After creation, comes control. After control, comes care. After care, comes fear. Fear that the cycle may never repeat…This is the paranoia of the prosaic.
THE PROLOGUE
A Quick Primer to Black Mirror
If you think about it, is there anything more terrifying than the maddening expectation of creation, care, hope, or control? What if you experience one. or perhaps all of them, but neither of these things happen again? What if nothing goes according to plan? What if everything goes according to plan? Is the mundane worth the sacrifice of momentary comfort for constant paranoia? What if hope, care, creation and control are skewed, broken, weaponized and used against you?
This is what makes Black Mirror so entertaining and effective. It manipulates our intrinsic desires for those things above, but instead of simply robbing us of those deep-seeded human needs, again, it manipulates the perspective of control, creation, care and hope and presents them in ways that rip any, and or all, of our preconceived notions straight out of our heads. Then, we’re left hopeless and bare without our precognitive TV watching powers to shield us from the bleak, often harsh, realities of the world. That is, the world of Black Mirror.
As a whole, Black Mirror presents an escape from anything traditional, be it beginnings or ends, expectations or prejudices, good or evil, etc. Perspectives are altered at a moment’s notice and what you first internally agreed was good, harmless, and correct is quickly torn asunder and reversed. Making a simple gesture as giving a child back her toy at a restaurant, seem perverse, offensive, and overall disgusting by the end of the episode. This is in reference to one of my favorite episodes of Season 3 titled “Shut Up and Dance”. It does an amazing job of distorting the optics of the situation on screen and forces your own bias and predispositions to wage a moral war within you as the episode continues to unfold in completely unexpected ways. It’s truly masterful.
Black Mirror is a show I want to continue to sit with. So, I am going to take my time with this one. This is definitely more of a vanity type project. As, I am sure, most of you have probably already seen a lot of these episodes. Yet, I think they are so rich and ripe for discussion, that I can't contain myself. Plus, I think it lends itself for a little creative exuberance, and one cannot deny the chance to creatively flex now and again. So, consider this an introduction to an ongoing chain of reviews of some of my favorite episodes of this series. Also, I didn’t have a lot of time this week to really dive into my writing assignment for today’s blog…so I’m cheating a little bit. But, this is my blog, so I'll continue to pretend like its totally intentional...don't tell anyone.
Nevertheless, I am really excited to spend more time with this show, dissect it, and write about it in the coming weeks. Its quickly become one of my favorite shows to watch and much like the Twilight Zone in its time, its definitely one of the better Anthology Series out today.
J.
If you guys have any episodes you'd like to talk about, let me know. Post your thoughts in the comments section down below. I'd love to break these episodes down with you.
Photo by Oscar Keys on Unsplash
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