As punishment, she’s subjected to the repeated physical and psychological torture of Whitebear Justice Park, an enclosed space where the public can observe and record her daily suffering, like a cross between Michael Crichton’s West World and Woburn Safari Park. Instead, the truth is revealed to be much, much darker: Victoria is a criminal, convicted for her part in the brutal killing of a young girl. It’s only at the end of the second act that Victoria stops crying and finally takes control, and pulls the trigger on a shotgun herself – and that sputtering blast signals the plot’s icily abrupt left turn.Īs what turns out to be a television set parts to reveal a baying studio audience, it briefly seems as though Victoria has been involved in some sort of Derren Brown-style hypnotic experiment – like last year’s Apocalypse, perhaps, where a lazy young man was prodded out of inactivity by being fooled into thinking he was trapped in the middle of a zombie armageddon. If there’s a criticism to be levelled at the first two-thirds of White Bear, it’s that Victoria’s carried helplessly along by events. Nick Wall/Netflix Explainer Let’s Explore the Deep Space Shocking Ending to ‘Beyond the Sea’ This is your pandemic episode But it’s Black Mirror so add outer space, androids and murderous cults. And now they’ve got an audience.”Īs a helpful rescuer (played by Kill List’s Michael Smiley) turns out to be another vicious hunter, the sense of horror keeps building the use of woodland settings, crucified bodies and the gleeful waving around of power tools evokes the memory of a legion 70s exploitation movies, helped along by Crichlow’s uncanny ability to emit blood-curdling screams. “They seemed normal,” Jem explains, “but then they realised they could do what they like. While most have become zombie-like voyeurs, one in ten have devolved into hunters, like the one with the mask and the shotgun. The population, she tells us, has been enslaved by subliminal messages on TVs and mobile phones. Before we know it, Victoria’s survived a Dawn Of The Dead-like encounter at a petrol station, and teamed up with Jem (Tuppence Middleton), a feisty young woman who has a much stronger handle on the situation. These opening scenes, which are almost bereft of chatter other than Victoria’s plaintive “Can you help me? I can’t remember who I am,” are all the more effective for their economy, and the subsequent chase, which begins with that masked figure pulling a gun from his car, is truly the stuff of nightmares – like Kafka with added mobile phone cameras.Īdmittedly, the use of amnesia isn’t the most original of plot devices, but the fearsome pace director Carl Tibbetts brings to the story’s first act gives us little time to reflect on this. Cast information is also from IMDb.Just as Be Right Back appeared to mark a growing confidence in Charlie Brooker’s writing, with its subtle approach giving the events and performances greater impact, so White Bear sees Brooker pare back his use of dialogue to an extent rarely seen in television drama. In the case of a tie, episodes with more user ratings were ranked higher. All 27 episodes of Black Mirror were ranked based on average user rating as of July 2023. To determine the best episodes of Black Mirror, 24/7 Tempo reviewed data on audience reception from IMDb. (These are America’s favorite fictional robots. Ocular and cranial implants appear more than a few times, as do robots. It’s arguable that creator Charlie Brooker’s episodic anthology series Black Mirror is one of the scariest shows on TV not because it relies on zombie attacks or murderous clowns, but. Another common element in the series is virtual or augmented reality, whether it is used for video games or to help soldiers find and eliminate targets. Multiple episodes deal with the possibility of our memories being recorded and replayed – possibly against our will. For instance, the terrifying power of social media platforms permeates the series, with characters who lose their livelihoods, and even their lives, due to their online social standing or interactions – a scenario that is already all too real. The often horrific outcomes are disturbing, yet sadly conceivable. “Black Mirror” – the title refers to the black reflective surface of a smartphone, computer, or tablet screen when it’s not in use – uses each standalone episode to take some aspect of modern life to its extreme, exploring possible dystopian futures shaped by humanity’s obsession with social media, the advent of digital surveillance, and the dangers of current experimental technology. (Here’s a list of the best international shows ever to stream on Netflix.) Modeled after “The Twilight Zone,” the series first aired in 20 on the British network Channel 4 before being picked up by Netflix. A long-awaited sixth season of the British speculative fiction anthology series “Black Mirror” dropped June 15th on Netflix.
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