As I sit here typing this, my brother and my best friend are playing Street Fighter on a TV hanging on my wall. I have my iPhone and my iPad charging next to my bed. I’m typing this on my computer. You’re reading this on your computer, smartphone or tablet. In a world filled with incredible technological advances, it’s just as incredible to see how seamlessly these advances have incorporated themselves into our lives.
Charlie Brooker’s critically acclaimed Black Mirror — which has been recently released on Netflix and just premiered its Christmas special, White Christmas, on UK’s Channel 4 and DirectTV’s Audience Network — touches on the darker side of the seamless technologies that have taken over our lives now, and the darkness our technological advances could take us into in the future.
It’s meant to be satirical, but the way that Brooker writes the episodes is what makes this show really go beyond satire, in a way. When people think of satire, the first thing is to think of comedy. There is a comedy to what Brooker writes, but it’s an uneasy brand of humor. It’ll sting you more than it’ll make you laugh, and if you do laugh, you’ll wonder why you find it so funny.
The series focuses on dynamics that are present with the use of technology, and it’s easy to see that while Brooker does respect the technological advances our world has made, he’s wary of the breaking points going forward. The first episode of the series, “The National Anthem,” has one of the most gripping introductions to a series that you’ll ever see. It’s incredibly surreal, making you wonder what exactly you’ve gotten yourself into.
And it doesn’t let up. Brooker has constructed (along with Jesse Armstrong, who wrote the episode titled “The Entire History of You”) the type of television that has widely been compared to The Twilight Zone, with fantastic twists and turns that definitely can come as a shock to some viewers. While that might be the crux of Brooker’s writing style, the content itself is what really is remarkable. Brooker has figured out a way to take single elements of our technological society and shine a spotlight on them to the point where you question just how much a certain technology really helps us.
“Anthem” speaks to what the media has turned itself into while also striking a chord with the lengths a politician would go to in order to save face. It also speaks on if we really care about politicians in the end, as the unique circumstances of the episode go to show you. (I’m going to great lengths with this particular episode not to spoil what happens. It’s something you must see for yourself.)
Brooker’s most recent gift was “Christmas,” a special stand-alone episode starring Jon Hamm, Rafe Spall (Prometheus) and Oona Chaplin (Game of Thrones). Hamm had become a huge fan of the show dating back to its beginning, and Brooker and his colleagues jumped at the chance to include him in an episode after Hamm got an opportunity to meet Brooker.
The 90-minute arc tells the story of Matt (Hamm), who has a gift of gab thanks to his previous work as a romance coach and administrator for “The Cookie,” a home automation device that uses the conscience of the homeowner to help perfect the service it provides. He and Joe (Spall) had made their way to this outpost as an escape of sorts, with Joe talking about an unfortunate accident with his ex.
Like I did with “Anthem,” I won’t go into details further than that about the episode. As has become his custom, Brooker’s ability to shock, excite and dismay has really made fans of the show stand up and take notice of the message behind his work. If there’s one thing we’ve learned about technology, especially since the birth of the end user-based Internet, the rate at which technology has expanded into our lives has been exponential. A lot of the technology that Brooker touches on (wearable devices, implanted devices, virtual reality) isn’t baseless at all. Wearables are already starting to come onto the market, implants are supposedly soon to come.
But what happens when that technology’s consequences aren’t taken into account? Brooker talked about what our lives with technology have meant over the years. Speaking like technology is a drug, what are its side effects? That’s what the series as a whole seeks out. It chooses to paint a picture of the world that is not doused in whimsy or magic, as many of these products are presented. Technology is out there to be used, but it’s up to the user to have the accountability to use it responsibly. Each episode presented is a moral tightrope to be carefully navigated, but like that tightrope, you might just very well fall off and into the danger below you.
You can actually watch “Christmas” right now on Channel 4’s website and it is well worth the time to do so. Hamm and Spall are fantastic, with Spall really taking it up to another level to show the pain in Joe’s journey. Chaplin is featured but ultimately doesn’t get too much screen time (sorry, Game of Thrones lovers), although she is very good herself. You also get a neat appearance by Natalia Tena, who is also in GOT and was featured in the Harry Potter films.
The first two seasons, three episodes each, can be found on Netflix and is well worth a quick binge, although the irony of binging on this show would certainly not be lost on the show’s creator.
