Black Mirror Season 7 review - Good to excellent Sci-fi TV!

These are very quickly bashed out over/reviews. Please excuse missed details, etc. But new Black Mirror is something specially to be noted down! The episode order was certainly cathartic, making us work through the rough to finish with the fun...

1 - Common People - Depressing satire of predatory subscription models. Like, "Brain River" maybe a reference to Microsoft's digital river (torrenting Windows updates between users to save on server cost, etc). Also degenerate live streaming taken to a depressing low of basically crowd sourcing self torture porn. Talking to extreme the unhealthy practices of being a 'channel', eg multi-day 'subathons' that Twitch game streamers run, at the shallow end.

Some on r/cfs (Reddit) said they were somewhat triggered by the portrayal of the wife, choosing to end her life due to being exhausted all the time, with long unrefreshing sleep and continually loosing bodily control (with forced adverts channelled *through* her). Given that this depressing quality-of-life is still better than theirs, with this living torture disease.

2 - Beté Noir - A dark side of multiverse transitioning, a bit like "Everything Everywhere All at Once". The ultimate for revenge manipulation and gaslighting. Of course, they transition through a lot of impossible universe spaces and make no attempt to explain why their minds transfer over. 'Quantum Compiler' magic.

3 - Hotel Reverie - Recreating the set and actors of old films in a 3D environment is probably contemporary tech. They stretch the envelope here by having one of the characters gain full awareness. Although I feel like this has been don e few times in 90s Star Trek, already. Contrived, with foreshadowing making major turn unsurprising. Bit too much cringe in first half and not really buying the love interest / lead's acting in the second half.

 

4 - Plaything - A spiritual successor to "Bandersnach" (I forget plot but it was interactive), set in the 90s gaming industry. This ep had a lot of meaning for me, with the "Thronglings" based on Creatures. Which were over-hyped AL (artificial life), that were supposed to learn for themselves (but the emergent behaviour was so limited they were basically just fancy Tamagotchi). The plot combines this with a splash of X-Files (computer nest), police murder enquiry (exposition) and Dollshouse (human brain overwriting by audio signals) to set-off a whimsical AI apocalypse singularity. Passing mention of a Basilisk (presumably Roko's). Although would that be anachronistic? and not sure if that may have been more a tie to Bandersnatch?

And then the QR code in the credits, taking us to THE GAME itself. Or rather, an OK mobile app version. Too fully fledged to actually be worth tryint to complete, for the casual fan.

Android game screenshot, with graphics spookily similar to the show. Good effort team!

Ep5 - Eulogy - Yet another use for Charlie Brooker's "Hoek"-like (brain interface dot stuck to temple). Ask people in the deceased's life to recall memories of them, to reconstruct a funeral tribute. With dramatisation of an ex-love interacting with her daughter. Diving into old 90s instant photos, with some fun artsy cinematography, to bridge the blurry bits of mind. Kind of heart warming, if digging through old romantic trauma to get there.

Ep6 - USS Callista: Into Infinity - Absolute S-Tier entertainment! F-ing hilarious *and* heart wrenchingly serious revisit to themes of abuse of power. The manic action scenes worked so much better for me than any Star Trek, etc, in decades, thank to the clever layering with suspension of disbelief. The crew being full uploads side-steps the usual stretch of plausibility with "if you die in the game, you die in real life" setups. (If not thinking too hard about how a DNA scanner can fabricate a mind upload.) 

Cristin Milioti absolutely CARRIES this movie quality production (and is utterly adorable). With her mad scramble desperation vs a universe of sociopaths out to kill them for fun. And relatable panicky but plucky determination, facing a former abuser, etc. I literally can't believe it is 8 years since part 1, effectively. Worth it.

 

Overall: This series was legit worth the month's subscription. Although, now on the ad supported tier (to save £60 a year), fittingly, that dis disrupt the flow of some of the episodes.