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BuzzJack Music Forum _ Television _ Black Mirror • Series 5
Posted by: lewistgreen 14th May 2019, 09:09 PM
IT’S COMING
Charlie Brooker has provided almost no context for the first-look photo, other than telling Entertainment Weekly: "It’s the Marvel-DC crossover no one saw coming.”
Miley Cyrus is also going to guest star in an episode.
Posted by: 365 14th May 2019, 09:11 PM
I'm so excited. Bandersnatch was a cute little flash in a pan, but each season of Black Mirror has 2 or 3 episodes that I absolutely love so I can't wait for it to come back properly.
Posted by: Botchia 14th May 2019, 09:12 PM
I'm ready
Posted by: Klaus 14th May 2019, 09:13 PM
Posted by: HausofTove 14th May 2019, 09:16 PM
Posted by: lotita 14th May 2019, 09:18 PM
Posted by: Chez Wombat 14th May 2019, 09:25 PM
Posted by: LewisGT 14th May 2019, 09:26 PM
I'm excited for this too. 
Although I thought that, while season 4 had some outstanding episodes, there were a few more poor ones than usual that really took the average rating down a fair bit. It was certainly the least consistent season for me; I hated the Crocodile episode with a passion.
Bandersnatch was also pretty forgettable so I'd have to say I'm a lot more cautious towards Black Mirror than I once was.
Posted by: UltraME! 14th May 2019, 09:40 PM
Posted by: Jack 15th May 2019, 09:56 AM
Posted by: UltraME! 15th May 2019, 09:58 AM
5th June!!!!! Trailer just dropped omg
I have an exam that day ffs so I can't watch straight away 
Posted by: Jack 15th May 2019, 11:05 AM
Omg YESSSSS. So soon! I needed it.
I was fairly underwhelmed by 'Bandersnatch' to be completely honest.
Posted by: Klaus 15th May 2019, 11:43 AM
So soon, I thought it would be another Christmas period release!
Very excited, it’s back to 3 episodes but I’m guessing there will be a Part II or so to Season 5 coming later this year (or maybe next). No doubt writing Bandersnatch took over Charlie’s life.
Posted by: lewistgreen 15th May 2019, 12:46 PM
Posted by: Conanderella 15th May 2019, 11:55 PM
miley!
Posted by: Iz~ 16th May 2019, 03:55 AM
Going back to 3 episodes I think is a good sign for this show, Bandersnatch aside, it means that they aren't going to give us more concepts that have to be stretched thin, which the previous series suffered a bit after they felt the pressure from having so many good ideas for Series 3.
Very excited to see what they have this time of course.
Posted by: lewistgreen 22nd May 2019, 07:38 PM
Episode trailers
Posted by: dandy* 22nd May 2019, 07:56 PM
Currently most excited about Smithereens!
Posted by: Iz~ 5th June 2019, 12:55 PM
This is now out and I'm about to venture into Striking Vipers *.*
Only just now seen all the synopses and I'm hyped for them all.
Posted by: lewistgreen 5th June 2019, 07:00 PM
Only watched Striking Vipers so far but I loved it!
Posted by: lewistgreen 5th June 2019, 08:27 PM
Gah! Smithereens is just so intense
Posted by: lewistgreen 5th June 2019, 10:00 PM
I’m now finished Miley’s episode was intriguing but I’d rank it last out of the 3 if I had to. Smithereens is just so on point with everything to do with social media.
Posted by: Iz~ 6th June 2019, 02:06 PM
Overall, aaahhh, good but...
Smithereens is clearly the best of the three. The part where the tech company were able to say to the FBI/police 'actually we know all this about the suspect already' was by far the most unsettling tech part of it and that wouldn't even really register in a Season 2 or 3 Black Mirror episode. Ending was incredibly intense and the fact they didn't show who died partly felt like a copout even if it did allow them to have that scene where everyone just glances at their phone before continuing on with life as though it didn't matter. In terms of conversations that can be started from it though, it's basically yet another installment of 'people looking at phones and telling megacorps everything about themselves all the time is bad, k', and while I can empathise with Moriarty-boi (unfortunately can't see him as anything else), I couldn't really sympathise with him.
The other two, they were good TV but not really Black Mirror, in that they didn't really lean into the technology angle all that much and played both plots really safe.
Striking Vipers... 
Actually, besides that, the best thing I can say about it, and I do mean this, is that it should start a good number of conversations over what it means to really have experiences as VR becomes more common. And how gender and sexuality will become more genderfluid when technology progresses far enough that it's feasible to masquerade as another identity for a time. And I think that will be really good for society, I know I'd jump at the chance to change my gender or sexuality, to see how it feels. And then there's a final addendum on with it ending on an open relationship, which I thought was really nice for one reason and poor for another. Nice because the fact that some people can accept open relationships and don't need exclusivity to love each other isn't nearly explored enough, and these characters did indeed fall into that from the get-go (she likes meeting strangers, remember). Poor because it ended the episode without really making me think too much on the weight of what the technology means, because there's obviously a darker side to a video game that has as a secondary function virtual sex and that was never even touched on, even with kids in the episode, there's a whole lot of adult fear that could have been done.
As for the Miley Cyrus episode, it was fun and all, the Ashley Too thing was funny once delimited, but there's no deeper meaning there besides Miley Cyrus wanting to do a biopic about 'Can't Be Tamed' and some rather unexplored stuff about creating songs from brainwaves over a facade of an 80s-style tweenpop movie.
Posted by: WhoOdyssey 6th June 2019, 03:35 PM
Haven't got around to them yet, but Idles get a shoutout at one point! Charlie Brooker is a big fan.
Posted by: dandy* 6th June 2019, 04:05 PM
Have watched Striking Vipers so far and unfortunately it didn't really hold my interest. It took forever to get going and then I feel it copped out (and off) on the storyline once it did.
Posted by: danG 6th June 2019, 09:34 PM
Only seen the first two so far but this season's been rather disappointing. The episodes take ages to get going and only seem to make one point.
Many phones now have technology to not receive notifications whilst driving too..
Posted by: dandy* 6th June 2019, 09:37 PM
I've finished them now and none of them are going to be remembered as classic episodes imo. The Smithereens one was okay but lacked that spark of something to make it truly special, it was all signposted clearly and played out exactly as you would expect. The Miley Cyrus one was kinda ok too but didn't feel very Black Mirror, more like a kids film or something!
Posted by: Iz~ 7th June 2019, 04:55 AM
Many phones now have technology to not receive notifications whilst driving too..
Aye, that being his motivation as the reveal made the whole thing a bit weaker than it otherwise could be. It makes his issue with Smithereen personal to him. But surely the Black Mirror thing to do, and the more pressing issue, is that Smithereen knows so much about its users that the guy's reason for wanting to speak to the founder should be based in privacy concerns, why are they allowed to have all this information on him? It's RIGHT there, and they missed the point. To make the main player of the episode only sympathetic to people who text while driving?
Posted by: Liаm 7th June 2019, 02:30 PM
I've only seen the Miley one atm but I loved it! I get that it's not very Black Mirror in many places though, Charlie Brooker did say it would be divisive and not necessarily what people want or expect from Black Mirror. I quite like it though when episodes deviate a bit, like this or San Junipero, although I think a happy ending is a little different to changing an episode's whole vibe so I can see why not everyone is loving it.
Posted by: Iz~ 7th June 2019, 04:02 PM
Oh I loved it with San Junipero, but that was special as it was, when it aired, the only Black Mirror episode to have a lighter ending, it was still telling a very unique tech story as well, and after all those dark episodes seeing finally someone in these episodes have a victory, it felt earned, it felt jubilant, coming out of all the horrible endings, to finally have that 'JUST THIS ONCE EVERYBODY LIVES' moment.
Thing is, you don't get that when it happens as often as it doesn't. This season, it feels like it was all 50-50 and in actuality, there were no confirmed depressing endings. That isn't to reduce things to a binary on their ending, but when the series started as a way to look at the darker sides of tech, it feels like the episodes are being tamed by executive decisions, ironically when railing against things like that, by doing risky stuff that other shows wouldn't do, is part of what made it so popular in the first place.
Posted by: Liаm 7th June 2019, 04:17 PM
Yeah 100%, I think that's exactly why San Junipero was so loved (and why it's the best episode)! This time it was just like eh let's take a risk, I'll see how I feel about the other two when I see them.
Posted by: dandy* 7th June 2019, 04:46 PM
Slept on it and I think I liked the Miley episode the most too. It wasn't at all what I was expecting but it was entertaining and I cared for all of the central characters in it too. It's the only one of the three I think I'd watch again.
Re the Smithereens one, was there a reason why they couldn't still hear them inside the car by the end? It's bugging me that they thought it looked like a dangerous situation and called the shots when earlier they were able to make more sane decisions based upon the conversations happening in the car - the dialogue in the car at the end would have made it clear what was happening.
Posted by: Klaus 8th June 2019, 06:03 PM
I’ve watched Striking Vipers. I’ve tried to avoid information about the episodes, and the only thing I know bits about is Miley’s episode. I certainly hadn’t been expecting that! It definitely threw me back to the more stripped back episodes like Entire History of You and Be Right Back.
I don’t feel it really led anyway though and therefore it lacked the usual impact. The premise of the episode is essentially the episode. I do feel that it’s accurate that a game with that freedom would get abused for ulterior purposes but it’s weird a patch wouldn’t be issued (as we had the 7 months later). Literally a really picky detail but.... 
Also, polar bear??? Nasty
Posted by: Cqmerqn 8th June 2019, 11:13 PM
So disappointed! 
Smithereens was clearly the best, but it did drag on a bit. ://
Posted by: Jack 8th June 2019, 11:31 PM
Smithereens was shit, the message it tried to portray was bullshit too! Just don't text and drive, you can't blame social media! 
Posted by: Iz~ 9th June 2019, 03:39 AM
No, I wasn’t keen on that either. As is so common when video games make their way into the plot of a TV show the author shows they’ve never spent any time as a fan of a video game, it absolutely would be found and patched if not intended. The implicit conclusion is that the devs of this game are okay with people banging in their fighting game, which obviously means they’re the descendants of the devs that make all those crappy perverted anime games on Steam.
Posted by: Chez Wombat 9th June 2019, 12:47 PM
Well I've watched all of them, here are my thoughts, spoilers will follow so if you haven't seen them yet, please do not read beyond this line~
Striking Vipers - I'm basically in agreement with everyone else here that this one had an intriguing premise of exploring male friendships and how much of it is homoerotic unconsciously and I like that it didn't work when they were out of character because they were too conscious of it, but that was essentially the whole episode, by no means justifying filling an entire hour as the build-up before and after it just dragged on and on, I guess the very drained, drab colours and stilted performance (particularly from Danny) didn't really help, I guess they were going for a vibe like that, but I just found it far too soap opera-esque for my tastes with a happy ending that felt a bit forced. Some interesting topics for sure, but didn't fully work for me.
Smithereens - This was much better, very gripping crime drama-esque thriller when it got going. It made a lot of subtle statements about humanity's reliance of technology too that I think it does very well, like social media upper management being better at finding out information about the person than law enforcement, the desensitisation to reports of violence that people just take a look at it and move on and there was definitely religious overtones going on with Bauer and 'God Mode' etc. The problem? It was just so surface level in the actual technology part, it was an ordinary social media account, none of the messages felt like they were new and the 'pay off' was a complete anti-climax as there wasn't any ulterior motive revealed, it played out as expected and...yeah, texting while driving is bad, I'm pretty sure everyone knows that. It's basically 'What if Phones but too much?' and the sort of thing that opens the show to parody, I also didn't get why they made it ambiguous as to what happened to the man at the end (and the daughter for that matter) as it seemed pretty obvious? 
Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too - ARGH, This was easily the biggest disappointment of them all because parts of it really did promise some excellent concepts, but they completely mucked it up with that final act. The concept of technology basically used to turn pop stars into literal robots and using brain technology to produce pop songs without their consent so they're literally slaves to their contracts is a brilliant one (even though the virtual popstar felt very late, we've had CGI resurrected actors in movies already so didn't feel new) I wish they'd spent more time on it, but no, in the second half, it decided to turn into a Nickelodeon movie, I groaned so much at the snarky robot sidekick, knocking out the bad, evil guys and stopping the big bad boss at the last possible minute :/ And the ending with her in a new image and with Jack as her guitarist (not in prison for dangerous driving or anything) that's Sue Sylvester in the Glee finale levels of bullshit What a complete farce coming from a show that's been so intelligent and cynical in the past, the sisters didn't feel properly fleshed out either and they suffered from a plot that was far too overstuffed, it should've focused just on the pop star and not had a ludicrously happy ending, even the Waldo Moment got that right. I just get angrier the more I think of this and how much wasted potential it had, instead it's easily one of the worst episodes. FLUSH.
So yeah, not too good overall. I'd put Bandersnatch above all of these as well as most if not all of Seasons 1-4. I'm not gonna lost hope in it completely yet, but this really is just confirming that the gritty, sadistic, relevance that's persisted in all of the episodes is becoming diluted in favour of happy endings and Hollywood storylines, and while I'm sure it was inevitable with Netflix and all, it's sad to see with a show that initially was the complete opposition of that
Posted by: Klaus 9th June 2019, 01:28 PM
Charlie Brooker is actually a huge video games fan!
Posted by: Iz~ 9th June 2019, 02:36 PM
What a complete farce coming from a show that's been so intelligent and cynical in the past, the sisters didn't feel properly fleshed out either and they suffered from a plot that was far too overstuffed, it should've focused just on the pop star and not had a ludicrously happy ending, even the Waldo Moment got that right. I just get angrier the more I think of this and how much wasted potential it had, instead it's easily one of the worst episodes. FLUSH.I knew I had reservations about how swiftly and shittily it was resolved but you vocalised that all very well. I hoped when the robot was delimited it would get all existential and start down a path of AI rights and how she's different from the human pop star but to just act as a sidekick...
I don't actually doubt that. Like materially, the episode isn't affected but sex being possible between players in online games has some really weird implications (imagine a CoD or FIFA where this is possible) and a host of parenting liability issues. If you think about it, it just doesn't work as a concept. Would have only needed a few changes really (it's an 18+ rating, Karl cagily refers to some past controversy when he hands over the game, your kid can't play it, might have made the episode darker but it did need that), it's just those little details.
Posted by: 365 9th June 2019, 03:41 PM
I liked all three episodes but Nothing in this season of Black Mirror came close to the levels of quality of San Junipero, Nosedive or USS Callister tbh.
Posted by: Severin 12th June 2019, 08:04 PM
Watched all three now and they're all ok. The Miley episode is the best one for me overall, followed by Smithereens but all of them play it far too safe. Particularly in comparison to the reboot of The Twilight Zone which is currently knocking it out of the park on contemporary issues every week
Posted by: Oliver 12th June 2019, 08:13 PM
I agree Joe, those are by far and away the best three episodes, and these unfortunately don't come anywhere close.
Posted by: Klaus 13th June 2019, 07:14 PM
a jam
Posted by: Klaus 13th June 2019, 07:39 PM
Yeh, as an overall package, this is certainly not my favourite series. None of the episodes hit that level that I'm used to from the show and the messages/themes really were not that strong.
Smithereens really did not need to drag on for so long when it kept missing any mark it could have made. I guess it was more in the zone of obvious messages where social media is controlling, we're addicted, social media knows a lot about us etc so maybe it purposely tried to tell a more simpler message. I certainly did like how the company was more effective than the police but my main highlight was the end as I've (as we all probably are) been guilty of stopping to see the news notification of deaths and then just getting on with my life without further consideration - and I've noticed myself doing it before.
The Miley episode though I'm HUGELY disappointed in as there is even more wads of potential there yet, as has been said, it turned into a kid's TV movie!! The whole thing was all so outlandish and cartoony, with Miley magically waking up from a coma, the tiny sidekick, the rat van. A shame as the first half was brilliant and, once again, there were some great themes to play with, e.g. the music industry, releasing unreleased music from a dead person's catalogue, hologram tours, the prominence of Alexas.
I think Bandersnatch took it out of Charlie a bit too much, I have faith the next series will be a return to form
Posted by: Severin 13th June 2019, 10:17 PM
a jam
It's fun, but I think I'll stick with the original to be honest (but it does show what a good pop sensibility Trent Reznor has)
Posted by: Klaus 14th June 2019, 05:27 PM
It’s now available on Spotify/Apple Music etc as well as Right Where It Belongs
Posted by: HausofTove 15th June 2019, 10:00 AM
This is easily the worst series the show has had. Great concepts executed so poorly and quite frankly boringly. Each episode had no grit or power, they just plodded along with cliched developments.
I'm so disappointed but a ranking:
Ashley Too
Smithereens
Whatever that video game one was lmao
x
Posted by: Wall 15th June 2019, 10:04 AM
It probably would have went top five on iTunes had it been released last week.
Posted by: Klaus 15th June 2019, 02:03 PM
Alexa told me she sometimes bumps into Ashley Too in the cloud and likes the Black Mirror episode where Ashley Too saves the day
Posted by: Stray Cody 20th June 2019, 07:07 AM
isn’t the Ashley too episode supposed to be a satire about Disney channel? it would explain why the tone is so cookie cutter, bc that was miley’s Life for a good 5 years. it’s that Disney “everything is candy and lollipops” vs stuff like wrecking ball and Demi talking about breaking her sobriety, Selena with Wolves and how it alludes to how she dealt with lupus, Ashley Tisdale and her own struggles with her mental health - there’s the stuff everybody expects from them bc they’re Disney stars and then there’s separating their own artistry from that stigma bc they’re not kids anymore. and it was a hard to swallow pill for a lot of people who grew up with them. I still remember getting shook when good for you of all songs was playing on radio Disney.
- the coma scene and ashley eternal were a reference to pixel perfect
- ashley o herself is basically Hannah Montana with a lola luvnagle wig (and also kind of the same story line from hatching Pete)
- the rachel vs jack thing was a reference to read it and weep (the real person being shy and the alter ego being the complete opposite?)
- and the robot thing is a trope in a bunch of Disney channel movies, ultimate Christmas present, how to build a better boy, etc.
it’s supposed to be cheesy. it’s supposed to be what Disney channel was back in the day. it’s trying to make us look like boo boo the fool when some people in the audience shaded Miley when she released we can’t stop bc it wasn’t the same was her Hannah Montana days. kinda fitting bc it’s about to be the 10 year anniversary of party in the USA, a song that propelled Miley to the top of the charts and spurred a whole new era of Disney actreses turned singers
just take me back to that time already omg
Posted by: Calum 1st July 2019, 10:42 PM
Just finished watching these and while Striking Vipers and Smithereens were both pretty mediocre and definitely didn't feel like Black Mirror at all, Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too was great! Feel like Smithereens definitely missed the mark by a long shot, and Striking Vipers just took too long to get going. Both episodes I didn't feel anything for the characters, whereas Ashley Too, there was a perfect villain in her aunt, I was rooting for Ashley, and even the doll was funny (if a bit too CBBC).
Ashley's whole story was quite emotional, and obviously the hint at the end towards VR concert experiences was actually quite frightening - nothing will ever be able to replace the experience of seeing your favourite artist right in front of you, in the flesh.
1. Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too
2. Striking Vipers
3. Smithereens
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