LANNUEL Nolwenn - Black Mirror

Hello Mr Coxx,

Saddened for the delay, I hurry to look at several episodes.

I decided of considered the series named "Black Mirror" on the advice of a friend. We presented it to me as a series speaking new technologies and risks which are bound to it. Every episode is independent.

I’m quickly going to summarize the first episode. Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is a victim of blackmail. His wife was kidnapped and one ask him to have a sexual intercourse filmed with a sow and to broadcast it live before 4 pm. At first, he tries to hide this information from the press. But the foreign media have already informed the whole world of this story. Secondly, the authorities try to lie to the kidnapper by proposing a rigged video. The kidnapper discovers that it’s false and Prime Minister receives a finger cut as a gift. Thirdly, he tries a rescue operation of his wife but it’s a failure. The pressure of the English subjects becomes more and more strong, and Prime Minister agrees to turn the video.
While English look at the live, the authorities learn that the princess was released at 3:30 pm before the live. This information remains secret. The kidnapper committed suicide during the live. On one year later, everything seems perfect : the princess is expecting a baby and Prime Minister is adored by English. However, within the couple, there is a cold.

I’m now going to express my opinion on this first episode. I’m very satisfied to have discovered this series. Even if everything seems a little bit crazy, the subject is interesting. Today, the media have an enormous power and this episode still proves it. Prime Minister refused to make this act but in front of the blackmail, the pressure of the media and the influence of his subjects, he was forced to it. With the speed of distribution of the information, we can keep with difficulty secret private information. Besides, the end of the episode shows to us once again that appearances are deceptive.

See you,
Nolwenn

The second episode is realized in a futuristic world. A part of the population has to pedal all day long in front of screens. These screens spread emissions and advertising. By pedalling, people earn money for their daily needs, to buy different emissions or still to decrease advertisements.

Bing is one of this individuals. During the episode, he meets Abi, a girl who sings very well. He’s seduced by her and decides to help her. He offers her a total outlay for the broadcast Hot Shot (15 millions). She finds itself in front of a jury of 3 people and in front of a public of the broadcast. Everybody is impressed by her voice. The jury congratulates her but there are already too many singers. However, they propose her a place in their pornographic broadcast. Abi hesitates but eventually agrees in front of the pressure of the judges.

Bing is very disappointed : he didn’t manage to help Abi and he doesn’t have economies anymore. A day, while he pedals, he sees Abi in the screen in an erotic scene. Angry, he breaks screens around him. He keeps a glass piece and begins again to pedal to save a maximum of money. At the same time, he trains to dance. After a while, he got back enough money to participate in Hot Shot. In front of the jury, he begins to dance. Suddenly, he puts the glass brightness on his throat and threatens to commit suicide live if we don’t let him speak. Juries let him express themselves and Bing expresses its disagreement on the functioning of this world. At the end of his speech, the judges applaud him for the talents of actor and speaker. They suggest him livening up a broadcast twice a week to hold these words during 30 minutes. Bing accepts.

So, to date, Bing can complain about this system in a regular live way. When he ended his show, he returns to a luxurious apartment where there are still screens, but bigger than before, on which he can see a magnificent forest. It seems real thanks to certain perspectives.

After a first episode on the media and the influence of these, this new episode handles drift of the television and its biggest vices. This episode has me recalled reservist The Hunger Games a lot. Indeed, the only way to go out of this world full of screens is to win a broadcast of reality TV. However, the outcome of the episode is very interesting. It proves that even by bringing out cells by bicycle, we are not happier. The end is terrible because even if Bing had its hour of glory, he’s still always trapped and can’t make what he wants.

The third episode attacks this time the new technologies. Liam, the central figure, has, as the majority of people, flea behind the ear. She allows to store his memories, then to look at them or to show them at any time. The problem at the beginning with a dinner between friends. Liam doubts the loyalty of his wife. He finds her shy and very joyful in the presence of Jonas, a known seducer. His suspicions grow up in every time that he looks at again the moments of the evening, by analyzing them thanks to his flea. He goes back up farther in the past and still finds other indications.

Very jealous, he begins drinking a lot of alcohol. The morning, drunk, he goes to Jonas and quarrels with him. He wakes up having collided a tree. He uses his flea to remember what itself it passed. He discovers that he forced Jonas erased all the erotic scenes with his wife. But it’s not enough for him, because now, Liam doubts that he’s good the father of their child. He questions his wife. She panics and tries to delete videos stored in her flea. But Liam forces her to show him.

Afterward, Liam is completely depressed, looks replay at the moments of happiness which he spent with his wife and his child. But all these images are only ghosts, and Liam decides to remove its flea with a razor blade.

This last episode of the season 1 is much more sober than both first ones. However, it again makes us reflect about the negative aspects that things can present. So, before of look at the episode, we could find that this kind of technology would be a brilliant advance. Be able to remember everything, and view it when we wish it ? The dream. For example, it would have been able to look after my grandfather of his Alzheimer's disease. But still, once, the new technologies have their vices. With these fleas, we could spy (as Liam the fact in the dinner), we could study the behavior of people after blow. There wouldn’t be nature anymore in the relations between people. And then, as the end shows that the memories aren’t worth the reality.

The season 1 is finished. I made a mistake and I looked at the season 3 before the season 2. But that has no importance. In the first episode, people note (1 in 5 stars) when they meet. People who have a very good average are called "influents" and have right for welfare benefits. At first, this way of living seems to correspond to the central figure named Lacie. However, during the story, we discover that she absolutely has to obtain a mark superior to 4.5 to obtain the apartment for which she wishes. It’s then the running in the points that begins. Lacie posts several photos to receive good grades. Then she’s invited in the marriage of her best friend. In this ceremony, there will be only "influents". She sees the opportunity there to receive from very good grades and to be able to buy her apartment.

But the situation is transformed into nightmare. She misses her plane, gets excited after the steward and the security comes. He punishes her by depriving her points of his average. She makes then of stop and meets a noted person 2.3 who explains her life. Lacie agrees with the fact that this society is only a replica of the happiness but she says that she needs to have a good grade to be able to be happy. In the marriage, she speaks a big speech. She seems crazy to the assembly and is taken in prison. Over there, in the nearby cell, a man speaks to her. Both eventually offend. They feel some satisfaction with power, finally, not to respect the codes.

This episode represents well the current society with "like" on Facebook, fact of liking photos on Instagram. How many people post photos only to have full of "like" ? And how much don’t like the photo of somebody simply because she doesn’t love this person? Furthermore, we are conscious of this situation but we don’t try to go out of it. We are trapped by the effect of group. I really liked this episode which criticizes the superficiality of the society.

The second episode of the season 3 handles with the problem that the real life is lived as a video game. Cooper, the central figure leaves from his home the death of his father. In London, he meets Sonja, a journalist specialized in the new technologies. Cooper and Sonja discover an offer paid to test a game of horror.

At the beginning of the test, a flea is implanted in the nape of the neck of Cooper. At the time of the load of the game, the mother of Cooper calls him. It’s a surprise because normally telephones are switched off. After, Cooper is sent to the first virtual gaming room. Having made a success, he passes in the following room : a haunted manor house. The experience is simple : cross the terrible tests as long as possible.

The appearances show themselves : monsters, noises, man who struck Cooper in his youth. After, there is a continuation of "return in the reality" that bring Cooper to believe that the game is finished while that’s not the case. The quite last session of appearance is its return at his mother who tries to call him by crying while Cooper is in front of her.

In reality, Cooper never went out of the first testing room : the phone call of his mother has at the time of the load of the game created a neurale overload in the brain of Cooper. Cooper died at the time of the load. During four hundredth of second when lasted the experience, he has only to say "Mom".

I found this episode less interesting than the precedents. I can’t really explain why. Maybe that the central figure is less charming. However the handled subject is really current. Indeed, today, with all the video games which exist, the new helmets of virtual reality, I find that it’s sometimes difficult to make the distinction between what is true and what is false. We see that with the young Americans which shoot as in GTA, or the races of cars. The problem is that in a game, when we die, we begin again. In the reality, when we die, it’s finished.

Hello Mister Coxx,

This time, I looked at the good season : the second. The first episode speaks about the subject of the death. Ash, Martha’s boyfriend, dies in a car accident. In his funeral, Martha discovers the existence of a program feigning relations enter dead and alive. At first, she refuses to use this program. But a few days later, she discovers that she’s pregnant and decides to try the program. It uses all the information that Ash transmitted on the Internet to create a virtual Ash. Martha steeps himself more and more in this virtual world to speak with Ash.

Martha breaks her telephone and worries to have lost again Ash. He suggests her moving on to the next stage, an experiment which is expensive. Martha accepts then receives a parcel containing a body which she has to soak in a special gel. The next day, a certified true copy of Ash appears. But over time, Martha doesn’t become used to this Ash which conforms exactly to the orders which she gives him without setting of initiative. He doesn’t eat, he doesn’t breathe, he can modify certain visual aspects on his body. For Martha, it becomes harder and harder : she takes the clone near a cliff and asks him to jump. While he’s about to run, Martha indicates him that real Ash would never have made that without resisting.

At the end the episode, a few years spent : Martha and her daughter live in the same house. Ash is absent. But, in reality, the clone lives in the attic where he waits without doing anything for the annual visits of Martha and her daughter, the day of the birthday of the child.

This episode marked a lot me because I know the vital need to want to speak with somebody of absentee. And the punishment which endures Martha is familiar to me. I tried to imagine what I would have made in its situation. And I still ask myself the question. Do we agree to have a little less that before rather than absolutely nothing ? Really, I found the very interesting, very thorough subject. The distress of Martha feels the effects in the screen.

The episode 2 of the season 2 is called "The hunting". At the beginning, we see a young woman who wakes up in a house and remembers nothing. She explores the house, and in front of the photo of a girl, she has a flashback. Television screens emit an unpleasant whistling and a white symbol on a black background. She decides to explore the district and discovers individuals hidden behind windows and filming her with their telephone. They do not speak to her.

Afterward, all the episode is a track race enters the woman and of mysterious "nasty" disguised. They wear a cowl with the same symbol as the TV. They try to kill her. She finds herself in a park with activities in the trees where a man wants to drill her the back. With her "friend", they try to go to destroy a tower which would emit the waves returning people "spectators". This tower-relay is situated to Whitebear. After some precarious situations, both women reach the station where they sabotage the installation.

Suddenly, the masked individuals attack them. The amnesic woman uses a rifle, but the weapon contains only confettis. Surprised, she remains motionless when her "friend" and the "nasty" lash her in a chair and turns her to a public applauding.

At the end of this episode, the truth is revealed : the young amnesic was convicted, with her husband, to have deprived, tortured, then to cremated a girl called Jemima (that of the photo), and to have filmed this murder with a mobile phone. The teddy bear white with the girl became the symbol of this affair. The young woman was condemned to relive every day the same penalty to the White Bear Justice Park : she’s returned towards the house under the insults of the crowd, then reinstalled in the house. Her memory is erased while the staff of this theme park restores the decoration that it will discover to its further awakening. Every visitor of the park is prepared him to be going to take place.

I found this shocking episode because we discover the subterfuge at the same time as the young woman. So, we live the silence of the spectators, her fear of not understanding what arrives, the memories in the form of flash at the same time as she. And then at the end, when the truth is revealed, we take a slap. We became attached to the feminine character then we discover that she’s in reality a monster. Furthermore, the principle to propose this kind of punitive show to visitors who have all the joyful air revolts me.

The episode 3 of the season 2 presents the personification of a livened led blue bear. His name is Waldo and is managed by a comedian specialized in capture of movement. During a broadcast, this blue bear makes a fool of a representative of the British conservative Party. In front of the success, the producers of the broadcast decide to throw Waldo in politics. The episode is a suite of broadcasts and satiric interventions led by Waldo. He offends all the participants and becomes more and more popular. During a broadcast, the real identity of Waldo is revealed. The actor explodes and denounces the system. Waldo is even more popular.

A night, a representative of CIA explains that Waldo has to become an international image of the political opposition. He sees in Waldo "the murderer completes", capable of sending any message to any country by using live statistics. The actor behind Waldo decides to give up everything and shouts to people not to vote for him, because Waldo is an imposture. He’s beaten and wakes up at the hospital. The television broadcasts the results of the ballot : Waldo is the second.

At the end of the episode, we see that the actor became a tramp. He stops in front of a big screen : Waldo became an international icon.

I didn’t like this episode. I found that the subject had quickly been handled. The series criticizes the politics as in the very first episode, but this time, everything is made in the joke, everything is too much. The only positive and plausible aspect is the presence of a unique and universal speech in a more or less close future.

Black Mirror broadcasted a special episode for Christmas. Everybody lives with the technology Z-Eyes: a reader implanted in the eye which gives access to Internet and to all the personal data of the individuals by face recognition. Two men, Joe and Matt, spend Christmas in a house isolated by the snow. Matt begins to tell his story. His wife blocked him on Z-Eye, he can’t see any more her information and left with their daughter. He lives with a woman to whom we implanted the personality of his wife.

Joe tells his story in his turn. His wife, Beth, was more and more distant with him. He discovered that she was pregnant and that she didn’t want to keep the baby. Joe gets excited and Beth also blocks him. She disappears on the way back to live at his father's. Joe can’t see Beth's images and her daughter. Four years later, Joe learns Beth's death, what means the end of the "blocking". He discovers that the daughter is Asian as one of the former colleagues of Beth. He kills the father with a knife then flees. To force Joe to end his story, Matt asks him for the fact whom became the girl : Joe admits that she went out in the cold to look of the help, and that she died.

Matt stops then the experience : he spoke with a copy of the memory of real Joe (who remained dumb since his arrest) to force him to admit his murder. In exchange, Matt hoped for a remission, but he’s still condemned to be "blocked” for all while waiting for his final punishment. Joe is condemned to listen on a loop the same song the Christmas Eve, stuck in the same house with a view of the body of the girl the death of which he caused.

I didn’t find this very interesting episode. It mixes the episode on the flea of memory and that of Whitebear. There are few novelties. I had be told that the season 2 was less realized. I hope that the suite of the season 3 will be more looked for.