Black Mirror. In the retro-futuristic Beyond the Sea episode of the new season, consciousness can live in a place separate from the body. In the story set in the 1960s, the conscious selves of two astronauts on duty in a spacecraft are transferred to androids that are replicas of themselves, so they can continue their duties on the spacecraft while living with their families.
In the science fiction of the past, robots and androids existed and would exist for the jobs that people did not want to do and would prefer not to do… Here, while the human body does the hard work in the space station, the “sweet life” on earth is lived through android bodies.
This system, which apparently reacted to this “sin” and seemed to work smoothly until a gang in the style of the Manson Family eliminated one of the androids along with his family, collapses badly when they begin to use the replica of one of the astronauts with double consciousness. Maybe it wouldn’t be a problem if they shared the same body, but when it comes to sharing the same woman, the same house and family, when it turns into a property dispute, emotions such as envy, resentment and revenge, which are not considered virtuous by human beings, emerge. Then came the brutality…
Extremely talented actors such as Aaron Paul, Josh Hartnet and Kate Mara could not solve the problem of pacing and world building in Beyond the Sea. The episode turns out to be a missed opportunity more than anything else, especially since Brooker chose the most predictable of the possible scenarios for its finale.
Aside from the fact that the lack of plot twists expected from a Black Mirror episode discourages the audience, it is pathetic that it wastes the story. There is only one thought that is blood-curdling and worth remembering later in Beyond the Sea, the infinite vulnerability of the body when consciousness is somewhere far away… While the biological body lies in the bed-like machine used for consciousness transfer, expectations about what can happen to it are dashed…
As in Joan is Awful, people’s lives (mostly their troubles, pain, problems) are great material as long as there are people who want to watch it. I’m not sure if Joan is Awful is worth going back and watching again, but it’s a passable, entertaining content… Loch Henry Documentary director Davis, who learned the gruesome details of his parents’ private lives from home videos in , says the sentence “My life is not content” in a reproachful tone, just before his life turns into a true crime documentary.
However, why not? As Davis’ girlfriend Pia realizes, there may be ways to make the story of the Loch Henry serial killings interesting for the platform Streamberry (disguised as Netflix). As a matter of fact, he turns his family’s story into a highly sought-after true crime documentary, a Bafta-winning Streamberry production… The streaming industry plays the role of the arch-villain, taking people’s lives away from them and giving more than they think they give.
How the obsession with surveillance and voyeurism could change lives even before artificial intelligence took things this far is also reminded in the story of pop star Mazy Day, whose life turned into content in itself and who was not as valuable as her photographs. If true crime documentaries are made for those who want to know every detail of the horrific, astonishing and “weirder than fiction” events that took place, the magazine corresponds to the desire to look at what is happening “in reality” from a pornographic closeness.
In a world where the camera looks everywhere for us, when an extremely dramatic supernatural transformation is taking place, the reporter knows that he has to photograph what is happening. Don’t we have to see him as a machine, a tool no different from a camera, in order to save him from the conscientious dilemma he is in? While Mazey Day turns into a werewolf, the photographer turns into a machine.
In Loch Henry, Davis’ mother’s suicide note read, “For your movie.” Mazey Day’s photographs are also taken for the audience. If a tree falls while no one is looking, can we say that the tree has really fallen? The paradox of truth is here; If there is no conscious observer, did the event really happen? Brooker’s reasoning about human consciousness (especially since the series moved to Netflix) and his test with content continue.
Red Mirror
“Someone said to me, make a Black Mirror episode about NFTs,” Charlie Brooker said in an interview with Esquire. “I thought, has this become my duty now? It’s so boring…” he says. At one point, he thought about a series called Red Mirror, which he designed as a horror anthology in which events take place in the past rather than in the near future. Then, based on the fact that Black Mirror has evolved into a multiverse with the interactive Bandersnatch (or perhaps with a whim of the producer Netflix), he begins to think that we can include these horror stories in Black Mirror.
However, my favorite episode of this season is Demon 79, which is an episode of Red Mirror rather than Black Mirror. It is about an Indian-British shop assistant trying to continue his daily life under racist pressures and trying desperately to prevent the end of the world. There is an alternative (I wonder?) history just like Beyond the Sea; The world is a terrible place, no different from an endless, cosmic hell dimension for a non-white person.
The story takes place in 1979 in England, where the National Front, which pursues far-right politics, is the central party. Our hero, Nida, finds herself making a deal with a demon; If he doesn’t kill three people in three days, the world will end. This is a world where we won’t be sad when it comes to an end, but Nida still does her best, which is exactly why she gets caught.
As a result, they escape to a real cosmic hell dimension with the immature demon who fails to complete the agreement, and they think that if we are going to be exiled to eternity, at least we should not go alone. This kind of relationships are also acceptable. Also, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean there isn’t a crocodile under the bed. We wouldn’t say no to a Red Mirror season with a name instead of watching another Black Mirror season with no trace of its old self.
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