‘Everything will be so much better…’
I hate the modern world, me. I hate how everything is designed to be as joyless and punitive as possible. I hate how hard it is to find human connection or even to speak to a human being rather than a machine. Luckily, noted curmudgeon Charlie Brooker shares my impotent rage at the state of things, and he channels his inner ennui into a new season of his Netflix anthology series Black Mirror every two years or so, whereas I channel my constant turmoil into furiously eating crisps. To each their own…
Episode 1: Common People – 8/10
It’s a bold move to open a season of television on Netflix that directly attacks the subscription model employed by companies like Netflix, but this pointed cynicism is welcome from a show that has become slightly more toothless since moving from terrestrial television. In Common People, welder Mike (Chris O’ Dowd) and teacher Amanda (Rashida Jones) are struggling enough as it is when Amanda is diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour. She is kept alive through the intervention of tech startup Rivermind Technologies. At first, their treatment is a huge success, if a financial drain, but before long, Amanda discovers that she is unable to leave the state and, even worse, she occasionally blacks out and begins to deliver advertising slogans to her horrified husband and bewildered students. After returning to Rivermind to complain, Amanda is told that she can resolve this issue if she only subscribes to the much more costly Riverside Plus tier of treatment. The episode develops from there in a way that is classic Black Mirror. Clever, dark and often incandescent with rage, Common People is a solid start to what has been a long-anticipated season. The final scene is a gut punch, but one that is earned through both the narrative and the strong performances from the two leads, and subscription culture feels like appropriate subject matter for Brooker and his team to handle – a solid start.
Episode 2: Bête Noire – 7/10
The Mandela Effect is a phenomenon in which a large group of people collectively misremember an event. It refers to the paranormal researcher Fiona Broome and her discovery that seemingly thousands of people believe that Nelson Mandela died in prison in the 1980s. False memory is definitely a thing, try watching a film back from your childhood, there will be bits missing that you swear blind were included first time around, dialogue you have quoted for years will be different or incomplete, basically, you can’t trust your memory. Bête Noire plays with this concept in a way that is chilling and often uncomfortable.
Maria (Siena Kelly) finds her life thrown into disarray when her former schoolmate Verity (Rosy McEwan) comes bursting back into her life. After finding employment at the same chocolate company as Maria, Verity begins gaslighting Maria into believing that things from her past have now subtly changed.
In a classic piece of Black Mirror marketing, two subtly different versions of this episode were both released at the same time (which version the viewer receives is chosen at random each time the episode is played). It’s a neat trick that reflects that sickly feeling you get when your own perceived reality crashes around you. I was once adamant that Aston Villa had never won the European Cup and lost a considerable amount of money on a series of pub wagers that said otherwise. A costly mistake. Maria has that seem feeling here, escalating in severity throughout, until eventually she snaps and confronts Verity in front of her co-workers.
Bête Noire is a chillingly effective episode of television that taps into all of our fears about being certain we’re right, but actually we’re wrong – a solid if unspectacular episode.
Episode 3: Hotel Reverie – 6/10
As a lover of old cinema, it’s a shame to see so many people indifferent to the Golden Age of Hollywood. For some, watching anything filmed in black and white is unthinkable, and it saddens me to know how much rich and wonderful art they are missing out on as a result of this stance. Hotel Reverie, episode three of season seven, works beautifully as a love letter to the sweeping, melodramatic romances of the ’40s and ’50s (writer Charlie Brooker cited Brief Encounter as the main influence here) and as a warning of the dangers of AI.
We begin with a film-within-a-film of the title. Hotel Reverie is a fictional and much-loved classic film that is set to be remade using the ‘magic’ of AI. The entertainment technology company ReDream is able to take an actor and digitally insert them into any old film to update it for a modern audience. Brandy Friday (Issa Rae) is the actor tagged for the job by ReDream CEO Kimmy (Awkwafina), but things take a dark turn when one of the AI actors within the film begins to develop consciousness.
Hotel Reverie is visually stunning, perfectly capturing the look and feel of the era that it is homaging, darkly ironic (the quality of this AI-created remake would be dreadful if it actually existed) and wonderfully acted. While it is slightly too long (although this allows the episode to be filmed in real time), this third episode is still a memorable and singular episode of television.
Episode 4: Plaything – 8/10
The idea of ‘lost’ or ‘cursed’ media is a compelling one. The urban legend of Polybius, a supposedly haunted arcade game that caused amnesia, night terrors and hallucinations, endures because its such an enticing concept. Plaything takes the idea of ‘cursed’ media and combines it with more mainstream fare like Sims and Creatures to create something truly memorable.
Cameron Walker (Peter Capaldi) is caught shoplifting and is subsequently linked to an unsolved murder. Over the course of his interrogation, we see Cameron (played by Lewis Gribben in flashback) become obsessed with a life simulation game called Thronglets that could have implications for the entire human race. Or maybe he’s just delusional.
Plaything is grounded by an almost whimsical performance from Capaldi and the flashback narrative, while done to death, is effective here. Unfortunately, the rest of the cast are underwhelming with James Nelson-Joyce far too ostentatious and extravagant in his performance and everyone else fading into the background. That being said, this is still a solid episode, it just also has the whiff of missed potential about it.
Episode 5: Eulogy – 8/10
Inspired by the recent docuseries The Beatles: Get Back, and it’s ability to almost brings its subjects back to life, Brooker wrote Eulogy (alongside Ella Road) as a way to take the concept of regenerative AI to its logical endpoint.
We begin with Phillip (Paul Giamitti), an American man who seemingly lives alone, being informed of the death of a woman from his past by a tech company named Eulogy. The AI assistant for Eulogy (played by Patsy Ferran) explains to Phillip that the family are asking him to provide any memories of the deceased that he may have that may help her impending funeral more poignant. While initially dismissive, we eventually learn (through the ability of the AI assistant to ‘enter’ old photographs) the extent of the relationship between Phillip and the deceased and why he seems to have blocked her out of his mind.
What’s most effective about this episode is how it deals with memory. We know that our memories are subjective, but very seldom are we faced with tangible evidence of just how subjective our memories can be. Eulogy forces the viewer to confront their own perception of the past in a way that is both thought-provoking and occasionally unsettling – another excellent episode.
Episode 6: USS Callister: Into Infinity – 8/10
While much of Black Mirror takes place in a shared universe (as confirmed in Black Museum and various other episodes), USS Callister: Into Infinity is the first time the show has attempted an out and out sequel. Originally envisioned as a full spin-off series, Into Infinity was instead adapted into one feature length episode following the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. Most of the central cast return with Michaela Coel the only notable absentee.
Three months after the events of USS Callister, we learn that most of the crew are still alive within the Infinity game and are surviving by robbing other players. Unlike their opponents, however, if our heroes die in the game, they did in real life too. Nanette Cole (Cristin Milioti) has assumed the role of captain following the death of tech overlord Robert Daly (Jesse Plemons), but events in the real world ensure that the two enemies are not quite finished with each other just yet.
Into Infinity takes the warped premise of its predecessor and presents us with something even darker. When Daly does appear in the third act, it doesn’t take long for Brooker to use the character to demonstrate that evil is as evil does. Daly can never be the hero, or a ‘nice guy’, despite his protestations, because he simply doesn’t have that in him. It’s a powerful and prescient message that ensures that season seven of Black Mirror goes out with a bang. It’s also the funniest episode in the season, despite its dark subject matter, which serves as a reminder of just how good this show can be when firing on all cylinders.
Conclusion
Black Mirror has been a mixed bag since moving to Netflix, but season seven is one of the most consistent collections that Brooker has put together in some time. While it is perhaps missing a truly five-star, instant-classic, watercooler-moment episode, the overall quality remains high throughout.