Opinion Piece- Thoughts on the new Black Mirror
I was lucky enough last week to see a screening of one of the episodes in the new series of Black Mirror, followed by a fantastic Q and A with Charlie Brooker, Annabel Jones (producer of the show) and Joe Wright, director of Pan and the episode that was shown. Before I go on, I want to say that if you are interested at all in this show, you will be very happy with the new episodes and reading this post will probably tell you too much. If you are happy to not go in blind to the new episodes though, let me tell you about what I saw.
I'll start with a discussion about the new trailer that came out last week. It was less than two minutes but therefore pretty much perfect. Due to the anthology nature of the show, it was somewhat scattered in that it had to show clips from episodes but was still amazingly well structured. The trailer followed the typical Black Mirror episode structure of things start out okay, the technology seems good and then everything goes very downhill, very quickly. The visual styles popped out, we got a quick peak at some of the stories and some of the talent waiting for us. It didn't show much but it really didn't have to, that alone was enough to get me very excited for the new episodes. I did get more though at the film festival which is why I'm incredibly excited.
The episode I saw was called Nosedive and directed by Joe Wright, starring Bryce Dallas Howard and Alice Eve. It's about a world in which everyone gets a star rating out of five and therefore everyone has to be exceptionally nice to each other. Think of it as the attempt to appeal to the masses on Twitter with the driver rating system of Uber. It leads to a world in which some spend their life fixated on achieving high ratings whereas others ignore it for actual happiness. Being Black Mirror, the trajectory here may seem obvious when you consider how desperate people are for approval but that's where this episode is different. There's some real great humour in the episode (it was written by Parks and Rec star Rashida Jones) and it isn't as bleak as usual. There's still underlying despair but for me, it was an inspiring ending and an episode that while different, was amazing.
After the screening of the episode, there was yet more in store as the discussion came next. It was exactly what you expect from this sort of thing, the new show was talked about a little, Charlie Brooker was lovely and hilarious and then it turns out Joe Wright is a lovely human being. His humble and charming responses to feedback from Pan and questions in general paired with the fantastic episode he did made me actually forgive him for Pan. Don't get me wrong, the film is still awful but I believe it wasn't entirely his fault and he deserves to move on. The highlight of the session was Brooker describing the tone of the show. They got to play with genres this time and vary the tone and said of it "We usually throw you into a pit of despair with no escape but this time we throw a few hope biscuits down there too. Sometimes though, we piss on you on the way down too". It made me realise how fantastic Charlie Brooker is and that I will watch and read just about anything he does.
In short, Black Mirror is back and quite frankly, I can't wait. I think it could be possible that it's stronger than ever but even if it isn't, the standard is so high that they will still be terrific. Just prepare for a cloud of despair to settle over your life in the very best way on October 21st.
I'll start with a discussion about the new trailer that came out last week. It was less than two minutes but therefore pretty much perfect. Due to the anthology nature of the show, it was somewhat scattered in that it had to show clips from episodes but was still amazingly well structured. The trailer followed the typical Black Mirror episode structure of things start out okay, the technology seems good and then everything goes very downhill, very quickly. The visual styles popped out, we got a quick peak at some of the stories and some of the talent waiting for us. It didn't show much but it really didn't have to, that alone was enough to get me very excited for the new episodes. I did get more though at the film festival which is why I'm incredibly excited.
The episode I saw was called Nosedive and directed by Joe Wright, starring Bryce Dallas Howard and Alice Eve. It's about a world in which everyone gets a star rating out of five and therefore everyone has to be exceptionally nice to each other. Think of it as the attempt to appeal to the masses on Twitter with the driver rating system of Uber. It leads to a world in which some spend their life fixated on achieving high ratings whereas others ignore it for actual happiness. Being Black Mirror, the trajectory here may seem obvious when you consider how desperate people are for approval but that's where this episode is different. There's some real great humour in the episode (it was written by Parks and Rec star Rashida Jones) and it isn't as bleak as usual. There's still underlying despair but for me, it was an inspiring ending and an episode that while different, was amazing.
After the screening of the episode, there was yet more in store as the discussion came next. It was exactly what you expect from this sort of thing, the new show was talked about a little, Charlie Brooker was lovely and hilarious and then it turns out Joe Wright is a lovely human being. His humble and charming responses to feedback from Pan and questions in general paired with the fantastic episode he did made me actually forgive him for Pan. Don't get me wrong, the film is still awful but I believe it wasn't entirely his fault and he deserves to move on. The highlight of the session was Brooker describing the tone of the show. They got to play with genres this time and vary the tone and said of it "We usually throw you into a pit of despair with no escape but this time we throw a few hope biscuits down there too. Sometimes though, we piss on you on the way down too". It made me realise how fantastic Charlie Brooker is and that I will watch and read just about anything he does.
In short, Black Mirror is back and quite frankly, I can't wait. I think it could be possible that it's stronger than ever but even if it isn't, the standard is so high that they will still be terrific. Just prepare for a cloud of despair to settle over your life in the very best way on October 21st.
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