I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas weekend. I spent part of mine watching one of the best new TV shows I’ve ever come across on Netflix, from start to finish.
“Black Mirror” is a must-watch, especially if you love or have a deep interest in technology.
Winner of a Peabody Award and International Emmy Award for best TV mini-series, “Black Mirror” offers seven completely unique episodes, which vary in length but average around 45 minutes apiece.
There’s no plot or characters that connect the episodes; each episode stands on its own, though there’s one unifying theme across the anthology (as described by series creator Charlie Brooker in The Guardian):
“If technology is a drug – and it does feel like a drug – then what, precisely, are the side effects?”
Let me share the basic gist of a few different episodes to whet your palette (don’t worry, no spoilers here):
– A woman wakes up in a town where everyone is filming her.
– An entire community of people rides stationary bikes every day and gains “credits” for their work.
– Everyone wears chips behind their ears that can record everything they do, see and hear.
The show does an excellent job at taking today’s technology phenomena – live streaming, going “viral,” etc. – and putting it all under a microscope, as a means of satire but also to serve as a warning, that technology can be destructive and ugly if not properly controlled. In this sense, it comes across as a new-age “Twilight Zone,” where it’s extremely entertaining and creative but packed with important, unforgettable lessons to take away.
All seven episodes are available to watch on Netflix, and thankfully, more are on the way: In September, Netflix ordered 12 new episodes of the show, which originally only aired on Channel 4 in the UK. The series’ creator and executive producers are returning as well; there’s no word yet on the launch date for the new episodes, but at the very least expect some news on this front by mid to late 2016.
Here’s the trailer for Season 3 of “Black Mirror,” coming soon to Netflix.