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Black Mirror -- Season 4
#1
I watched perhaps two-thirds of the past three seasons, skipping a few episodes that were deemed weakest.  Overall I was deeply impressed.  Most were very well done, and they tapped into some very real possibilities for the near future.

But good god were they disturbing!  These are not the near futures I want to see.  I found it hard to give a meaningful rating to any of them, so repulsed was I by their vision.

Which brings us to Season 4 and the opening episode, "USS Callister," which I watched last night.

Without saying too much about anything, this is a much wilder foray into the near future, full of holes and implausibilities and far less likely to come about, and perhaps not as relentlessly dark  as past episodes have tended to be.  Enjoyable for its action and adventure, but without the usual gut-punch.

Are they lightening up this season?  Or are they just baiting us with a soft step through the door?

Time will tell.
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#2
Well alright. I watched the USS Calister Ep because you mentioned it and it popped up on some of my newsfeeds recently. Mind you, I have never watched Black Mirror before and have no idea what the show is about. At first, s4e1 struck me as the bastard child of a 3 way between the Orville, the holodeck, and Twilight Zone the movie. But it was compelling enough for me to watch it through and in the end, ultimately kind of satisfying. Now you say this Ep is an outlier to the rest of the series. Is each Ep it’s own vignette like Twilight Zone? Which eps might you recommend?
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#3
Yep, each episode is a totally separate take on how technology changes who we are or how we live in the near future.

I've seen all but the 6th episode of season 4 and would rank them best to worst as follows:
Season 6
Ep
3 Crocodile  (this one haunts me)
4 Hang the DJ
2 Arkangel

To my mind, episode 5 Metalhead is skippable.
And I've yet to see 6 Black Museum.

Of other seasons, I'd highly recommend San Junipero and White Christmas.
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#4
(01-05-2018, 10:32 AM)cranefly Wrote: Of other seasons, I'd highly recommend San Junipero.

Good call. That was very enjoyable. Thanks for the rec. I’ll watch White Xmas next then maybe start from the beginning.
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#5
(01-05-2018, 10:32 AM)Cranefly Wrote: Of other seasons, I'd highly recommend White Christmas.

Another good call.  Very enjoyable but I did guess the mcguffin as soon as the second character began telling his tale.
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#6
(01-15-2018, 10:29 PM)Drunk Monk Wrote:
(01-05-2018, 10:32 AM)Cranefly Wrote: Of other seasons, I'd highly recommend White Christmas.

Another good call.  Very enjoyable but I did guess the mcguffin as soon as the second character began telling his tale.

You peeked, didn't you.  Defying the sanctity of White Christmas, you crept down the stairs and peeked through the banister and saw the mcguffin.

Now you'll claim you don't live in a place with stairs and never did.

Hmmm.  I'm vaguely recalling going up stairs at your Daly City digs to perform a Cthulhu summons one Halloween...
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#7
the house that doesn't exist was only a single level dwelling. Well, at least in the singularity when we lived in it.
As a matter of fact, my anger does keep me warm

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#8
The summoning, if it even happened, would've been in my SF dwelling dubbed St. Barbarian, not my DC crash pad, Castle Highland.  St. Barbarian had multiple floors, weird rooms and a balcony that had a view of the ocean when it wasn't foggy, and that was usually one day out of the year.  It began my penchant for renting century-old dwellings where the light from outside peaks through cracks in the walls, windows and doors.  There was St. Barbarian, and now, the current beach bungalow.  

The White Xmas mcguffin was obvious as soon as the non-Hamm character started talking, but that didn't lessen the story as it was well executed.  

So I watched S1E1.  

W.
T. 
F!!!

Pig F?!?

That ep went nowhere I wanted to go.  There wasn't even a mcguffin really, just a sordid tale of wishful thinking against ugly politicians.  Jury is now back out on this show.
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#9
Yes, S1E1 was pretty much a sledgehammer over the head with a slow wind-up that you see coming all the way.

Black Mirror is spotty, and after looking at several best of and worst of lists, I chose not to watch a few that everyone seemed to agree were the worst.

I have a scrap of paper somewhere ranking the ones I watched.  But I'll never find it.  San Junipero and White Christmas were at the top.
If memory serves me, some of the better ones, in descending order, were:

S1E3 The Entire History of You
S3E2  Playtest
S2E1 Be Right Back
S3E1 Nosedive

I hated Nosedive, by the way, but that's because I'm freaked out by the future it depicts...which I fear may be coming true.  I'll grudgingly admit it's well done.

Of season 4, I'd place these pretty high in the above list.

S4E3 Crocodile  (this one haunts me)
S4E4 Hang the DJ
S4E2 Arkangel
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#10
Thanks for the recs.  I'll work my way through and let you know what I think.  It's better than discussing politriks on sitonmyfacebook.
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#11
Season one done. It was only 3 eps.

S1E3 was okay. I actually liked S1E2: Fifteen Million Merits better. I felt the commentary and vision of E2 was strongest for S1 and I’m a sucker for a good dystopia. 

It’s refreshing to see some sci-fi again. In the wake of Star Wars, so much of pop film & tv is really just space opera, not sci-fi in my mind at all, just fantasy with space ships. It doesn’t explore potential hazards of tech progress which Black Mirror explores nicely. Still down with this show. Enjoying it overall - very entertaining.
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#12
S2e2 brb was great. Good call.

I’m totally hooked to this show now, savoring each Ep in order. Thanks again for the rec.
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#13
Season 2 done. E2&E3 (White Bear & The Waldo Moment) were enjoyable - 2 for its surreal beginning and reasonably satisfying solution and 3 as a metaphor for 45.
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#14
(01-16-2018, 01:06 PM)cranefly Wrote: S3E1 Nosedive

I hated Nosedive, by the way, but that's because I'm freaked out by the future it depicts...which I fear may be coming true.  I'll grudgingly admit it's well done.

I enjoyed S3E1, but keep in mind that I’ve been trying to solve social media for work for years. I had a good grasp of Facebook for a spell, managed to get the KFTC site past 1/2 M likes on grist alone. We never did a paid promo. But we took a big hit when fb shifted some stuff up (prolly excised our Russian bots) and are feeling shifts following net neutrality, sliding us under .5M now, where we struggle to get back up. I’ve yet to solve Twitter & use Instagram only for my personal amusement, seldom #ing there. Not trying to grow my instagram, despite my fatass web ego (my Man at Arms cast mates quickly put me in my place there - they’re all much more skilled at getting likes than me) although I notice anything martial that i post there does well and I’m inclined to post more of that. Same for my personal fb. I can’t break the typecast at this point - heck, I’ve worked hard to attain that on soc media. I purged my LinkedIn cutting out well over 1k of peeps who i didn’t know for real. My personal fb has become too closely tied to my job to be completely candid; I keep my professional mask on there for the most part, whatever the heck that is. 

WOAH - WAS THAT AN EARTHQUAKE?!?

But I digress. Nosedive = clever observation and unsettling too, dystopic sci fi to my liking. So far, the only Ep I didn’t enjoy was #1. The rest I’ve all liked. Good show. I need an Ep with swords tho - don’t spoil it for me.
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#15
Indeed that was a quake. Now I can’t sleep.  Sad
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