Originally written January 23, 2017

I was a bit nervous when it was announced that Black Mirror was getting the Netflix treatment. For one reason, this felt like the show would be more “Americanized,” and not to knock American TV by any means but I always get nervous when shows change directions. Luckily, show creator Charlie Brooker stayed with the show, so it didn’t feel much different. My other big concern was with the length of the season though. Both season 1 and 2 of Black Mirror were only 3 episodes each (not counting the “White Christmas” special episode), so when season 3 was originally announced to be 12 episodes, I got extremely nervous that the quality would go down. Luckily, they made the right call and decided to do two 6-episode seasons instead, and so while season 3 is still twice the number of episodes as the other two seasons, it didn’t have to sacrifice quality for quantity.

As always with shows of this nature (ya know, anthology shows), I find it best to talk about each individual episode, rather than the season as a whole, so here goes:

The season starts out with an episode called “Nosedive.” This one stars the most recognizable actress for many, Bryce Dallas Howard of Jurassic World fame. This episode has perhaps one of the best concepts of the season. In it, the world operates under each person having their own rating (on a scale from 0 to 5). You can rate any person you interact with, and so their ratings will then be an average of all of the ratings people have given them. The episode applies this idea to our main character, Lacie, who is desperate to boost her rating from a 4.2 to a 4.5 so that she can qualify for a house that she wants to buy. Desperate for good ratings, she starts acting overly nice to people to a fake degree, including agreeing to be a maid of honor for a childhood friend that she hasn’t spoke to in years, just so that she can get good ratings from everyone at the wedding. The episode is an obvious commentary on the lengths that people will go to for attention, validation, and approval on social media sites, and the negative consequences it can have. This was honestly the most “Black Mirror”-esque episode of the season, and probably one of the best. It does hammer its point home a bit much, but it’s a really engaging concept.

The second episode is “Playtest,” an episode that focuses on the concept of virtual reality (well…more like augmented reality, but we’ll go with VR for the sake of discussion). An American traveler named Cooper ends up far from home and desperate for money to get back. Looking for some quick cash, he ends up taking an odd job to be a playtester for a new video game that’s coming out. Upon starting, he finds that it’s a game that probes your brain to discover what your deepest fears are, and then exploits them by creating virtual life-like images for the player to interact with. Things get out of hand when Cooper finds the thrills starting to get a bit too real. The episode’s weakness is that it lacks a lot of the social commentary that Black Mirror is known for, but I still really liked it regardless. The episode feels more like a horror short story than it does a sci-fi episode. So, while it does feel a bit out of place, it combines two things I love (horror and video games), so I found it to be highly enjoyable. It also has some pretty interesting twists towards the end.

The third episode is “Shut Up and Dance.” Where “Playtest” feels like a horror episode, “Shut Up and Dance” feels like a thriller. This one centers around a teenager named Kenny that winds up getting a virus on his computer. Unbeknownst to him, this virus allows some hackers to access his computer, and they film Kenny through his webcam jerking off. They threaten to send the video to everybody he knows, unless he agrees to their demands. From here, Kenny is sent from one increasingly dangerous task to the next, falling deeper into the trap and being at the mercy of an unknown person. To me, this episode was the scariest one to watch, because while all episode of Black Mirror tend to have the feeling of being only minutes away from reality, this one actually feels like the most plausible scenario since it can happen already with all of our current technology. The episode does a great job of giving you a sense of paranoia over the fact that every dirty secret you have could potentially be uncovered and exploited.

The fourth episode is “San Junipero.” This is the one that I can talk the least about without giving away major plot details. Basically, two women named Yorkie and Kelly meet in a seaside town called San Junipero in 1987. The two girls start to form a bond that defies time and space. I’ve read that many people seem to think this is the best episode of season 3, but I don’t really agree. It’s a really good episode for sure, but I felt like the episode was presenting interesting concepts without fully executing the potential they had. Without spoiling anything, the episode deals a lot with the concepts of artificial realities. I thought it was an interesting idea, it just wasn’t the darling episode for me that it was to many.

However, my least favorite episode was the fifth one, “Men Against Fire.” This episode centers around a group of futuristic soldiers, particularly one named Stripe. The soldiers are up against the Roaches, a once-human group of infected creatures that are contaminating food and supplies of nearby villagers. The soldiers have futuristic gear that gives them the edge in battle, but after Stripe has some of his tech damaged following a fight with some Roaches, he finds that things aren’t quite what they initially seemed. I felt like the episode did some great things with its commentary on making soldiers dehumanize their enemies and be treated as heroes regardless of who their enemies are, I just personally wasn’t as interested in the concept of the episode as I was with the other ones.

Then, my favorite episode was actually the sixth and final one, “Hated in the Nation.” This episode is the longest one by far, running at just under 90 minutes, the length of a full feature-length film. I feel like each episode of this season took on the form of a different genre, and if that’s the case then this one was definitely a detective/mystery episode. It’s all about a police detective named Karin and her new tech-savvy partner, Blue, who are investigating a new case. A reporter who was being slammed by everyone for mean comments on social media is found dead, and it’s soon discovered that the death has a link to a #DeathTo hashtag on social media. Furthermore, the mysterious culprit sets up a game that every day someone new will die, and the person who dies will be whoever has the most votes using the #DeathTo hashtag. The episode is really engaging and exciting all throughout it, and I really liked how it tackled the concepts of online death threats, the power of hashtags on social media, and the idea that our anonymity on the internet isn’t as anonymous and innocent as we might think. This one was just really good, and I can’t recommend it enough.

All in all, season 3 of Black Mirror was much better than I was expecting. After binging them all, I’m hungry for more. It reinvigorated my interest in the show and was just a really solid season overall. If you’re not watching this show yet, you should be.

4.5/5