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Black Mirror - Spoilers after the first post


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I don’t mind an upbeat ending, if it’s done right. The last half hour or so reminded me of a bad AHS episode. Them keeping Miley in a coma to make songs from her dreams(absurd even for BM). The 2 teenagers and a doll(with a mind now)getting into the mansion and fooling everyone way too easily, then crashing perfectly into the arena to foil the evil aunt’s plans. Yeesh. 

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2 hours ago, Ramsay B. said:

I don’t mind an upbeat ending, if it’s done right. The last half hour or so reminded me of a bad AHS episode. Them keeping Miley in a coma to make songs from her dreams(absurd even for BM). The 2 teenagers and a doll(with a mind now)getting into the mansion and fooling everyone way too easily, then crashing perfectly into the arena to foil the evil aunt’s plans. Yeesh. 

San Junipero is a lot of people’s favorite episode and it had an upbeat ending (for this show). That definitely wasn’t the problem with the Miley Cyrus episode. It was all the absurdity that led up to it. 

They also wasted a talented young actress in Angourie Rice. She was great in The Nice Guys, but Brooker didn’t give her much to work with in this one. 

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12 hours ago, Ramsay B. said:

I don’t mind an upbeat ending, if it’s done right. The last half hour or so reminded me of a bad AHS episode. Them keeping Miley in a coma to make songs from her dreams(absurd even for BM). The 2 teenagers and a doll(with a mind now)getting into the mansion and fooling everyone way too easily, then crashing perfectly into the arena to foil the evil aunt’s plans. Yeesh. 

There's upbeat and then there's cheesy. Popstar starts a NIN cover band and the shy sister becomes the guitarist. That's the end of a disney show. What happened to the evil auntie? Did they kill the Dr? Was eternal version kept in play (because it may be that's what consumers wanted). But they chose to just wrap it up really suddenly. 

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6 minutes ago, HelenaExMachina said:

The guardian did a ranking of BM episodes and put Black Museum and Shut Up and Dance at 22 and 21 respectively. I question this reviewers tastes a lot...

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/jun/06/every-episode-of-black-mirror-ranked-charlie-brooker

I had a similar reaction, particularly regarding their reasoning as well. I think some guardian writers are incapable of separating their politics from their enjoyment of entertainment which is fair enough but it tempers my trust of their reviews. 

Then again, I'm in the minority in that i Don't think nosedive is that good. But i guess that's me not finding their economy workable. There's probably people think the same about capitalism and thinking bits of paper/tokens have value.

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4 minutes ago, red snow said:

I had a similar reaction, particularly regarding their reasoning as well. I think some guardian writers are incapable of separating their politics from their enjoyment of entertainment which is fair enough but it tempers my trust of their reviews. 

Then again, I'm in the minority in that i Don't think nosedive is that good. But i guess that's me not finding their economy workable. There's probably people think the same about capitalism and thinking bits of paper/tokens have value.

See i did like nosedive but completely disagree with the rest of their list. I get that some episodes are too bleak for some viewers to enjoy but really just very peculiar ranking imo

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22 minutes ago, HelenaExMachina said:

The guardian did a ranking of BM episodes and put Black Museum and Shut Up and Dance at 22 and 21 respectively. I question this reviewers tastes a lot...

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/jun/06/every-episode-of-black-mirror-ranked-charlie-brooker

I actually am in agreement with most of their rankings here, I found Black Museum to be a lazy rehash of standard Black Mirror tropes and I was mostly quite bored by it. I'd put Shut up and Dance a bit higher as I'm a big fan of the actor in it and I found it quite disturbing and relevant. I think Black Mirror has a lot of mediocre forgettable episodes so I couldn't judge their ranking.

Otherwise its hard to argue against their best choices too much, I love 'The entire history of you' and 'Nosedive' is the one everyone always ends up talking about as being so close to the way society is going. 'Be right back' was also one that really stuck with me, although it was more interesting when her dead husband was just an automated chat bot. 

There are a number of news outlets and reviewers who tend to shove everything through a political lens and judge art purely on whether it fits their narrow view of politics (looking at you AV Club), but I didn't see too much wrong here.

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1 hour ago, HelenaExMachina said:

See i did like nosedive but completely disagree with the rest of their list. I get that some episodes are too bleak for some viewers to enjoy but really just very peculiar ranking imo

I think if bleakness was an issue, I'm surprised they stuck with the show long enough to be able to compile the list. It would be like asking me to rank all the seasons of AHS despite only watching 2.5 seasons and enjoying 1. Guess sometimes you get assigned tasks when working as a reviewer and the dreaded list is the easiest and most clickable article in their arsenal these days

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They have the Miley episode ahead of Shut Up and Dance and right behind White Christmas!? I would easily put the latter 2 episodes in my top 5. Hell they even threw a shot at that great Radiohead scene. Very edgy.

Bandersnatch at #4? I respect the effort of it all but come on.

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On Showtime's The Outer Limits series from the 90's they'd wrap up most seasons with an episode that tried to tie up the anthology all together. It was mostly an excuse to be a clip show, however, even if "Black Museum" didn't use clips I found it derivative of that, though I still really liked it.

 

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It kinda felt to me like it did imply there was more to it with Karl's gender than he was willing to confront. Which strikes me as simultaneously a bit of a cowards way out but also realistic - we *do* hide from the reality and avoid thinking about it by getting our true gender expression in games and I was doing that from the point of them being 1 inch low res images that still let me map onto it.

Its a bit frustrating though as I feel acknowledging that part of the story also explains why they don't feel the chemistry when they kiss irl - Karl's underlying sexuality and attraction to Danny is as a woman and Danny is attracted to Karl as a woman. The former is probably bi/pan while the latter comes across as straight. By ignoring this aspect we're left with this weird situation where its specifically each other than they're attracted to but only once you remove their bodies from it.

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Sheesh, just finished the new season, and man, not much going on here. Real letdown. Striking Vipers was first of all just plain boring and secondly decidedly confused on how to explore its themes, or even what exactly those themes might be. Smithereens wasn’t bad, but there really wasn’t anything about it that was, you know, Black Mirror. Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too was the best of the bunch, which is a sad statement, but at least it was entertaining and felt like an episode of Black Mirror.

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53 minutes ago, Triskele said:

Did you take this as reliable as presented?  That in that scene it was genuine lack of interest?  I couldn't really tell if I was supposed to take it that way or if I was supposed to take it as an unwillingness to acknowledge it in a more IRL situation.  

I took it as reliable, although you can interpret it as otherwise now you ask - it hadn't even occurred to me. I read it as sincere because they were braced and expecting to feel it but both acted relieved and surprised when it wasn't - that doesn't read like a denial response to me.

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Just got finished watching Striking Vipers, and I admit I was pretty bored through it despite it being an interesting idea. I liked how they treated it like an affair, and I like how they made it clear that they weren't particularly attracted IRL. But man, did it go on for wayyyyy too long, and it also seems utterly insane that this wouldn't be something that, ya know, isn't out there as knowledge. The first time someone discovered you could choose to fuck in that game it'd be on YouTube or Twitch. 

I also really wanted them to, ya know, switch characters. He wondered what it was like as a woman - why not feel it? Why not two women? Why not any of that? It's the sort of thing that is incredibly interesting to think about, and the show seemed to focus in on the most boring aspect of it possible. 

I also also thought that her going out IRL on a hall pass was not remotely the same as the intimacy that the guys shared, and that seemed somehow wrong. Like, in a perfect world why wouldn't she be playing the game with him? That'd be the real happy ending - her being able to be physically connected in that great way in the same way he wants. Because it's clear to me that he didn't particularly love fucking Karl, he loved fucking Roxette. 

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3 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Just got finished watching Striking Vipers, and I admit I was pretty bored through it despite it being an interesting idea. I liked how they treated it like an affair, and I like how they made it clear that they weren't particularly attracted IRL. But man, did it go on for wayyyyy too long, and it also seems utterly insane that this wouldn't be something that, ya know, isn't out there as knowledge. The first time someone discovered you could choose to fuck in that game it'd be on YouTube or Twitch. 

I also really wanted them to, ya know, switch characters. He wondered what it was like as a woman - why not feel it? Why not two women? Why not any of that? It's the sort of thing that is incredibly interesting to think about, and the show seemed to focus in on the most boring aspect of it possible. 

I also also thought that her going out IRL on a hall pass was not remotely the same as the intimacy that the guys shared, and that seemed somehow wrong. Like, in a perfect world why wouldn't she be playing the game with him? That'd be the real happy ending - her being able to be physically connected in that great way in the same way he wants. Because it's clear to me that he didn't particularly love fucking Karl, he loved fucking Roxette. 

Yeah it managed to be waay too long and boring while also skimming over everything that could have been interesting. Huge meh all around

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I think it's less about the actual other person and sexuality in general, and far more about the feeling they have as that other person. It's not just that Mackie is fucking this hot VR chick, it's that he is Lance fucking Roxette. Not only is she incredible, he is also incredible - more muscular, able to go forever, not having knee problems or pain or anything like that. Similarly, Karl loves fucking Lance as Roxette. He clearly enjoys the sensations of female orgasm and the body in general, and its reaction to Lance. But he doesn't particularly even want sex with Mackie. 

I also think that it is important that he's doing this with Karl, because that provides the emotional intimacy to the physical part. They are best friends, they do care about each other, they probably do love each other as such. They aren't attracted to each other physically at all, at least not until the game starts. And they both have this shared value in this game, something that would probably be seen as taboo. I think Karl notes this at one point too - he tried it with others, but it wasn't the same, it wasn't that good. He needs that emotional connection as well. 

It's a weird ep. It should be very strong, and it's a very interesting concept in a lot of ways, but they just didn't explore it at all and the ending was a fucking copout. Why does she need meatsex with randos when she can have mindblowing sex as a polar bear with Mackie? Bah. 

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On 6/15/2019 at 12:40 PM, Kalbear said:

Why does she need meatsex with randos when she can have mindblowing sex as a polar bear with Mackie? Bah. 

I agree with a lot of your points, particularly the bit about "who they are having sex as is as much of the experience as who they having sex with" and I think your explanations mark a reasonable story that doesn't have to have gender implications for Karl - obviously for me I think it would have been a stronger story to go there, but either way I really enjoyed the episode a lot more than it seems anyone else here did. I didn't feel it dragged and I really enjoyed it, even if I'd have liked to see them do more.

I disagree with your objection that I've quoted though - its not just about the sex for her, its about the experience of a guy she doesn't know deciding that she's hot and trying to pick her up in the bar. It's established in the very first scene that its *that* which is her fantasy and presumably she's had plenty of bad sex stemming from that starting point in her life but she still enjoys it. I think it made perfect sense for what she gets to do on her night out.

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  • 4 weeks later...

So I also really liked the Ashley O ep. I was genuinely surprised when Ashley woke up after the plug was pulled, I liked how the sisters interacted and how the younger one actually failed. I thought it was an interesting take on stardom and corporatism using artists, the same way 15 million did. 

And it wasnt a super happy ending. Yeah, ashley is free, but she's dirt poor and playing in shitty venues and her old fans think she sucks. 

I.also loved Ashley Too, especially when it got freed. 

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