I freely admit that I was late to the party for Black Mirror. Before 2019, I didn’t know much about it other than it being a critically acclaimed anthology series. So when I first sat down to watch “The National Anthem” even after all the hype had died down, I was immediately hooked. I wanted to see what new twisted premise each episode had to offer, and almost all the episodes from seasons 1-3 delivered. The first 3 seasons of Black Mirror (and the special “White Christmas”) are definitely a worthy successor to sci-fi anthology series such as the Twilight Zone. The best way I could describe the old seasons is “Ray Bradbury’s short stories if they were written by a pervert.” Each episode was unique in premise and presentation, but the mix of dark humor and dread in each episode kept the series consistent. Yet something happened midway through the show’s run. After season season 3, the stories felt less impactful, the ambiguity was lost, and the sense of shock seemed to wear off. Yet, all these episodes were still written and handled by the same man (Charlie Brooker). So what went wrong? As a warning, there are spoilers ahead.
The first big change that comes to mind, is how the endings are handled in the new episodes. For example, “USS Callister” (the first episode of season 4) ends on possibly the most unambiguous happy endings in the series. While the episode has plenty of dark musings on the ethics of sentient AI, the episode ends with the protagonist free of the sadistic Robert Daly and free to explore the virtual cosmos of an MMO (Massively multiplayer online game). But although the episode treats it as a happy ending, it doesn’t feel satisfying. Will the band of AIs survive patches and updates within the game? What effect will Robert Daly’s death have on the company? It felt as if the writers ignored these questions in favor of providing a traditional happy ending to viewers; and while I prefer the dark and shocking endings of “Shut Up and Dance” or “White Christmas”, I’m not opposed to Black Mirror happy endings. Compare the ending of “USS Callister” to another episode with a happy ending: “Nosedive”. This episode doesn’t feel like it has a happy ending in the traditional sense. It ends with the heroine Lacie, being publicly humiliated, losing all of her social status, and being incarcerated. In spite of that, the ending scene where Lacie and a fellow prisoner shout insults at each other puts a smile on my face. The whole episode had a focus on people being afraid to speak their minds for fear of public backlash. The ending of “Nosedive” is a perfect conclusion to that. While Lacie has lost all she has, she is free of the burden of social conformity. She becomes truly free along with her fellow cellmate. Along with the lack of satisfying endings in the latest episodes, there’s also a stark lack of twists and moral ambiguity.
If you asked a fan of Black Mirror what were the most memorable moments of the show, they would probably name the big revelations in the first three seasons: Victoria’s punishment in “White Bear”, Matt’s betrayal in “White Christmas”, the adultery in “The Entire History of You”, and Kenny’s predatory nature in “Shut Up and Dance”. Watching some of these episodes made me more uncomfortable and disgusted, than any horror movie I’ve watched. The efficacy of these twists came from the likability of the characters. Often, the characters who you rooted for the most turned out to be the real monsters. Victoria, Kenny, and Matthew all fell under this category, and eventually, you became unsure of who to trust. Contrast this to the villains of Season 4. “USS Callister” and “Black Museum” don’t even try to make Rolo Haynes and Robert Daly endearing. Along with predictable antagonists, the show has embraced flat protagonists. The heroines of “USS Callister” and “Black Museum” undergo no real character growth. They simply come into the story, hatch a scheme, defeat the villain and exit stage left. In the earlier seasons there was barely any hero/villain distinction, the divide was between those who had not corrupted and those who screwed up. “Fifteen Million Merits” is a good example of this: a story where our “hero” Bing eventually jumps at the chance to join an oppressive system so that he may escape menial labor.
Finally, the visuals of Black Mirror have declined as well. The tone and feel of the earlier seasons is gone. In the first season, we’re treated with three wildly different settings: the bureaucratic, administrative London, a sunless, dystopian, consumerist complex, and finally a tech-saturated suburb in the UK. Not only are these settings interesting, they’re also visually well-designed. “Fifteen Million Merits” in particular has great set design that invokes a sense of hopelessness and claustrophobia. The cold, consumerist nature of this world clings to the viewer. And when the final shot of Bing looking at the green forest outside his window (or screen), there’s a sense of wonder after being subjected to a sunless hell for so long. While “Fifteen Million Merits” perfectly captured its world through visuals, season 5’s first episode, “Striking Vipers”, completely ruined all sense of immersion through its visuals. “Striking Vipers” mainly takes place in the eponymous fighting game (obviously inspired by Street Fighter and Tekken), but it only uses CG animation appropriate to a fighting game for a short scene. The rest of the episode uses actors in costume and bizarre set pieces. The attempts at dressing the actor and actress as their video game counterparts make the fighting game sequences look more like YouTube parodies than high-budget scenes. It’s sad to see how lazy the set and costume design has become.
While Charlie Brooker himself seems to be tired with Black Mirror, I still would like the series to succeed next season. There’s an important message to be found in Black Mirror: technology is neither good nor bad, but it allows bad people to do worse things. Unfortunately this unifying theme has been muddled in ugly visuals, a decline in direction, and worst of all, weak writing. What was once one of the most acclaimed shows on T.V. and Netflix has become a sad parody of itself, but I still see hope for the series. An anthology is not bound by the weak writing of earlier episodes so I hope that the show will recruit new writers with fresh stories. While Charlie Brooker questions “what stomach there would be for societies falling apart”, there’s still a place for his witty cynicism on streaming and television.