Black Mirror

kroenen said:

All episodes out on Netflix and torrents.

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I'm up early lookin for em and nada, so I watched USS Callister again. It's probably the series best episode for me, but White Christmas is tough competition.

Had to reboot the whole Roku to make the new eps show up, lul. Callister sequel is first of course.

Please let this S7 be better than S5 and S6.

Animosity said:

Watched the first 5 episodes and will finish it tomorrow. Its not good IMO. I really liked episode 1, it hits you with the emotional gut punch. Episode 3 was so boring I turned it off halfway. Other 3 were forgettable. The show just doesnt have the edge it use to before Netflix took it over.

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Ep 3 being Reverie? The eps are in backwards order on my Netflix compared to how they're listed on a google search.

sakkath said:

First ep I got is 'common people' where Netflix and the healthcare system made a nightmare fuel demon baby. Fucking diabolical.

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As somebody who has dealt with massive insurance and cost of living spikes over the past 18 months or so, a couple being priced out of existence rang a lot of bells for me. I bet it was the same for a lot of people. The smarmy corporate rep telling them about the latest, vastly-pricier "tier" they'd need in order to continue using the thing they were already paying for without it being downgraded in some way... yowsa.

USS Callister II was a fun one and felt a bit like Star Trek Into Darkness in some ways. The evil version of Walton was like the Robocop from that movie, surprised he didn't commandeer a Dreadnought to go after them. First Callister was a lot more interesting and impactful, but it was cool to revisit these characters.

Bete Noire is one I'm not entirely sure what I think about yet and might have to revisit. It tackles the Mandela Effect which I had high hopes for, but ultimately what it came down to wasn't as satisfying as I thought it would be. Was definitely creepy and suspenseful. I guess the moral of the story is that anyone given absolute power to jump timelines will immediately make themselves empress of the planet. There are definitely holes in the concept though, like "what if there are no timelines where your vision exists"? Like I saw Saturn in the sky during the empress scene and I don't think there are any present-day Earth timelines where Saturn is hovering nearby.

I'll watch the other 3 later, and they could be meh, but I liked these 3.

wamphyr said:

I only watched the first two episodes so far.

The first episode was great. Great concept, great story, very emotional.

The first half of the second episode was interesting, the ending sucked. I was rooting for the white nerd chick who suffered so much. And the other mean bitch won in the end, I was really annoyed by that. And also, fuck the multiverse. In parallel realities, where anything and everything is possible, nothing really matters.

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Yeah, I'm back and forth on Bete Noire. Can't decide if I really liked it or really didn't like it. Agreed that the payoff didn't match the setup in terms of how interesting the episode was for the first two acts.

Watched the Capaldi episode that functions as a Bandersnatch sequel. Probably my favorite of the season so far. The ending was abrupt, which maybe was the point. Another one where the payoff didn't quite measure up to the creepy setup though.

One thing of note: So Capaldi is assembling Skynet in his garage by chaining together video game consoles over the past 3 decades, right? Found it hilarious that the technology level that allowed his system to finally achieve transcendence was adding the PS5 and Switch to the system. Given that the PS5 is like 40 times stronger than the Switch, this (likely oversight) is straight-up comical.

Two left, Reverie and Eulogy. Do I want to be bored or depressed? I'll watch 'em both tonight.

Yeah IDK about Black Mirror. It's a great show overall with some incredible episodes (especially early on when it was much edgier). However the last couple seasons really kinda drove me off with all the gen z woke hipster ness of it all and S7 didn't exactly rope me back in.

Anyone notice the grade school level identity politics in the casting? For example, in USS Callister they made sure to get rid of both the white guys by the end (the good one sacrifices himself to stop the bad one). Was surprised when USS Callister II had this new white guy on the crew (he was the nefarious pirate or whatever in the first one), then quickly realized why, it was so they had someone to be the butt of literally all the jokes, and also had someone to make poor choices and fuck up when needed. And of course the good white guy from the first one returns and turns heel. It went in the opposite direction too, like when they find a black woman with pink hair in the woods, I immediately knew she'd be an uber-competent super-badass who would take out the away team with ease until our plucky heroine stopped her. Which is exactly what happened. Then they're back to the ship, and OOPS the bumbling white guy has done it again!

Yeah, I could tell exactly what kind of character someone would be within seconds of them showing up just based on their identity, which is why I call it "grade-school level".

There was some good stuff in S7 for sure. Liked the Capaldi episode where he builds Skynet, and the USS Callister sequel. But yeah, I doubt I'll be rewatching this like I did the first few seasons.

Reverie - Maybe the most boring episode in the series. And it's movie-length. I kept pausing to see how much was left and there'd be like 55 minutes left or something. The whole thing was just weird. The main actress seemed completely out of place and I'm not sure if her bad acting was intentional or not but she seemed to just be playing herself rather than any sort of consistent character. Why the fuck was Awkwafina even there? Holy shit, get off my TV. This episode was basically just "actress leaps into an AI version of an old movie and acts out the story so everyone monitoring the AI can comment on how shocking it is that it's a black woman playing a doctor in a 1940's B&W movie" and then they have a lesbian kiss so the old character can comment on how "THIS isn't like it was in the original" and then the one white guy in the room can spill a drink and short out the simulation and I don't know why I'm watching this.

I think the whole point of the episode was that the original actress offed herself because she was a lesbian and couldn't act on it due to the time. Because the sins of the past must be revisited until morale improves, and so forth. I just wish the episode wasn't so drawn-out and bad. San Junipero did the same thing a hundred times better. Anyone else feel like the two leads actually didn't like each other in real life? Outside of all the making out, there was like no chemistry the rest of the time and the woman playing the retro actress looked generally uncomfortable whenever they were in the same place.

Eulogy - This one was decent. More than decent really, felt like it was from a totally different show than the above episode. Super sad though, damn. Last one I watched, probably a good note to go out on.