Is Black Mirror Actually Good Now?

For years, I’ve held an unpopular opinion about this Science Fiction show. With “USS Callister,” maybe that’s over

I’ve disliked Black Mirror since season 1, but there’s so much positive buzz around it each time a new season rolls around that I’m dragged back in to watching an episode or two and being disappointed all over again. The problem is that it casts itself as a serious show filled with original ideas that like, really make you think, maaaan, but it’s more boring than thought-provoking. “Fifteen Million Merits” (S01E02) is the episode where most of society is basically enslaved and a gameshow with absurdly high stakes is used as a method of control. That is not very original at all. There’s also “Nosedive” (S03E01), where your social standing is entirely based on other peoples’ Yelp-like reviews of you, personally. Not as big a sin as the gameshow thing, but still a concept I found about as interesting as yet another “Are iPhones ruining Millennials?” thinkpiece. And then there’s “San Junipero,” whose central concept was uploading your mind after death. This is such a tired and well-tread SF concept that it’s easier to direct you to the TV Tropes page about it instead of giving examples.

There’s nothing wrong with using what came before. There’s nothing new under the sun, and the cultural chiasmata that results from widespread borrowing is part of the fun of Science Fiction. There are two main issues though with Black Mirror‘s lifting of ideas from the ether: one, many reviewers praise it specifically for its imagination, and two, it’s marketed as one hour of self-contained, high-concept television. When you build a show specifically to explore ideas, and people praise your show for how fresh and new those ideas are, the originality of your concepts is important. Season 5 of Agents of  S.H.I.E.L.D. had a great brain-upload virtual universe storyline, and it didn’t land as hackneyed because it was just one element of a character-driven action drama that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Black Mirror‘s multiple in-episode rants about the State of Society, its completely on-the-nose moralizing, and its self-seriousness disqualify it from the relaxed critical standards that something like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. enjoys. Also, much of the dialogue is flabby, a lot of the episodes are either under- or over-acted, and the actual execution of each show is boring. It’s like eating at a white-tie restaurant where the waiter judges you, except all they serve is Quaker Peaches and Cream oatmeal. It does not live up to its mystique. Nothing wrong with oatmeal, it’s just not an interesting food.

The first episode of season 4 is good though, I promise

OK. Wow. Got carried away there, because it’s easier to talk about hating something than it is to talk about something being good. With all the preceding off of my chest, I can cover how “USS Callister” gives me hope for the new season.

The concept, in which the boss makes virtual, fully sentient copies of his underlings to do his bidding, may have been directly lifted from Vernor Vinge’s 2003 Hugo-award-winning novella. Again, unoriginal concepts are only show-ruining if they’re the only leg on your stool. What this episode does, in contrast to the handful of previous ones I’ve watched, is take that concept as a foundation and build something on it aside from self-important moralizing.

The CTO of a virtual gaming company runs a bootleg, offline version of his game, in which he’s trapped sentient copies of people he feels have wronged him. They know who and where they are, but they are forced to participate smilingly in a game-universe Star Trek retread, and they face terrible consequences if they don’t play along.

The Star Trek retread is entertaining. The actors involved in this one are more interesting (especially Jimmi Simpson, whom I love in everything he does). I felt real horror while watching the antagonist exercise absolute control over the people he’d trapped in his own personal world. While watching “USS Callister,” I enjoyed an engrossing TV show. During every previous episode of Black Mirror, I was constantly aware that Art was being Practiced Upon Me for my Edification, obviously and tiresomely.

I have high hopes for the rest of Season 4 if this trend continues. Sorry this ended up being mostly about me hating previous seasons of Black Mirror — you can leave a comment with your favorite episodes if you feel I need to educate myself.