Black Mirror Season 6 -
two out of five ain't bad...I suppose - spoiler free review of Charlie Brooker's latest series of anthology tales
I first found Charlie Brooker through Screenwipe/Weekly Wipe - a darkly satirical look at the news, current events, tv, pop culture, anything really and the very brilliant Dead Set (note this is all prior to the transfer to Netflix). The original run of Black Mirror broke everyone’s minds when it kicked off with the first episode, National Anthem, where the British Prime Minister has to have sex with a pig live on tv to save the royal family’s princess; and of course I take this opportunity to remind everyone about how shortly after this episode aired, it transpired that real life prime minister at the time, David Cameron, was alleged to have partaken in an Eton initiation ritual that eerily mirrored the contents of this episode. Just, you know, reminding everyone that a majority of British politicians are generally terrible.
Anyway, moving swiftly on to the most recent outing of Black Mirror. A five episode drop landed on Netflix, and I think there were anticipations around content - typically Black Mirror leans into the dystopian, sort of science fiction, but more a sub-genre of speculative fiction, obviously a lot has happened in the last four years since the last series. Perhaps dystopian tales about the downfall of humanity is a bit on the nose. So it sort of made sense for Black Mirror to completely ignore the very real horrors of pandemic life. What results is a very mixed bag of stories - so here’s my spoiler-free review of each episode, from least enjoyed to the episodes that in my opinion, stood out from the rest.
Joan Is Awful
Joan, a high level executive discovers her real life events are being played out in an almost-real time “Streamberry” show - Joan Is Awful. According to her lawyers, when she signed up for the streaming service, she also signed over the rights to her image, her life, the things she says, the things she does to them. What ensues is a messy, baggy narrative, that wholly misses the mark. I felt like this was written to be a smart, edgy look at streaming culture, what it means to have your interests and viewing habits coded by algorithms - actually it came off as smarmy and condescending. I can only imagine the Silicon Valley media types gleefully rubbing their hands in self-congratulatory delight at how “clever” they were being. It wasn’t clever, it was irritating, smug and nonsensical. There is a sort of attempt at an Everything Everywhere All At Once multiverse to explain the premise, but I’m not buying it. If anything, it just made me cringe at how someone at Netflix clung on to the ‘meta-ness’ of having a Netflix show that shows what clearly is Netflix (Streamberry? the name alone is shudder-inducing) harvesting data from all their unsuspecting subscribers in order to make content. It’s giving American Congress interrogating TikTok CEO levels of cringe-worthiness.
Final verdict - don’t waste your time on this - it made me almost cancel my Netflix membership out of sheer spite (until I saw that all three seasons of Hannibal were now on the streaming service - you’re lucky Netflix)
Mazey Day
Paparazzi narratives are quite boring at the best of times to be perfectly honest. Bo - a morally ambiguous but clearly financially unstable paparazzi photographer, gets wind of a $30,000 offer for photos of troubled celebrity Mazey Day who’s gone missing after a car accident in Czechia. To reveal any more, would reveal the “twist” but the twist, isn’t really anything to get excited about. In what is possibly the least “Black Mirror” episode ever, Mazey Day is quite dull, all the usual cliches of paparazzis feeling morally torn between going straight and earning money via non-exploitative means to giving in to the money shots of illicit same-sex affairs of actors still in the closet. What Mazey Day does, Nightcrawler, the Jake Gyllenhaal 2014 movie dealing with similar, albeit lacking the “celebrity chasing” element, does it better. The culmination of the narrative is boring, lacking any satisfying conclusion and relies on a massive suspense of disbelief, that I just couldn’t give.
Final verdict - boring, but at least not as self-congratulatory as Joan is Awful.
Loch Henry
Pia and Davis are film students on a family-orientated vacation to Davis’ mother, Janet, in the somewhat isolated town of Loch Henry. They learn of a serial killer who terrorised the town in the late 80’s from animated barman, and old friend of Davis, Stuart - who in my opinion puts in the best performance of anyone across the entire 6th series of Black Mirror. They decide to make their film project about the serial killer, and unravel some horrifying truths about the current residents of the town. I’m quite the fan of true crime, but I will also take the opportunity to distance myself from the slightly more oddball true crime fan (you know the ones I’m talking about - I’ve never once been tempted to create my own true crime podcast) so I enjoyed the premise of this episode. Again, you could sort of see the twist coming from a mile off, but I appreciated the true crime content. It sort of lost me again toward the end, Streamberry making an unwelcome comeback, and with it a self-congratulatory pat on the back for all those meta-loving execs at Netflix. But at least this story held together up to that point. It was compelling and sits nicely in any true crime style drama. And of course, I have to mention Bergerac, Jersey’s flagship tv show, the irony of Bergerac being a front for something much more sinister isn’t lost on me having learned about some of the more shady happenings of Jersey’s past.
Final verdict - give it a bash, particularly if you like crime dramas. Just try to not let the jarring intrusion of Streamberry ruin it for you.
Beyond The Sea
I really enjoyed Beyond the Sea - I love science fiction, so I was relieved after Joan is Awful and Loch Henry to see the very familiar settings of hard sci-fi. In the interest of being spoiler-free, it would give too much away to go into detail on the plot. The main premise of the episode is revealed about 15 mins in, and it becomes clear early on that this is the ‘what if’ episode of this season. I’ve always had a soft spot for sci-fi that posits a universe with it’s own rules, presented normalities that are established on speculation, then throws in moral and ethical dilemmas, and of course, despite the constructed universe, human nature never changes. The inevitable narrative arc and conclusion isn’t really a mystery. Most sci-fi fans will be able to accurately predict the outcome of Beyond The Sea, which doesn’t detract from its enjoyment. Our two leads, Aaron Paul and Josh Hartnett both put in reserved but solid performances, what stands out is their believability. Given that Beyond the Sea is set in the 60’s, their opposing masculine identities perfectly compliment one another. Josh Hartnett playing a somewhat tortured artistic soul who has an eye for beauty and detail, whereas Aaron Paul’s character provides the juxtaposing all-American masculine husband and father figure who is markedly devoid of artistic or emotional expression. It’s a strong episode, that whilst not being the most revolutionary sci-fi tale, gives an interesting take on its subject matter.
Final verdict - if you came to Black Mirror for your dystopian what if’s - then Beyond the Sea should be the top of your list. Enjoyable, reserved and engaging.
Demon 79
Demon 79 is my favourite episode of Black Mirror season 6. I think it’s another episode to go into knowing as little about it as possible, so for a super basic premise, Nida is working in a department store in a small English northern town. She regularly suffers from xenophobic abuse from her colleagues, far right political groups are on the rise - the political element being attributed to the conservatives isn’t an accident - currently in the UK there is a return of strong anti-immigrant sentiments being peddled by the government and media - all with roots in deep-seated racism and a brand of nationalism that unfortunately seems so present today. After a particularly strong complaint about Nida’s lunch, she’s relegated to the basement to eat, where she finds a talisman, and it all unravels from here. Demon 79 combines horror, supernatural and societal commentary; and thickly dark humour. It’s a really compelling episode, I couldn’t work out where it was going, there was one of two outcomes, and I’m pleased it leaned right into the absurd. It’s quite violent, but in true Black Mirror style, the violence, the choices presented are all laced with ethical dilemmas - the morally “good” option or the primal “bad” option. It’s a strong punchy episode that brings with it the fun, the cheekiness of Black Mirror without being condescending.
Final verdict - my favourite, all the components of Black Mirror that I love are in Demon 79. I want to be challenged by the things I watch, I don’t want to be patronised, and Demon 79 is a joy to watch, it’s original and satisfying.
Overall - this outing of Black Mirror is far weaker in comparison to its predecessors. There does seem to be an overall abandonment of the distinctly British flavour of gloom that came with the previous series. When you compare these White Bear, Fifteen-million Merits, Hated in the Nation, San Junipero and of course, the bristlingly disturbing, Shut Up and Dance - Black Mirror series 6 falls short of the great TV we’ve seen so far. It’s a shame, because Black Mirror isn’t something I particularly clamour for, I’m content with what has been rolled out so far, but where there are new series, my expectations are high. To me it does seem like there is a tameness to them since moving to Netflix, maybe it’s to appeal to American audiences? Could you imagine the American version of the National Anthem? Donald Trump can incite a riot with a few choice words, what would live-streamed pig-loving do to the fragility of the American ethos? I miss that Britishness of Black Mirror and I’m pleased there are nods to it, but it seems to lack the gritty doom and speculative fiction that I’ve come to expect from Charlie Brooker.
Black Mirror (season 3-6) can be found on Netflix, I’m not sure where series 1 & 2 went - we definitely watched The White Bear after watching Joan is Awful to remind ourselves that Black Mirror is good.