flowed a lot better in WC

sorry couldn't help it

 

:')

omg that teaches me to be lazy

Finished the series today - overall it was a pretty good one but Season 3 edges it for me as a whole collection.

 

Ranking:

 

01. Hang The DJ - really fantastic from start to finish. I definitely got those San Junipero vibes from it with the uplifting nature of the ending.

02. Crocodile - I've seen people really pan this for being too bleak but you can't deny it was a very gripping episode from start to finish! It's definitely the one episode I was absolutely hooked to and loved the twist at the end. I felt so conflicted whether I should be rooting for her or not and that's always what makes a great character for me (kinda like Cersei in Game of Thrones).

03. Black Museum - All three stories were brilliant and loved the way everything linked together! Stanning the teddy mum tho <3

04. USS Calister - I'm surprised to be ranking this as low as four but it was a very enjoyable episode and loved the ending!

05. Arkangel - It was good but just felt like they could've done so much more with the premise.

06. Metalhead - Whilst I love Maxine Peake and enjoyed the episode, it was certainly the most frustrating as there's so much not explained and it all felt a bit pointless if we didn't know the motivations behind anything or what the dogs were.

 

 

Finished the series today - overall it was a pretty good one but Season 3 edges it for me as a whole collection.

 

Ranking:

 

01. Hang The DJ - really fantastic from start to finish. I definitely got those San Junipero vibes from it with the uplifting nature of the ending.

02. Crocodile - I've seen people really pan this for being too bleak but you can't deny it was a very gripping episode from start to finish! It's definitely the one episode I was absolutely hooked to and loved the twist at the end. I felt so conflicted whether I should be rooting for her or not and that's always what makes a great character for me (kinda like Cersei in Game of Thrones).

03. Black Museum - All three stories were brilliant and loved the way everything linked together! Stanning the teddy mum tho <3

04. USS Calister - I'm surprised to be ranking this as low as four but it was a very enjoyable episode and loved the ending!

05. Arkangel - It was good but just felt like they could've done so much more with the premise.

06. Metalhead - Whilst I love Maxine Peake and enjoyed the episode, it was certainly the most frustrating as there's so much not explained and it all felt a bit pointless if we didn't know the motivations behind anything or what the dogs were.

This is basically my exact ranking and thoughts on them all too :')

 

Although I'd have USS above Black Museum.

 

WE ARE COMPATIBLE

This is basically my exact ranking and thoughts on them all too :')

 

Although I'd have USS above Black Museum.

 

WE ARE COMPATIBLE

 

!!!!!! :lol:

I'd rank them like so:

 

1. USS Callister

2. Black Museum

3. Hang the DJ

4. Metalhead

5. Arkangel

6. Crocodile

 

USS Callister is a masterpiece. :wub: I'd essentially be repeating all of the praise you guys have given to it, so... I concur. x This, San Junipero and The Entire History of You would be my trinity. :heart:

 

Black Museum - absolutely compelling from start to finish. All three stories were so clever in the way they ultimately interlinked. I think I tend to lean towards episodes of Black Mirror that are clearly dark/twisted in tone, but ultimately have a somewhat positive & satisfying ending (i.e. she avenged what her family had gone through at the hands of this mad man), so this really ticked all the boxes for me.

 

Hang the DJ was a cute watch with its slight San Junipero vibe, and I warmed up to the two of them pretty much instantly - I was rooting for them to end up together. Admittedly the ending confused me at first, and it was only after I read a review that I realised that they were actually algorithms in a program, determining whether the "real world" versions of them (seen right at the end) were actually compatible. (I suppose that was obvious with the fading of the wall they were climbing at the end, but it didn't click with me at first, oops :kink: ). Black Mirror definitely likes to explore the theme of "feeling like you're the real you, but you're actually not", and it was done in an effective/interesting way here. They didn't doubt their own existence, but they were sceptical of the system, and that driving them to escape in order to be together was them effectively passing the test for their real life selves. Deep! ;o

 

Metalhead - I enjoyed the apocalyptic setting/tone to the episode, and it was highly suspenseful! That robotic dog made me feel so anxious. :') I feel like it could have done with some more back story though, I'd love to know exactly how this situation came about... although I suppose that wasn't the point. :( I suppose the main theme of this was ultimately about humanity. i.e. the lengths you'd go to for a loved one. Not exactly sure how she'd have roped those two guys into going with her for the sake of a teddy, mind you. :lol: I think it'd have been better if they were going there in search of vital medicine.

 

Arkangel seemed like it was only scratching the surface with its themes (monitoring someone / effects of explicit material on a young mind), and it definitely suffered from a miscast actress that I simply didn't believe in (she was meant to be 15 years old, really? :') ... also, her smashing her mum's face with the device was beyond extra and just made me laugh, rather than sympathise with either of them :lol: ). Disappointing.

 

Crocodile sadly didn't do it for me. I found the theme of "attempting to piece together vague memories in order to solve a case" to be a bit dull (Black Mirror has previously explored the theme of accessing memories in far more interesting and effective ways). The main character going on a killing spree didn't entertain me at all, so the main bulk of the episode left me pretty cold. To end on positives - I did like the character of Shazia and felt so bad for her getting into that situation (if only the car had started :cry: ). Nice scenery as well. x

I thought Metalhead was going to be about then trying to retrieve

medication and so i thought it was going to be a really great commentary on sort of private healthcare etc?? but teddy bears makes it weaker than I think it tried to be

private healthcare? that's a stretch lol

Not really, they could be risking their lives for a simple medication. The medication could have been ridiculously expensive cos of capitalism and the guard dogs are there to stop anyone stealing it despite it being a really simple and easy way of helping someone’s illness.

makes sense but that would have never crossed my mind haha

Klaus should've directed Metalhead tbh.

 

I felt absolutely nothing for the woman in it. It was just her running away from a robot for 40 minutes looking scared :( I'd rather feel hatred for a central character than nothing.

 

Overall this season doesn't compare to S3 but it's still solid.

1) USS Callister

2) Hang The Dj

3) Crocodile

4) Black Museum

5) Metalhead

6) Arkangel

 

USS Callister was an absolute masterclass in TV and I personally can’t understand how someone would not have it as their #1. It had a great very Black-mirrrory concept but felt really epic at the same time and was worthy of being shown in the cinema. The detail was beautiful and the character development was some of Black Mirror’s strongest ever.

 

Hang the Dj was also really great with its concept and character development and was beautifully paced. But those are the only two that I loved. Crocodile although slightly off with the way it took off, I think is somewhat underretad. It was indeed quite harrowing but I liked the way it built from you rooting for her to wanting her to be caught. The guinea pig exposing her was oddly endearing in a very dark episode. Arkangel was, I think, one of Black Mirror’s very worst episodes ever, it was undercooked, had terrible writing and wasted what was actually at its root a very interesting concept. Black Museum was full of highs but also lows, it was a bit...messy, but still enjoyable. Metalhead was a great watch but there was little there beneath the surface, it felt like something I’d expect from Black Mirror season 1, not 4.

I've now watched the first four, my rating would probably be the same as most of everyone elses right now :lol:

I finally finished this last night! My order (kinda the same as Jay's with a few swappings) There is spoilers below so please scroll past if you haven't yet seen it (but again why are you reading this thread if you haven't~)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

USS Callister > Hang the DJ > Black Museum > Metalhead > Crocodile > Arkangel

 

So yeah, it peaked early, that's a slight shame. My thoughts on USS Callister are earlier in the thread but it is easily the best~

 

Hang the DJ was great, definitely got the San Junipero vibes (though that was prominent throughout the whole series in all honesty, a bit more on that later) and it was a really enchanting story with great characters and definitely holds a lot of relevance which makes it quite widely appealing. I was really starting to question how the world worked as the couples didn't seem to actually DO anything other than be together and be in the same place, so that twist that it was all a simulation certainly added a classic Black Mirror twist that also made quite an intelligent comment on 'compatibility'. It was in some way a dark ending as well, I guess like USS Callister, the focus on actual copies rather than real people adds a twist

 

Black Museum was also very good, loved all the Easter eggs ofc. (I didn't spot/read any for Nosedive or Entire History of You though D:) and it was three stories that very much went to extremes - the doctor story was the show at it's most sadistic and the monkey tale might just be the saddest story they've ever told, worse still we're kinda left wondering what's happened to her now :( I liked that they shifted the focus from technology being the villains to humans exploiting it that are. It was a bit more traditional good vs evil in that sense, but I feel like there was still hints that both sides are corrupted by the hidden enemy of technology (like Nish actually having her mother's soul in her head felt very dark even if it might not have been portrayed, how long has she been in there? It's like she was also corrupted by a technology ultimately that she was facing). It felt refreshingly humanist for an episode of Black Mirror (and I noticed a lot of anti-racism undertones as well!)

 

Metalhead I was kind of mixed on - on the one hand, I liked the black and white aesthetic and it did find it very thrilling to watch and the performance(s) were great, I think they were deliberately going for a 'back to basics' approach and a straight out battle of man vs machine like sci-fi films of old and it was quite refreshing on the one hand, but there's only so much you can do with this - and at this stage, it just feels TOO empty of back story and simplistic to be a classic. Like the last shot was meant to be emotional (as presumably it was all for a child rather than something really important), but it doesn't really work as we didn't really get to know the back story of the characters or world well enough and it was too short to really develop much of a meaning or commentary. I get what they were trying to do and I liked parts of it, but I don't think it quite worked out like they wanted it to.

 

Crocodile was clearly intended as the White Bear/Shut Up & Dance of this season, but I didn't find it anywhere near as effective as those. Mainly as they also made you really think about yourself and society after the final twist, this....didn't really have anything to say, no matter how uncomfortable it got to watch. The technology on offer was ground they've covered before better and wasn't especially interesting and the violence didn't serve any point other than to for added shock value...killing a baby and then the revelation she didn't need to anyway as it was blind was the crux of it and being found out by a hamster was ridiculous for such a dark episode and I actually felt a bit annoyed by it than anything else. I loved some things about it which is why it isn't last...the scenery was fantastic, the acting good and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't completely hooked throughout. It was great as a Scandi-noir thriller, but as a Black Mirror episode, it disappointed me. I love it when Black Mirror goes dark, but it's best when it has a deeper, thoughtful reason for it other than shock value.

 

Arkangel is last for much the same reason as everyone else has said in this thread. It had a great concept and could've said something really profound about how far parenting goes, but it was predictable in how it turned out (which is something you definitely can't say often for Black Mirror which made it even more of a disappointment), had some quite hammy performances and it was clearly heading towards the 'wanting too much for them leading to your worst fear confirmed' sort of storyline, and it was slow to move at points so it wasn't even that entertaining either. One thing I do think it did well was the foreshadowing and motifs throughout - like it coming full circle at the end and the dog in the garden gradually going from scaring her to her embracing it.

 

 

Overall, a good series, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a bit disappointed but then Series 3 did set the bar quite high! It definitely felt like the bleak storylines didn't quite deliver and the happier than expected endings actually made the best points so it did feel quite refreshing in that sense as technology clearly isn't always the worst thing ever. I'm still very interested where they take it for S5 (presuming there is one) as there's still so much they can explore!

Whilst USS Callister, Hang The DJ, and Crocodile are absolutely brilliant in their own ways, Arkangel and Metalhead are kind of the opposite. Black Museum I haven't watched yet but I hope it's better than Metalhead just was.

 

The whole time I was watching Metalhead I was just constantly asking

"what are the dogs? where are they? why are they being hunted? what was in the box?" and, like others have said, I ultimately didn't feel much empathy towards the central character (who didn't have a name? or if she did I missed it). The black and white is a nice effect but considering the fact the rest of this episode was pretty empty and without much detailing, I feel like a bit of colour would've helped it's case. I get the whole point was to be simplistic but I'm still not a big fan of b&w style of Metalhead.

 

It also bugged me with the contents of the box. I assume they thought the box had important medicine in otherwise they wouldn't be risking their lives and then the reveal at the end of the box actually containing teddy bears, thus meaning that the three of them died for no reason in a classic Black Mirror twist (you know, where the central character goes to the absolute extremes only to find out shortly afterwards it wasn't necessary. See Crocodile's ending for a recent example). But since we knew nothing about the people, we don't really know anything about the situation without guessing. Were the three of them given a fake box ID by someone back at camp (?) in order to purposely get them killed by dogs? I'm often left questioning myself after a Black Mirror episode, but not like this -_-

 

The same thing can be said about the dogs. What are they? Who made them? What is their goal/mission? Are they actually the 'good guys' in a "Men Against Fire" type plot twist? I know in the end a lot of this doesn't matter but even just a little bit more context for the episode would have gone far.

 

and I'm finally finished so I can give a brief ranking of the episodes and head over to the rate.

 

1. USS Callister

2. Hang The DJ

3. Metalhead

4. Crocodile

5. Black Museum

6. Arkangel

 

Callister was amazing of course, I stand by what I said in my first post, so many questions opened up by that and I feel it's the only one of these that really brought something NEW.

In a future of weird robotics and device gadgets that turn us all into an asshole in a dystopian future and don't see the consequences, Callister actually felt a lot more realistic - a guy getting so worked up by his real life that he becomes an sociopath in his off time, you see that a lot, can see it if you browse the danker corners of the web, all those guys who could be like Daly given the tech skill.

 

 

Hang The DJ was really nice but a little bit predictable, and it felt kind of like an amalgamation of two other Black Mirror episodes,

I was enthralled by the system and the two mains were great leads to have so much chemistry together, and though the twist felt a bit obvious by the end it was just rather pleasant to see. And again, like with Callister, that I can definitely see happening... as an abstraction in a program but still.

 

 

Metalhead... well I'm quite into my horror lately so while it was so basic as a setting the fear worked. Plus the ending gave me a little bit of a gutpunch.

 

The TECH in Crocodile wasn't so amazing, the characters were - I felt for everyone involved,

even Mia at the beginning before she started doing horrific shit.

 

 

Black Museum, I liked that it had so many callbacks to previous Black Mirror episodes, as one might have guessed from the title.

But White Christmas had me more enthralled in the setting, this, though it brought all its technologies together well, didn't really do that as much. Perhaps I'd have liked it more if they'd used technology from other episodes in it as well, they clearly had the setup for it and were doing very similar things to White Christmas at times.

 

 

Arkangel didn't really work that well, it was just a standard drama where bad parenting ruled the day so I wasn't too impressed.

 

I was worried about this, I feel like San Junipero was SO well received last season that they kind of overdid it on the happy vibes

(but only going halfway for some of them) and really only Metalhead and Crocodile felt really dark as a result. Not that that's a bad thing overall as my two favourites both had rather good ends but there's a shift in tone from the truly depressing things that make you think to something that doesn't leave a whole lot of impact in the end as it half-asses both sides. It was never going to match season 3 but it's fallen a little short

 

Ik this is season 4 but f***ing hell I've just finished San Junipero and I don't think I'm ever going to stop weeping.

http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/black-mirror/...harlie-brooker/

 

White Bear 12th :') christ

That list offends me.

 

Playtest 3rd??????

Oh god I hate everything about that list (aside from number 1 tbh) Crocodile at 15??? Wtf