I don’t really need to introduce what Black Mirror is at this stage in the game. Most people know that it’s an anthology series in the vein of something like The Twilight Zone, with an emphasis on how technology could be dangerous if we’re not careful with it. At this juncture in time, I’d say that Black Mirror has actually become pretty popular, and it has many fans. It’s been about a year and a half since the last season of Black Mirror, but in that time we also got the interactive Black Mirror movie, Bandersnatch. This was kind of polarizing, but I really liked it. Regardless, due to the production of that movie, production on season 5 of Black Mirror got cut kind of short, and so this season is only 3 episodes. Some people seemed kind of outraged by this, which I don’t really understand, because that’s how long the first two seasons were, and they were great. I’ve always looked at Black Mirror as a quality over quantity show, considering that we’ve only gotten 22 episodes (not including Bandersnatch) over the course of its five seasons, which is the equivalent of one season of some network shows. The important thing here is whether or not the episodes involved are good, and for the most part I think season 5 is still pretty strong.

In traditional fashion for my Black Mirror reviews, I’m going to talk about each episode individually, since they’re all so different from each other.

The first episode here is “Striking Vipers.” I found this episode to be the most similar to past Black Mirror episodes, for better or worse. The episode centers around two college friends, who are now well into their adult lives. Back in college, the pair used to play a fighting game called Striking Vipers a lot, so when Karl gives Danny the new Striking Vipers game for his birthday, the two are excited to relive old memories. The twist here is that this new game is VR-based, which allows the players to embody their fighter avatars and actually fight each other in a virtual world. Danny and Karl go into the world, but to both of their surprise they actually wind up hooking up instead of fighting. This becomes a recurring thing in the game world, and it starts to affect their personal lives. Danny stops feeling as intimate and close with his wife, while Karl has trouble finding a sexual partner in real life that feels as good as it does with Danny in the game world. This all has interesting implications and goes in pretty interesting directions. I found “Striking Vipers” to be a solid episode, but it did bring back flashes of other episodes. The whole virtual reality idea has been explored in previous episodes, like “Playtest” and “San Junipero,” but these episodes are all at least different from each other. The real differentiating factor in “Striking Vipers” is exploring how two heterosexual men are experiencing homosexual tendencies in a virtual world, and how that virtual pleasure is detracting from their real-life enjoyment of sex. It isn’t my favorite episode or anything, but it is interesting.

The next episode is “Smithereens,” which is easily the best episode of the season for me. The less said about the plot here the better, but I’ll give a brief description. Basically, we follow Chris, a man that works for a ridesharing service similar to something like Uber. Chris picks up a passenger named Jaden, and we soon see Chris’s mental problems start to unravel, as he ends up kidnapping Jaden. It doesn’t take long before the cops discover this, and so we end up with a kidnapping plot where the ransom that Chris demands is a phone call conversation with Billy Bauer, the creator and CEO of a popular social media app (think of it as the show’s version of Facebook). Even this much detail feels like I’ve said too much, but I definitely don’t want to say anything past that. This episode is a very intense ride. It’s a “thriller” kind of episode of Black Mirror, most similar to something like “Shut Up and Dance.” This episode felt extremely impactful, and I felt like it captured what makes Black Mirror great more than any episode this season. It understands that it’s the simplest ideas that provide some of the greatest social commentary on technology, and so through its simple-but-genius story we get a real emotional and thought-provoking punch. I wish I could say more about this episode without spoiling anything, but I’ll just leave it at the fact that this is one of the best episodes of Black Mirror I’ve seen in a while.

Then, the third and final episode is “Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too,” or “the Miley Cyrus episode” as some people will have heard of it as. This episode is definitely the most polarizing episode of the season, if not the series as a whole. Some people even consider this to be hands-down the worst episode of the series. I definitely understand why some people might feel this way, but I actually liked it personally. Basically, we follow Rachel, a teenager who’s moved to a new school. Rachel is struggling to make new friends, and so a lot of her time is spent obsessing over her favorite pop idol, Ashley O. Ashley has just released a new product called Ashley Too, which is a miniature robot infused with Ashley’s personality, so that the owner can spend time with a fake version of Ashley. Rachel gets Ashley Too and starts to form a bond with her new friend. All of this is happening as the real Ashley’s life begins to unravel, as she struggles with wanting to break away from the image that her corporate overlords have created for her. This is one of those episodes that goes in a pretty bizarre direction, so I also don’t want to spoil the twists of the episode. Everything I’ve talked about happens in the first 30% or so of the episode. After the halfway point, the episode takes a really weird turn, and it’s at this point that the episode becomes a completely different thing. This is the point where I understand why people might hate the episode, because up until that point it’s your standard Black Mirror plot. I think the most jarring thing about the episode is just that the tone winds up being so different than any other Black Mirror episode in the second half. It becomes incredibly over-the-top, and so I understand if this takes away from the realism factor of it all. Personally, as long as it isn’t the norm with a series like this, I’m okay with an episode like this every so often. I was able to get behind the tone and story that the episode goes for, and so when I suspended my disbelief I really enjoyed the episode a lot. It’s absolutely bananas, so I won’t disagree with anyone that it’s completely ridiculous, but for me that was the fun of it. I’m not saying I LOVE the episode or anything, but it’s definitely not the worst of the series for me either. That honor still goes to “The Waldo Moment” for me. This one is just unique, and while it doesn’t always work, I appreciate what was done with it.

As for my feelings on the season as a whole, I think it’s still pretty solid. I think that overall seasons 4 and 5 weren’t quite as strong as the first three seasons, but there’s definitely still a lot to love here. Like I said, the definite standout here is “Smithereens,” which is one of my new favorite episodes of the series. However, there’s only two other episodes here, and while they’re both good in my opinion, neither of them are amazing by usual Black Mirror standards. Regardless, I still think this series is really strong, and so even if this season isn’t without criticisms, I’m really glad that I got three more episodes of this series at all. If you love Black Mirror as much as I do, you’re still going to want to watch season 5.

4/5