Black Mirror

Black Mirror is a television series currently consisting of three seasons which were made between 2011 and 2015. It was created by Charlie Brooker and it stars Daniel Kaluuya (Bing), Toby Kebbell (Liam), Rory Kinnear (Michael) and Hayley Atwell (Martha). The episodes are not linked, with each one having different characters and narratives but overall, Black Mirror is about a dystopian future “that shows the dark side of life and technology”, giving the audience a variety of different situations designed to shock and disturb them and providing them with a new sense of awareness.

Black Mirror falls under the genres of a dystopian, sci-fi, thriller drama with occasional aspects of comedy. It makes the audience question ‘what if’ to a challenging future which is based upon the development of technology and the anxiety that revolves around the talk of these possible developments. The show holds up a ‘black mirror’ to society and reveals a distressing future to the audience without shying away from the extreme possibilities which trigger dark thoughts as to whether you would undergo such actions. The thriller element helps to keep the audience intrigued and at times, they will find themselves flinching away from the screen due to the horrifying possibilities and images that are being displayed before their eyes. Drama is an important part to this series because the focus is not just on technology, but also on how the characters in each episode have adapted to it and how they have grown to have an acceptance towards a life which in this time, would be seen as completely unacceptable by many people.

I have watched the first and second episode of Black Mirror and the narratives were based on very different plots within a dystopian future. The main similarities that I noticed between them were the linear narratives, the build-up of tension and the constant plot twists. In the first episode, a member of the royal family, Princess Susannah is being held hostage and she can only be freed if the prime minister has sex with a pig live on national television. The plot takes many twists and turns meaning throughout, the audience have no idea as to whether or not the prime minister will do as requested and the final twist reveals the message is not about the crime (kidnapping the princess), but about what happens because of it. This is a humiliating concept which is designed to stay with the audience and it also shows the scary power of social media as the video explaining what the prime minister needs to do goes viral extremely quickly, meaning everyone knows what is happening. There are negative representations in this episode because the princess is portrayed as ‘the damsel in distress’ who needs a man to rescue her and prevent her death, representing women to be weak, vulnerable and helpless. Additionally, the prime minister and those working around him fit into the category of our dominant ideology which represents white, straight, middle-aged, middle-class males as the superior beings of our society, who have control over the rules and regulations and we do not see many other races or genders, showing them to be ‘powerless’.

Episode two focuses on the everyday lives of those living in a dystopian Britain and we are given an insight into their routines and the limited opportunities they are presented with. The people have to pedal on exercise bikes for a living, their currency is merits and their only entertainment is loud shows and advertisements which they are forced to watch if they do not have enough merits to ‘skip’ them. Another focus is a talent show called Hot Shot, enabling people to escape from their draining reality if they win. Again, there are many plot twists to reveal a devastating ending which possibly goes to show that there are no happy endings in a future that is so dark and lifeless. I personally found the episode slow-moving and dull but this may have been to represent how the characters felt living the lives they do so the audience are given the opportunity to become a part of their repetitive, tedious world, resulting in us feeling anxious for the future and grateful for what we have now.

In conclusion, I thought Black Mirror was a very unique show and I had definitely never seen anything like it before. The different concepts were shocking and they made me think about the scary impact of technology and I like how each episode has a deeper meaning. However, as the episodes were quite slow-moving, I found them difficult to get into and I couldn’t connect to the characters as they changed each episode so I would only rate this series 5.5/10.