Taking a break from looking at things from 1987 to look at something hip and trendy and current. I will now be "with it" and "down" with the "pop culture" by ranking every episode of Black Mirror, including the new Season 7 eps which will drop during the making of this post. Which episode will be "goated FR"? Let's find out. There'll be a fair amount of spoilers here but I'm not going to reveal the biggest twists or completely give away the episodes.
34. S1E1: The National Anthem - The absolute worst episode in the series is also the first thing people see when they start watching the show. How many people have gone "THIS is what people like so much?" after watching this episode? Probably a lot of 'em turned it off too. Best known for being the episode everyone tells their friends to skip, or stick with afterwards "because really, it gets better". Basically, a terrorist kidnaps the Princess, then under threats of hurting her, a British politician gets blackmailed into having sex with a pig on TV. The only real point the episode makes is that nobody notices the Princess was actually released because they're all glued to their phones and TVs waiting to see the deed go down. This episode is, as the British say, "bollocks"
33. S5E3: Rachel, Jack, and Ashley Too - Not sure how this is even Black Mirror. What even is this? It's better than the pig episode. It's an episode about teenage girls who are superfans of a pop idol and end up helping her defeat her evil aunt. It has Miley Cyrus. What happened to her anyway? A weird finale to a short and underwhelming season, saved mainly by Cyrus' general charisma (and her cover of "Head Like A Hole")
32. S6E1: Joan is Awful - This episode is basically
Netflix Exec 1: "We got Salma Hayek for an episode"
Netflix Exec 2: "Salma Hy-yak? She's hot!"
and it's pretty ridiculous. It doesn't actually make any sense, there's nothing particularly chilling or creepy about it, and it just doesn't particularly fit in this series. It's literally just a "we got a guest star, give her something to do" episode like the Miley Cyrus one. It even follows the same story arc, with Miss Hayek being aggrieved by her former employers and then getting revenge with the help of a plucky young fan. It does make one really good point at the end, that it's "Joan is Awful" instead of "Joan is Awesome" because people relate more to the worst version of themselves.
31. S6E4: Mazey Day - Another episode that suffers from not feeling at all like Black Mirror. This one follows a paparazzi as she struggles to get by in the expensive-as-hell Los Angeles. She ends up tracking a popular actress who, unbeknownst to the public, is currently going through some sort of drug addiction recovery. Exposing this would be the scoop of the year, and putting aside the unethical nature of the whole thing, would make our paparazzi protagonist a shitload of money. However, things go completely off the rails when she discovers that her target isn't going through a drug addiction at all, but is in fact afflicted with lycanthropy. In other words, she turns into a werewolf at night. Things then go completely off the rails. I don't dislike this episode or anything, and the twist is great, but it just has nothing to do with the overall concept of Black Mirror. And it's kinda dull overall until the twist reveals itself. One of the shortest episodes in the series and yet it feels long, which is never a good sign.
30. S7E3: Hotel Reverie - This episode is WAY too long (movie-length) and commits the cardinal sin of being boring. It also commits the cardinal sin of making me watch Awkwafina. This could have been a good episode if it focused more on the retro actress in the AI movie (seen above), or if it had a more believable main character. The actress they picked for the MC just isn't very believable in any of it, has basically anti-charisma, and never really seems to fit in with everything else that's going on. I couldn't tell what she was thinking or feeling 90% of the time. I liked the ending with the phone call across dimensions, and think this episode could have been something great if it were half as long and had a completely different actor or actress in the lead role. San Junipero did a very similar concept about 10x better.
29. S4E2: Arkangel - Taking "helicopter parenting" to a new level, a woman gets an app installed in her child so that she can see everything the kid is doing and block out anything remotely objectionable that the kid might ever see. Of course, the kid just ends up getting more and more messed-up as time goes by. One of those wildly depressing episodes, this one does an okay job tackling the theme of over-sheltering. While I like the point it's making, the whole thing is just morose and colorless and...yeah, not great.
28. S3E6: Hated In The Nation - Not terrible, but aggressively boring and way too long. Tackles the issue of what would happen if everyone basically had their own Death Note and all public figures were subject to random assassinations depending on how hated they are. Of course, numerous deaths immediately result, followed by a world where everyone is afraid to say or do anything because they might get, quite literally, cancelled. Not a bad idea for an episode, but it's just too long and too dull.
27. S6E5: Demon 79 - Gets points for heavy use of the song "Rasputin", but this was a weird one. It doesn't seem like a Black Mirror episode at all, with a demon (taking the form of the guy from Boney M) telling an Indian woman in England that she must commit murders to prevent the apocalypse. There's also this Dead Zone esque subplot with a political candidate who in the future will kill all the Indians in the country, or something. The main character sees visions of this future and thus tries to make him one of her victims, fails, and the episode moves on with the apocalypse just sort of happening anyway. They missed a golden opportunity to connect the two plots and have the attempted murder of the candidate be the cause of him turning on Indians and starting a big war, but they didn't think of that. Altogether, just a weird, disjointed episode that contained a bunch of political messaging without actually putting it together into a full story.
26. S5E2: Smithereens - Another depressing episode where a guy holds an intern hostage to get the attention of the CEO of Not-Twitter so he can tell him about how he lost his girlfriend because he was using the app while driving. And that's the episode. This is the first episode on the list that I actually like, and most of that comes down to the incredible acting of the lead. HM goes to Topher Grace as this sort of fusion of Jack Dorsey, Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg.
25. S2E2: White Bear - Episode that most people rate highly, but I don't. A woman who committed a heinous crime finds herself waking up with no memory every morning, helplessly being tormented by a fleet of assailants while crowds of onlookers film it dispassionately. Turns out what's happening to her echoes what she participated in doing to someone else, except she has no idea of this because of the memory wipes. I get that the episode is supposed to be an examination of criminal justice and how sometimes the punishment goes over the top outweighing the crime. However, the woman in question is a horrible person so f*** 'er.
24. Bandersnatch - The "Black Mirror Movie" as it were, this one takes on a "choose your own adventure" format that is super inventive. There are basically like 3 movies in one here, though some of the choices end up on the redundant side. In any case, this movie does a great job capturing the early programming era vibe with a team of young programmers creating rudimentary yet cutting-edge games. It is what it is, a bit of a curiosity, and something worth running through.
23. S4E6: Black Museum - An episode that can best be described as "icky", this is an anthology episode (like the far-better White Christmas) that has multiple short stories in it. A lot of this one comes off as mean-spirited, though it gets some points for introducing a couple interesting new concepts and following up on tech that appeared earlier in the series. One cool thing was the doctor developing technology where he and his girlfriend would experience each other's orgasms, so if they both had one at the same time it'd be like this combined super-orgasm.
22. S2E3: The Waldo Moment - An episode that every Youtube reviewer ever makes sure to refer to as "relevant to the real world", this one is about a populist cartoon dog who calls out and insults politicians to the point that the cartoon dog himself becomes more popular than they are and nearly wins an election. While this is a super interesting concept and they could have done a LOT with it, the episode itself is a bit on the slow side, and focuses way too much on the guy controlling the dog and his relationship with one of the other candidates. Would have liked to see more of the cartoon dog's impact on British politics and what the long-term effects were. We got a glimpse with a post-credits scene of a very dystopian future lorded over by the populist cartoon dog (now being reappropriated and used as a figurehead by the actual One World Government) while the populist guy who initially played the dog is now homeless on the sidewalk. Makes me think there's a much more interesting follow-up to this episode that we never got.
21. S5E1: Striking Vipers - The best episode of S5, though that isn't saying a whole lot, this one has two men playing fighting games in a near-future full-VR holodeck. The VR is so ultra-realistic that most people just end up having sex in the games instead of actually playing, and the same thing happens to the two guys when one of them picks a hot female character. Then they have to tackle whether or not they're gay, even though their actual bone sesh was hetero. Also they're both married so that also complicates things a bit. When it comes down to it, I just think one of them really likes being a woman and would prefer that, rather than either of them being necessarily gay. It's an interesting episode, and the idea of people instantly turning VR / holodeck worlds into "place to have sex" is probably extremely accurate. Would have been better if it had actually explored the fact that one of the guys felt so much more comfortable as a woman and got to experience that because of the VR world.
20. S4E3: Crocodile - Depressing episodes strike again, but I liked this one more than most people did. A woman is forced to continuously kill more people to cover up her own crimes, despite not even really doing anything in the crime that kicked off this chain of events. Unfortunately, her attempts to bury the past just result in more and more heinous actions, until she gets caught by a pretty great twist that is telegraphed in one of the first scenes of the episode. While this one is dark and dreary, I found it rather gripping. It also has some incredible, and I mean incredible, scenery from Iceland.
19. S1E3: The Entire History of You - A guy gets jealous of his wife after observing her talking to a male friend of hers. Due to everyone having their entire history recorded via cranial implants, he's able to suss out that his wife and the male friend have a history, leading him to go on a drunken rampage and ruin his marriage. ...at least, that was my first takeaway watching this back in the day. On rewatches, I realized that the husband was actually right about everything (except the drunken rampage). Not only did the wife and the other guy have a history, she actually cheated on the husband during their relationship. Also their son bears no resemblance to the "dad". Realizing after ten years that your son is actually someone else's is enough for the episode to be nightmare fuel, add in the futuristic component of everyone's memories being fully on-display, hackable, etc for the world to see and the whole thing strikes all kinds of nerves.
18. S7E1: Common People - A "sometimes dead is bettah" episode where an exploitative corporation is able to keep people alive indefinitely...for a nominal fee, of course. The story follows a couple who have to go this route to deal with the wife's brain cancer, only to discover that the corporation continuously tacks on more and more restrictions and fees as time goes on (to the point that it becomes untenable to continue existing). This episode is really about the surging cost of living, and anyone who has had to pay $550 for a month of car insurance without understanding why is going to have eye twitches while watching this. As the couple continues to get backed into a corner financially, tough choices need to be made. It's a good episode, with the series' best sex scene. ...which isn't saying much.
17. S3E5: Men Against Fire - A tackling of the Military-Industrial Complex and the future of warfare...if we let the warmonger class have their way. Noticing that the majority of soldiers who served in combat in wars like WW2 and Vietnam never actually fired their gun, the MIC develops occular implants that remove that element of hesitation. Soldiers end up seeing their enemy as subhuman monsters called "roaches" that are much easier to shoot at, and all goes according to plan... until one soldier's implant fails and he starts seeing the world as it really is. This episode seems prescient in a lot of ways and it's enough to freak you out. I rate it more highly than most.
16. S3E1: Nosedive - In the future, people give each other star ratings, leading to a culture of excessive fake politeness in the interest of everyone having a good "social credit score" and being treated with respect or reverence by their peers. A woman who is stuck in the four-star range is desperate to get to five stars, so she creates a whole persona for herself and buddies up to even faker five-star people to try and win their approval. Ultimately she ends up making some mistakes and having her star ratings plummet until she gives up and completely stops giving a shit, acting like a real human again in the process. This is a good episode with a great message.
15. S2E1: Be Right Back - Annnd another depressing one. A woman's boyfriend dies in a car accident, and a few years later technology is developed that can generate a perfect clone of someone who is no longer with us. Of course, the woman has a clone made of her guy so she can see him again. Unfortunately, sometimes dead is bettah, and the clone just doesn't have any of the spark that made the guy human. The woman has to accept that he's gone and stop trying, and the episode ends with her screaming at the sky. Gets points for Hayley Atwell playing the main character, and she's completely gorgeous here.
14. S3E3: Shut Up And Dance - A kid gets filmed while whacking off, then blackmailed to carry out a bunch of tasks so that the video isn't sent to his contact list. An episode that tops a lot of lists, but not for me. It's good, no doubt, and the twist at the end is kind of bonkers, but leading up to that it almost feels kind of silly at times with the kid going through such lengths to keep anyone from finding out he cranked one out. That one guy from Game of Thrones is a great addition to the episode and everyone acted their ass off for this one. It's probably legitimately one of the scarier episodes throughout, and the ending casts the rest of the episode in an entirely new lens.
13. S3E2: Playtest - Speaking of scary, this one's great, with nods to Resident Evil and The Thing. Wyatt Russell (Kurt Russell's son) is our main character and he's pretty damn good in the role. What starts as a fun Euro-trip ends at a new VR game playtest, and things quickly go off the rails once there. The ending is one of the more memorable and impactful in the series, maybe even a bit traumatizing. Basically a haunted house episode, but it's better than most of the scary movies out there.
12. S7E2: Bete Noire - An episode that takes on the Mandela Effect, I found this one to be really creepy and interesting all throughout. What would happen if someone invented a machine that could alter time and space at will to "leap" them to a reality where things are a specific way? And some folks remembered the previous version of events vividly enough to wonder WTF was going on? They did a good job with this one, though it got kinda simple towards the end with the evil time-lord woman being confronted by the woman who could see through it all. Ultimately all it really had to say is that if given such powers, pretty much everyone would leap to the reality where they're the worshipped emperor/empress of the planet.
11. S6E3: Beyond the Sea - Two astronauts in space (played by Josh Hartnett and Aaron Paul) have clone-avatars on Earth. Hartnett's avatar gets brutally murdered by the Manson cult along with his family, leading to a situation where Paul starts sharing his clone-avatar to keep his friend from going (more) insane. And as anybody would expect, things start getting really weird, with Hartnett imposing himself more and more on Paul and his family. This one suffers a bit from being too long, but damn if it isn't a great story.
10. S7E5: Eulogy - Strong little episode where a guy tries to use a VR program to leap into old photos and be reunited with his now long-deceased girlfriend. After struggling to find some of his missing photos of her, he's unable to find one where he didn't cut her out. You see, he thought she left and didn't want anything to do with him, as she was having some random guy's child now. Little did he know that this was anything but the case, she wanted them back together, but now it's too late to do anything about it. A bit of a rumination, this one. The most depressing part is how Paul Giamatti's character spent 20+ years mourning a woman he was with for a fraction of that time, and is now basically old. At least he finally got some closure by the end of the episode, finally remembering not only why they didn't work out, but also her smiling face.
8. S7E4: Plaything - Peter Capaldi stars as a mysterious programming wizard who has stitched together numerous Playstations and Switches (didn't see any XBoxes lol) to build a mega-computer inhabited by living digital life-forms. This one has a ton of style, with some good musical montages and a fairly gripping story. I thought we had an easy top five contender for most of the episode, but I felt like the final payoff was a bit flatter than I hoped for. Either that or it was incredible, will probably have to mull this one over. Could be taken as a sequel to "Bandersnatch" and maybe even a prequel to "Metalhead".
7. S6E2: Loch Henry - This one is a bit of a true crime thriller that doesn't really feel like Black Mirror, but it is quite suspenseful and probably the best reason to revisit S6. A young couple are working on making a documentary about food together and go to visit the guy's hometown in the Scottish highlands. While there, they find out about a serial killer who once terrorized the town, and switch gears to making a documentary about that instead. What follows... will turn out to be much more horrifying and much closer to home than they expect. Everything about this episode is well put together, it's got some great scenery and direction, and the twist is one of the best and most unsettling in the entire series. If only it were a bit more...Black Mirrorish?
6. S4E5: Metalhead - Black Mirror's shortest episode, I find this one super-underrated. It's another "MIC gone awry" episode where we join a group of scavengers sneaking around a post-apocalyptic England patrolled by relentless killer machines. It clearly draws heavy inspiration from Terminator and could even BE a story from that universe outright, set in the early era after Judgment Day but before the full-on war against the machines. This episode is truly chilling and successfully had me freaked-out within the first 5 minutes, even on rewatches. The episode never tells us anything about HOW the world ended up like that which makes it even more interesting, though Demon 79 seemed to indicate that this is the extension of the Dead Zone esque world where that one guy became PM. Then again Demon 79 makes no sense and ends with a nuclear apocalypse before any of that can happen so who knows. Putting all of that aside, Metalhead is probably chronologically the last thing to happen in the Black Mirror timeline. I mean, it kinda has to be. It's the logical extension of Men Against Fire: If the men aren't getting the job done, go to terminators.
5. S7E6: USS Callister: Into Infinity - A bit of a sendup of Star Trek: Into Darkness, this is basically a Star Trek episode that serves as a sequel to the original USS Callister. Lots of cool stuff here for fans of Trek, and it goes in some unexpected directions with the return of the bastardly (or is he?) Captain Daly in a new incarnation. Was the best thing about the latest season by a good margin and it'd be cool to see them do a lot more with this concept. Could USS Callister be its own show? Yeah, probably.
4. S3E4: San Junipero - This one's a little overrated, but it's a really nice/wistful nostalgia trip. Taking place in a virtual world that seems to leap from retro decade to retro decade every few scenes, we follow two friends who end up becoming lovers as time goes on. Without completely spoiling things, their real-world selves aren't so young, and the virtual world is a way to relive all of the decades we wax nostalgic about today. It also deserves mention that the friends in question are both chix, and the episode came out at a time when we were barely out of the "gay = hilarious" era where gay characters were lucky to make it through a story in one piece. Which makes the happy ending of this one kind of poignant.
2. S4E1: USS Callister - The Star Trek themed episode is so much fun...and also completely terrifying when you learn that the holodeck-like VR world it takes place in is actually a pocket universe ruled over by a ruthless programmer. After cloning his co-workers to put sentient AIs of them into his VR game, the programmer dominates them with an iron fist unless they play along with all of his whims - in this case, playing a heroic Captain Kirk type character. The character always saves the day and has the respect of his colleagues, unlike the real guy playing the character. A lot of elements here really land, and the downtrodden-in-real-life Captain Daly is almost sympathetic if not for his absolute dickery. This is an A+ episode on pretty much every level.
1. S2E4: White Christmas - The episode that really exemplifies what Black Mirror is and what it's about. This is an anthology like Black Museum, and a much better one that reaches right into your soul and gives it a gut-punch. We get Jon Hamm for this one, and unlike the other celebrity guest stars on this show, he's in nearly the entire episode and puts forward an epic performance. The episode has a couple of guys unable to leave a house in the wilderness due to the heavy snowfall outside, so they sit around and tell various stories of technology gone awry. In the end, nothing is as it seems. This episode has some real nightmare-fuel in it, from being trapped eternally to being blocked out of your child's life for years only to eventually find out they weren't even yours. This episode scares on a raw, visceral level that isn't exactly a fun time, but it makes you ponder and think. And take a deep breath after it's over to go "wow, that was something". And probably dread watching it again. It is remarkable fiction.
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