Comment by FridgeSeal
8 months ago
Black Mirror got way less nuanced after Netflix picked it up.
“Nosedive” was the most surface-level take of that idea, the “pain chip” episode was basically just shock-value, the “trapped in the weird guys computer simulation” episode was “Whiteout” but derivative. The killer robot bees episode was…an episode of tv I guess?
Possibly it’s a format that just inevitably “wears thin” quite quickly, but it did feel like the early episodes had far more “existential dread” and interesting-exploration about them.
Exactly. The first two seasons were mostly a dark humour satire of our times and obsessions rather than a grim depiction of possible futures. The first episode is not even SF like also "the Waldo moment". 15 million merits is a metaphor that is not taking place in any real future.
It got much more commercial and literal after that.
Every episode is just "What if people are forced to wear IoT butt plugs?" or something ridiculous stretched over an episode.
Well, you have to go slow for wider reception.