Upon its debut on Britain’s Channel 4, the science fiction anthology series Black Mirror became the closest thing that the entertainment industry had to a modern-day version of The Twilight Zone; the actual The Twilight Zone reboot from Jordan Peele suffered in comparison to Black Mirror. Although paranoia about the prominence of technology has been familiar territory within fiction for the better half of a century, Black Mirror succeeded by identifying the casualties of disturbing current trends. As its debut episode, “The National Anthem,” suggested, the rise of vitriolic social media content could lead to a scenario in which a public figure would be forced to perform a sordid act to appease online terrorists; the haunting instalment “Fifteen Million Merits” showed the exploitative side of streaming celebrity initiation.
The issue that Black Mirror faced wasn’t being out-of-touch, as the parallels that could be made to breaking news strengthened the show’s relevance. Rather, Black Mirror struggled by being behind the curve, as technology had evolved at such a rapid rate that novel concepts had only a short window in which they weren’t immersed within the mainstream. In the previous season, the streaming satire “Joan is Awful” was derivative of common critiques leveled at the use of artificial intelligence’s augmentation of narrative storytelling; a wilder swing like “Demon 79,” which dropped the sci-fi sensibilities for fantastical undertones, was too divergent from the grounded aesthetic from its predecessors to feel like an authentic Black Mirror episode.
To say that the seventh, and most recent, season of Black Mirror is a mixed bag is an indication of progress, as the show has notably refrained from any broad proclamations about the ways in which tech will evolve in the next few years. It’s the most radical season of Black Mirror yet: included within the new batch of episodes are a straight-faced romantic weepie, an action-packed blockbuster sequel, a nostalgic Old Hollywood fantasy, and a cynical cyberpunk thriller. The most notable difference in this new era of Black Mirror is its sincerity; given the abundance of negativity within the last decade of media and world politics, the cynical perspective that once made Black Mirror an outlier is no longer unique.
A key theme that Black Mirror has tapped into is the concept of escalation, as the kineticism with which new devices and programs are applied eclipses their normalization. The episode “Common People” is a parallel to the anxieties of streaming services that’s also a not-so-subtle takedown of the healthcare system. As his partner, Amanda (Rashida Jones), is dying, the welder Mark (Chris O’Dowd) is given access to a technology startup that will sustain her brain function. Despite the lack of an initial fee, Mark’s forced to make a monthly deposit in order to keep his wife alive; the prices rise, as it’s no longer possible to retain her well-being without an advancement to a higher subscription tier.
The direction that “Common People” is headed is predictable. Amanda is slowly robbed of her individuality as aspects of her personality are bartered within contract negotiations. Nonetheless, the episode’s straightforward concept gave it the opportunity to develop real pathos, which benefited the naturalistic chemistry between O’Dowd and Jones. If Black Mirror’s more punishing episodes are intellectual, “Common People” is devastating because of how comparatively routine it is.
This old-fashioned classicalism is absent in “Bête Noire,” a mystery centered around the “Mandela effect,” in which people develop a collective delusion about the past. The psychological phenomenon is interesting enough on its own, but Black Mirror’s attempt to explain it within a generic “gaslighting” conspiracy is lacking in nuance. The opposite issues can be found in the episode “Plaything,” which starred Peter Capaldi as a video game programmer obsessed with the formation of a secular society of digital creatures. If “Bête Noire” mistakenly attempted to justify the anxieties that an average person may wrestle with, “Plaything” constructed a bizzarro reality in which the protagonist bore no identifiable traits that would ever exist outside the confines of the narrative.
The worst installment in the seventh season is "Hotel Reverie," which is both a gross simplification of modern Hollywood and a high-concept thriller riddled with logical fallacies. The episode’s an exaggeration of the film industry’s current AI obsessions, and is focused on the recreation of a 1940s black-and-white romance film, in which the modern actress Brandy Friday (Issa Rae) can interact with digital versions of the original characters. If recent box office receipts have proven anything, it's that Hollywood has no interest in the restoration of classic cinema. Studios have moved on to lowest-common-denominator films based on properties that appeal to millennials. Beyond the dull performance on Rae’s part, “Hotel Reverie” is reliant on too many superficial concepts for any suspension-of-disbelief. While the creation of artificial intelligence based on archive footage is a reality that may soon occur, the episode’s notion that emotional manipulation can be determined through a series of algorithms is ridiculous.
While its comparative simplicity was refreshing, the season’s best episode, “Eulogy,” fulfilled a different thematic approach; while it didn’t suggest that technology was evil, it did imply that its overuse would create more problems than it solved. Paul Giamatti, one of the greatest living actors, was given the role of the aging American loner Phillip, who’s informed about the passing of his former lover, Carol (Hazel Monaghan). After his photographs are used to create digital dioramas of the past, Phillip’s made to endure the heartbreaks of his youth once more, as he’s given the opportunity to know exactly when his mistakes were made.
Poignant, quiet, and lacking in sentiment, “Eulogy” is an elevation of the Black Mirror formula. It's amusing that it is followed directly by “U.S.S. Callister- Into Infinity,” a continuation of the popular “U.S.S. Callister” episode from a previous season. Nostalgia didn’t win Black Mirror any favors, and like most sequels, “U.S.S. Callister- Into Infinity” doesn’t live up to its predecessor. If “Eulogy” is indicative of where Black Mirror should head next, it’s proof that clarity is more important than complexity.