7 Best of bLACK MIRROR

If I were to make a list of geniuses revolutionizing this world, it’s no question, Charlie Brooker would be on it.  His work on Black Mirror is for lack of a better phrasing, Beyond Exemplary.

Of the 22 episodes of the 6 Black Mirror seasons, all of which are Insane, the 7 are my favorites;

7. Joan Is Awful:  Joan, a regular woman finds out that her every-day life has been adopted into a TV show on Streamberry.  There’s nothing she can do to put a stop to it as she’s the one who signed over her privacy when she accepted the terms and conditions of Streamberry. 

Not that any of us ever reads those terms and conditions.

6: Mazey Day: The extent a paparazzo goes to get a dirty picture of a celebrity has never been so perfectly portrayed.  I mean, Bo, and other paparazzi go beyond what’s considered ethical and deep into the depths of insanity to get the worst of pictures; in this instance, of Mazey Day, a famous actress.

5. Arkangel: A young mother gets her daughter implanted with a child monitoring chip; Arkangel, after she temporarily goes missing while following a cat.  The audiovisual implant helps the mom monitor the girl’s every move, see what she sees and hear what she hears while protecting her from/blurring the ‘bad exposures’.  But, can she let it go, especially when the girl grows older?

4.  Nosedive: In a world where people rate each other over every interaction, and where the rating system dictates where you live, work and your level of success, everyone goes far and beyond to project a perfect lifestyle.  A series of glitches sends Lacie, who’s leading a picture-perfect lifestyle and is on the edge of becoming one of the elites with a top tier rating, to the bottom of the rate board.  Then, she learns, for the first time, she can be free and be her true self without caring about pleasing everyone else.

3. Playtest: Cooper, an American tourist stranded in London after his bank accounts are drained, playtests a yet to be released augmented reality game.  A mushroom is implanted at the back of his neck to start playing the game that focuses on one’s fears.  His entire experience in the game lasts a mere 0.04 seconds and just like all the previous gamers, he dies in the game.  

2. Men Against Fire: In this episode, soldiers are implanted with a Mass to aid in their hunting down and killing of roaches ‘human mutants.’  One of the soldiers, Stripe, learns that the purpose of Mass is to alter their perception of reality and making them perceive what’s normal and harmless into abnormal and dangerous.

1. Be Right Back:  After the loss of her boyfriend Ash, Martha signs up for a new service that creates a virtual Ash from the feeds of his online communications – photos, videos and messages.  She later upgrades to have Ash as an android body and sort of replace the dead boyfriend.

0. The Entire History of You:  This was the first episode that led me to fall in love with Black Mirror.  You are implanted with a micro-grain that records all your audiovisual experiences and memories that can replayed later, or even extended on screen for others to watch.