Black Mirror (Channel 4, Netflix) TV Show • Page 11

I adored Nosedive. Such a fun episode.

 

San Junipero captured me in a way that is very rare. Just spectacular.

 

Just a few things I didn't get at all about the episodes, maybe someone else might have more clarity. I usually hate when people poke plot holes in everything, but in a world where the technology is so plausible these little things drew me out of it a little bit.

Playtest: If they knew that the cell phones caused a mechanical failure which would instantly fry the brain of the test subject (as they mention at the end of the episode they were aware of), why the fuck would they even bring the cell phone into the room??? And why wouldn't you quintuple check the cell phone was off and far far away from the test subject before the test began. That's on a baseline level. The other stupid thing is we're treated to some surveillance footage of him in the room with the phone taking pictures of the box for like 30 seconds, but no security detail notices that? Unless they have a ton of tests going on at once, I have no conceivable idea how they wouldn't have seen him grab the cell phone and take photos. And if you're the person conducting the test, how fucking stupid do you have to be to leave the test room where a skeptical person is sitting with the technology and a cell phone to transmit that technology to the world. You are grossly incompetent at your job. Anyway, all those things really took me out of the episode.


and then Shut Up And Dance: Did they take like a picture in picture of him masturbating from the webcam and then a video of his desktop as well? How was it that everyone was aware from whatever information was released that he was that's what he was masturbating to? I guess it's not that huge a deal, but it was interesting to me that they telegraphed the webcam stuff but didn't really describe how the information was released.

 

for Shut Up and Dance the answer is easy, you can capture what's on screen easily, so it's easy to assume that the "broadcast" was the dude and his screen side by side or something

 

That's what I figured it had to be. Like a twitch stream with the gamer's webcams or whatever as well. The playtest one is a little more complex

 

and I guess to go a little further on Shut Up and Dance did the troll group know that the people they were targeting were going to download this software? Did they know before he downloaded it his propensity for watching that? Or do they just have it installed on a ton of people's hard drives/cell phone devices until they do something incriminating? If so, it seems mighty convenient that he did that very incriminating thing near immediately after downloading.

I don't know, the whole set up of the episode and how this network of events comes together just sort of seems to crumble if you think about it at even more than a cursory level.

 

I think it works like most spyware/adware does, if you click it and get infected it's there. But in this case they probably monitor the infected until someone does something bad. Like, we saw what? 5 people maybe, I imagine there were 500+ others who were fine

 

people are assholes, I doubt it'd be hard to find people to play with.

 

I mean they could also have just targeted a specific site that contains child porn or infected a video.
edit: actually I forgot that one guy got caught with prostitutes not the other stuff.

 

That was the part that kind of bothered me. Why was the prostitute guy targeted? Was he the only "non-pedophile"?

Also, not sure how I feel about the kid being targeted for looking at underage pics. How old are we to assume the kid was?

 

I don't think he was as young as you would think, also I feel like they hinted at being VERY young pictures[/spoiler

 

I mean, I'm definitely not condoning that behavior regardless of his age, but he seemed young enough that he would kind of still be trying to find himself sexually. Just didn't seem like he deserved to in a fight to the death with a 50 year old man who looked at child porn (or worse) - Same thing with the guy getting a prostitute. Sure, he was deceitful to his wife and kids, but does he deserve the same thing as the pedophiles?

 

The guy with the prostitute didn't have to fight to the death or anything, so you could argue he got off lightly in comparison to the pedophiles.

 

That's fair, I guess. But everyone, including him was still outed even after doing everything they were told.

 

that's the point.

 

I know. Just seems like his actions didn't justify the "punishment"

 

People like to feel superior and the people who were behind all of that get off on punishing people for their wrongdoings.

 

I get that. I guess it's just my personal criticism of that episode. I enjoyed it, but felt like the reveal was a little weak because of those few things. I dunno... I'm probably nitpicking, but I think they could have made the motives of the "troll group" a little more clear.

 

I think that's part of the point. Trolls do crazy, stupid, and harmful stuff all the time. Even to innocent people.

 

I think most of the people on this show get worse than they deserve.

 

Just got the final episode to watch. This series has been very hit and miss for me. Overall quite disappointed actually. Enjoying some of the conversation above as I've had similar sentiments.

Black Mirror set the bar so high with some of the original episodes that it's hard for it to surpass or even maintain that level of expectation.

 

Last episode was the only one I really loved.

 

The scene with him and the young child in the restaurant seems to hint at this.

 

ya it was definitely really young kids. that's the reason they had that scene. plus it's this really nice thing at first and then in retrospect it's super fucking creepy.

 

Finished Shut Up and Dance. Have to say this season has far exceeded my expectations. I've only seen the first season, and wasn't crazy about it. Though I did like it. This one is just really more finely tuned IMO. The star power in these eps definitely helps too. Gonna finish this season, and start 2 after.