Black Mirror is a British television series, created by Charlie Brooker, which has to date aired six episodes in two series of three episodes each. The titular "black mirror" represents the screens of our technology - televisions, computer monitors, smartphones - and the series consists of standalone episodes in the manner of The Twilight Zone, each considering a different aspect of how modern technology affects us now through a look at how it may effect us in the speculative future.
I recently watched both series and I just want to give you a single paragraph on each episode, more as a reaction than a review.
S01 E01 The National Anthem
Rory Kinnear, who I most recently saw playing Bolingbroke in the first episode of The Hollow Crown, "Richard II", plays the British Prime Minister faced with a seemingly absurd demand in exchange for the life of a popular princess. What first seems humourous descends into unease and then disgust; yet the story sympathises with the motive of its villain, both only revealed in hindsight, and it seems impossible to disagree.
S01 E02 Fifteen Million Merits
Perhaps the most overtly science-fictional story of the lot, and one which apparently has some personal resonance with the careers of Charlie Brooker and his wife Kanak "Konnie" Huq of which I am unaware, not being British. Daniel Kaluuya and Jessica Brown Findlay are very effective in appropriately emotionally-restricted roles; a story of constant media saturation as popular pacification which perverts or subverts anything genuine is perhaps a little obvious, but well-made.
S01 E03 The Entire History of You
This was probably the most effective episode but, due to its subject matter and the excellent performances of Toby Kebbell and Jodie Whittaker, absolutely the hardest for me to watch. It's effectively the story of how a given technology - the ability to record and replay everything you experience - magnifies one man's insecurities and faults, giving him the ability to pursue a suspicion he'd have been better off leaving alone.
S02 E01 Be Right Back
Although "The Entire History of You" affected me more because it was so raw, "Be Right Back" (starring Hayley Atwell and Domhnall Gleeson) is definitely the best episode of the six as far as I'm concerned. It's a very small and intimate meditation on grief and coping, and how the real person is always more - for better and for worse - than your memories of them after they're gone.
S02 E02 White Bear
This is the episode that gets all the plaudits, and it is very good although it relies on a conceit which I began to expect about halfway through the episode. Lenora Crichlow is the lead in a role which really asks very little of her, but she's so expressive within those confines that it doesn't end up mattering much. I'm less affected by the driving tension of this episode than others were, but it's very well done.
S02 E03 The Waldo Moment
The most straightforward satire of all six episodes, and the least speculative of them all. Daniel Rigby plays a comedian stuck playing a cartoon bear who gets involved in a by-election for the House of Commons; his performance is fine but I was more interested in Chloe Pirrie as the newbie Labour candidate and especially Tobias Menzies (Brutus! Edmure Tully!) as the safe-seat Tory candidate. This episode repeats the "dissent will always be co-opted" theme from "Fifteen Million Merits"; while it's not bad television by any means, it's a hard task to make something good out of a story of so many people who basically don't want to be there at all.
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