Category: Technology

Episode 2. Here be spoilers. I will start by saying that I was genuinely frightened by this episode; watching with the curtains closed. “Nothing can physically harm you”, intones character Katie to our protagonist Cooper, an American man travelling the world to escape problems at home. But she can’t know that, not for certain. Accidents happen. The simple power of being alone in the dark working against every rational instinct you have that everything’s fine really is deployed here superbly. Skipping over the finer plot details, when the plot twist is revealed, it’s good. But there’s more; this is no Bobby Ewing in the shower moment. Reality falls away as we realise we’ve been duped more than once along the way here. I foresee irritation on the part of some viewers, but with clarity perhaps a grudging admiration might develop. It’s where I am now.

So it’s here. Netflix gives us Charlie Brooker’s glimpses into the near future – one exception – in all-new BLACK MIRROR, the first episodes since the 2014 feature-length special.

NOSEDIVE
When Netflix announced it had commissioned twelve new episodes, the Twittersphere leapt in to action and groupthought the notion that the show, a gritty piece of navel-gazing exposé, would become “Americanised”, with all the Trump-electing horror that could bring. I report that this is not the case. The team of writer Charlie Brooker and executive producer Annabel Jones, a longtime collaborator with fine results, endures with excellent results.
NOSEDIVE is, however, set in America. So far, it seems to me to be set the closest to the present day of all the previous episodes. There are electric cars but they’re not driverless. People still hold mobile phones; they aren’t embedded under our skin. People use video calling rather than teleportation or holograms. It’s very now.
The premise is simple. A world in which everyone’s social status is proclaimed to the world via an app. People rank each other after every social interaction with a Tinder-style one to five star rating system. So far, so recognisable.
I’m not one to proclaim the downfall of civilisation because people are rating one another’s’ attractiveness with apps. But the story takes this modern day scenario further. There are implications to having a low rating – protagonist Lacie (Bryce Dallas Howard) can’t board an important flight or rent a classy apartment due to unfortunate circumstances lowering her ranking. It would be easy and perhaps even expected in other programmes for there to be a simple crash and burn end for Lacie, but in typical BLACK MIRROR style, there’s more. She meets a truck driver while hitchhiking who has an even lower rating than Lacie. She’s opted out of the system after realising it’s meaningless and that actual interaction is what counts, not swipes and likes. It’s the closest BLACK MIRROR has come to passing a moral judgement on our always-imminent high-tech future. Interestingly, it wasn’t actually written by Brooker. The teleplay comes from Mike Schur and Rashida Jones, based on an idea by Brooker.
Things come to a head when Lacie’s ranking reaches zero after she breaks down at her best friend’s wedding. Uninvited whilst hitchhiking en route, she tries to attack the groom after making a speech which the elite ranking guests don’t like. In prison, the Google Glass-style implanted device in her eyes which assists with the rating is removed, leaving her free to behave how she wishes without fear. She can’t go lower. Where next? A sequel, perhaps? Time will tell.