained story so you can't engage in world-building or narrative arcs or much character development and it's naturally going to lack the subtlety that longer-form shows have the privilege of developing because it has to draw you right in from the get-go, at the risk of being hamfisted.)
At its worst it's just "phone bad, society bad".
It's mostly just the media version of a carnival ride - it's a short affair that provides some amount of thrill and you go for the experience, not to get some life-changing insight from it.
I think that people who say it's the stupid person's idea of a profound show are mostly responding to other people's overly positive response to the show and not necessarily to the show itself; does the show intend to be a deep, serious philosophical meditation on things as they might be in the near future? I don't really think so, at least not for most of the stuff I remember watching.
Do some people get overhyped about it and start engaging in a pissing contest with others to see who is the biggest fan and who can rhapsodise about it the best, just like what happens Elon Musk fanboys get together? Yep, sure do.
I think a lot of people either wanted it to become something more than just satire vignettes or otherwise they fell into that common trap of glamorising what could have been, rather than evaluating what actually exists. (Pick your favourite musician, author, or comedian who died young, that band that only released one great album before breaking up, that game that got stuck in development hell and was released half-finished... whatever it happens to be, some people just fall madly in love with unrealised potential and it's that same psychological effect that a decent proportion of people fall prey to with this show.)
I don't think it ever really had much potential for being a critical text (easy to say from thr comfortable position of speaking retrospectively, no?) because by its nature it was too disparate and so there was never going to be any unifying thesis that underpinned the show, just some broad thematic similarities that most of the episodes shared in.
Idk, it's just the Simpsons Treehouse of Horror Halloween specials except it's near future sci-fi, adult, and engaging in satire and deconstruction of society with a focus on how technology might amplify the worst aspects of it.
It's a good social comentary. It isn't explicitly anti crap-it-all-ist but it can touch some of the underlying things to watch out for. It's future-adjacent dystopia stuff. How a society can be blind to the insideous nature and not think they are getting fucked...well the pig fucker one is pretty on the nose
Some episodes can be filler as with any series. Later episodes tend to be worse, but I think the writers were getting tired of it and started to parody themselfs and just remove the 4th wall but in a not funny deadpool way, but a "we're sick of making this slop for you" way.
I enjoyed Nosedive. I liked this review of it which breaks it down.
Just got off the phone with my lib husband in awe of Zuckerfuck buying a $200M yacht with profits he stole from his workers and selling his users out to the security state and insurance and marketing companies.
Told him I hope it sinks.As the creator of the show said the series is meant to warn us.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Like any anthology, find a skip list before watching and it becomes a good experience
