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Post by The Legendary Ring Troll {BLM} on Dec 29, 2017 19:57:52 GMT -5
Only checked the front page, disappointed to see no thread on the new season! I’ve only seen the first two and a half episodes so far. As a Star Trek fan, I was curious where they would go with the homage episode and loved what they did with it. Some classic Black Mirrors there.
Wasn’t a fan of the ending of Episode 2, liked the premise tho. Episode 3 started off kind of slow, but hoping the ending makes it all worth it, as many Black Mirror endings do.
Thoughts? Please spoiler tag if posting spoilers!
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Post by G✇JI☈A on Dec 29, 2017 20:21:09 GMT -5
Three episodes in. Thoughts: USS Callister: wonderful. They could of released this theatrically. Great story, great visuals. Arkangel: this had to follow above. But still a pretty good story about how far parental paranoia can go. Crocodile: ......... holy f***. I might take a break from bingeing this now. {Spoiler}{Spoiler}{Spoiler}This one gets dark..... I mean really really dark. Great episode. But you may want to watch some cat videos or something afterwards. Will watch the rest later.
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Rican
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
July 17, 2011 - HHHe called it
Posts: 16,477
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Post by Rican on Dec 29, 2017 22:55:01 GMT -5
Finished the first two episodes and need to take a break. This show is so well done but it's so damn heavy and dark I can't binge it like other shows. The first episode was fantastic. {Spoiler}Love the slow reveal of Daly's true nature. I felt bad for him at first and then they show what a piece of shit he is. Episode 2 I didn't think much of but the ending really got to me.
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Post by "Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay on Dec 30, 2017 6:37:38 GMT -5
The world is miserable enough, I don't get how dystopian fiction is any use at the moment.
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Post by The Legendary Ring Troll {BLM} on Dec 30, 2017 13:46:27 GMT -5
Finished episodes 3 and 4 last night. Glad to see I was right about episode 3. Slow starting, but man, once it gets into it, it’s f***ing brutal. Great end. Episode 4 was really good, too. {Spoiler}I don’t normally like the happy ending Black Mirror episodes, but I was rooting for the two of them to get together. I thought they were going to get surprised and marry each other the next day until they revealed it was all a dating app sim. Can’t wait to watch 5 and 6!
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Post by G✇JI☈A on Dec 30, 2017 19:55:26 GMT -5
{Spoiler}Monkey needs a hug
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Post by Natural Born Farmer on Dec 30, 2017 21:34:45 GMT -5
Just finished it up. Thought every episode but Metalhead and Arkangel were fantastic. Watching “Black Museum” stoned was a very poor choice though.
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Post by The Legendary Ring Troll {BLM} on Dec 30, 2017 23:23:14 GMT -5
I actually really liked Metalhead’s lack of context. Let’s me use my imagination more for filling out the world. Black Museum was great, although... {Spoiler}I’m not sure I like them connecting so many different episodes into the same universe. I prefer thinking of each story as a self contained thing. Still, overall a great season. Wish it could have been longer!
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Rican
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
July 17, 2011 - HHHe called it
Posts: 16,477
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Post by Rican on Jan 2, 2018 10:30:28 GMT -5
Finished the season last night. I think my ranking goes:
1. USS Callister 2. Hang the DJ 3. Black Museum 4. Arkangel 5. Crocodile 6. Metalhead
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Post by Cela on Jan 2, 2018 15:42:00 GMT -5
Just finished, enjoyed all episodes. If I had to rank...
1. Crocodile 2. Hang the DJ 3. Arkangel 4. USS Callister 5. Metalhead 6. Black Museum
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Post by KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!! on Jan 3, 2018 16:02:58 GMT -5
I finished this season today after working a double shift I’d rank them: 1. USS Callister 2. Arkangel 3. Hang the DJ 4. Crocodile 5. Black Museum 6. Metalhead
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BRV
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
Wants him some Taco Flavored Kisses.
Posts: 16,976
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Post by BRV on Jan 10, 2018 19:50:51 GMT -5
I've finished the fourth season and it's time to update my series rankings: {Spoiler}White Christmas - This might honestly be the most perfect episode of dramatic television ever produced. In my eyes, it's absolutely flawless. It's a great series of stories that become perfectly intertwined with three great lead actors and one of the grimmest endings imaginable for all involved. One of my biggest critiques of the first two seasons of "Black Mirror" was that every episode ended with me wanting to chug a gallon of bleach (which you'll soon find ironic given my biggest criticism of the third season), but this was the most notable exception for how perfectly dark the ending is.
Fifteen Million Merits - For what it's worth, you could put my no. 2 through 4 rankings in a hat and pull them out in any order and I'd be fine with the ranking. What I liked about this episode was how in a matter of about 40 minutes, they built, developed, and crushed a relationship in way that most series can do in multiple seasons. I didn't love the ending because it felt like the Bing character was betraying everything he stood for just to get a glimpse of fame and fortune, but I guess that's the story they were trying to tell.
Be Right Back - Much like "Fifteen Million Merits", this episode tells a great love story, but does so with an obviously dark twist. It's a perfect play on the old fable of "be careful what you wish for..." and the ending is so brutal that they somehow decided having a couple leap from a cliff would have been the more pleasant conclusion.
The National Anthem - It's already been mentioned in this thread, but when I recommend "Black Mirror", it's hard to explain this episode without coming across like some kind of pervert. But for a story about the prime minister having to have sexual intercourse with a pig, it's brilliantly told and brutally unflinching. It comes across as a bit overhanded in its messaging at the end, but you can ignore that for how solid the episode is.
Shut Up and Dance - By far the best episode of the third season. It's dark and unnerving and all the while you're wondering why the teen doesn't just let his anonymous foes post the video online, because the punishment he endures over the course of the episode feels so much worse. And then you get the "ohhhh that's why" moment at the ending. Great, dark stuff.
Crocodile – The best episode of the fourth season, this episode takes your expectations and turns them on its side and continues to play games with you until you don’t know what to expect. The visuals filmed in Iceland are stunning and while the story isn’t flawless – it’s a pretty typical tale of a person going to any means to protect herself and her career – it’s haunting what she’s willing to do and it also makes you question how far you’d be willing to go.
Hang the DJ – I don’t normally care for the “aww” moments that “Black Mirror” tries to roll out on its viewers. (You’ll see that I loathed “San Junipero” and found it to be the worst episode of the series) But when done right, the show can display the love, heartache, and myriad other emotions a relationship can cause. This is a prime example of that. Unlike “San Junipero,” we’re given a reason to believe these two lovebirds can fall for one another and unlike “San Junipero,” we’re cheering for them to stick it out despite the challenges in their way. This is one of the rare episodes where I preferred the happy ending to a bleak or grim conclusion.
The Waldo Moment - I'm not going to get into the details of how this could be considered an allegory for modern-day politics. Frankly, I didn't like this episode for its politics, I thought it told the story of the clown perfectly - all smiles and laughter on the outside but pain on the inside. And when he finds that brief, fleeting moment of happiness, it's summarily squashed moments later, sending him spiraling.
Arkangel – I don’t know if I’d ever want to be a parent after watching this. This tells a solid story of the lengths a parent is willing to go to in order to protect her daughter and the dangers of censoring our children from the traumas of reality. It gets a little long-winded in the middle, but overall it’s one of the better episodes of the fourth season.
White Bear - It's a phenomenal twist ending but before that comes, it's just sort of your run-of-the-mill escape from captors/hunters horror-thriller. Again, by no means is it bad, it's just that a good episode becomes great due almost exclusively to the out-of-nowhere twist.
The Entire History of You - It's just OK, but it's really just a prolonged breakup story with some futuristic tweaks. It's the least impressive of seasons 1 and 2 but compared to the final few on my list, it feels like a revelation.
Playtest - Most of "Black Mirror" is science fiction or drama or satire, but this is the first and only installment that felt like genuine horror. It would probably be a really good 90-minute feature length movie, which would allow us a little more character development, but it's good for what it is. Personally, I think the ending of him returning home to a mother who doesn't recognize him would have made for a better ending than the ending we got, but you can't win 'em all.
Nosedive - An incredible first half sunk to the bottom of the river by a terrible final 30 minutes. It's a great story that feels realistic - that our own social media rankings will soon be more important than our actual interpersonal interactions - but from the moment she has that "guardian angel" moment with the truck driver, it spirals. The ending is so phony and saccharine that I expected her to wake up in a furniture store next to Bruce Willis in a rabbit costume. Yes, the message that we should be more honest and less phony and less devoted to our phones and tablets and computers is an important one, but man they forced that message down your throat with a freaking funnel in this one.
USS Callister – What starts as a kitschy take on 60s era science fiction quickly devolves into a discussion of what people could do with too much control. But this episode just collapses upon itself when it focuses too much on the simulations (“White Christmas” hit it right on the button on how much time should be paid to a digital simulation). Also, the idea that this brand-new employee would commit a B&E over some lascivious photos is absurd. At least in “Shut Up and Dance,” we learn that the boy is willing to rob a bank because he’s been filmed actually committing a crime. We’re to believe a girl is willing to commit a felony at the behest of some anonymous hacker over some PG-13 selfies?
Hated in the Nation – For one of the longest episodes of "Black Mirror", at nearly 90 minutes, I expected a lot more. The idea is great, I just wish they dedicated it singularly to the deaths of the columnist and rapper and our outrage/shaming culture and less about the technological aspects of it. I mean, I guess if I can take "The Birds" seriously, I can take computerized honeybees seriously too, but it felt like a two-part "very special episode" of Law & Order.
Men Against Fire - Take "District 9", sprinkle in a bit of "Avatar", mix it up in a blender and you've got this one. It's actually somewhat forgettable, considering as I was assembling my list, I was like, "I know I forgot one, but I can't remember which one it is..." and that's really all you need to know about how I felt.
Black Museum – Much like “White Christmas,” it’s sort of three short stories wrapped into one narrative. But unlike “White Christmas,” none of the short stories really hit the spot. The first portion is essentially “Flatliners” with a total unnecessary S&M twist that adds zero relevance to anything. The second – and best – installment is a fun way to explain how even the happiest relationships require some distance and the dangers of being inextricably linked to each other. Also, the idea of a person being trapped forever inside a stuffed animal is fairly haunting. But the third story is a massive dud and brings down the entire angle. We’re given no reason to feel any sort of sympathy for the killer other than a throwaway line about shoddy DNA, yet we’re supposed to celebrate his “freedom” and his family’s vengeance? Also, the idea of revenge as the best medicine has never been approached in the entire series. Whether it’s “The Entire History of You” or “Fifteen Million Merits,” we’ve always been taught that seeking vengeance does not make you better or feel whole. Yet here we’re supposed to have the warm-and-fuzzies for a pound of flesh? What’s different?
Metalhead – An audacious effort at creating a post-apocalyptic noir story, the story does not live up to the fantastic visuals. It’s one of the greatest gulfs of style over substance in the entire series. The fact that there’s nothing but mystery to the entire episode and no clear resolution to what’s happening or why it’s happening leaves you with a very disappointing entry. Fortunately, it’s only 41 minutes, so it’s a relative breeze to watch.
San Junipero - Just, ugh, where do I begin? Yes, my biggest complaint about the first two seasons of "Black Mirror" were how grim and depressing everything was, but this is the total opposite of that. The ending of this episode, with them cruising around in a convertible to "Heaven is a Place on Earth" is so obnoxiously saccharine that I'm surprised Katherine Heigl hasn't purchased the rights to the story to convert into a terrible rom-com. The only time my ears perked up in this episode were when they started dabbling in time travel, but that could only be so fascinating before I was lulled back to sleep by everything else. It also spits in its own face, with the woman dramatically and painfully explaining how she had a 49-year marriage and what that meant to her and her late husband and her late daughter, and then at the very end she's just like, "Nah, I'd rather hang out on the beach with that girl I knew for a month."
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Feb 1, 2018 19:09:59 GMT -5
I watched the first half of the season tonight. I only came across the show last year and binged everything up till then so was looking forward to this season. Just some quick thoughts
USS Callister - This might sound silly but whilst I enjoyed it, I thought the whole Star Trek homage part kinda took away from it and didn’t make it feel like a black mirror episode to me, you know. Like it was good but it just didn’t fit the tone for me a little bit
Arkangel - Interesting idea with the technology but I felt like it had stretches of not much happening, obviously it all built up to something but I think it took too long to get there
Crocodile - H*** shit, I think I need to go watch some videos of babies laughing to even me out. I kinda feel like the ending was just too dark and I usually love dark s***, like the more the merrier but damn even I have my limits. Again was a slow start but the last 20 or so minutes I enjoyed up until the ending
So yeah it might seem like I’ve hated it so far but I just feel like each episode just had 1 or 2 flaws but they all had their moments
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Ultimo Gallos
Grimlock
Dreams SUCK!Nightmares live FOREVER!
Posts: 14,477
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Post by Ultimo Gallos on Feb 1, 2018 19:53:27 GMT -5
Seen first 2 esp of season 4.
EP 01 Need premise,but the episode ran long.
EP 02 Loved this. Even if I called the ending about 15 minutes into the the episode.
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Post by Natural Born Farmer on Feb 2, 2018 23:37:25 GMT -5
Watching the season again tonight I love how “Hang The DJ” comes off in the context. The producers genuinely got the need to give the audience some relief amongst such relentless darkness. Would that more shows were like this.
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