Black Mirror

Several waves of scientific and technological revolution have significantly raised our average standard of living and allowed us to surround ourselves with interesting technological toys, but the development of society lags behind the capabilities of technology. We are still slaves to our emotions and our biological nature, facing very similar problems that previous generations had to deal with. Corruption, abuse of official positions, and populism appeared in the politics of ancient Rome and we still face them today. We continue to fall ill, age, and die; today, we strive to start families and succeed in the job market, i.e., to succeed in life. Black Mirror is a series that depicts people in the not-so-distant future, exploring where specific inventions can take us, how they will influence our lives, and how easily they can be misused. Technologies have no morality or ideology; it always depends on people how they handle them. However, because the creators of the series added the adjective "black" to that mirror, I think it is clear that skepticism prevails among them, and the visions of the future are disturbing and tuned in dark tones. Although some episodes contain elements of irony and comedy, it is a sarcastic and dark humor. While the quality of individual stories may vary, as a whole, I consider Black Mirror to be one of the most successful achievements in the field of television production in the sci-fi genre. Overall impression: 90%. (18.07.2017)

A better four, five and four stars. The confrontational asking of questions that we probably don’t want to know the answers to, but we can hardly pretend that they don’t concern us. Each of the three stories is based on a dilemma that humanity has not had to deal with YET, and each also addresses the degree to which we are still able to maintain our healthy judgment when we come face to face with the “black mirror”. On the surface, there is no reason for media content to be subject to different moral criteria than lived reality. But the media, especially television, is based on the presentation of distant worlds that do not concern us and that we will probably never encounter (sometimes unfortunately, sometimes fortunately). A dose of raw reality, images that not only touch us directly, but are in part created because of us (if only because we couldn’t say “no”), a harsh, unfortunately brief look into the world behind the mirror, into a world that is nevertheless harmless. At its climactic moment, the second story also draws attention to the post-modern disparagement of all values. As soon as there is any hint of something serious, it must immediately be turned into part of a game whose rules are broadly accepted. The absorption of the oppositional voice into the uniform flow of television thus makes real and lasting change impossible. It’s all just for fun and anyone who doesn’t take it that way doesn’t understand how the game is supposed to be played. Though it’s still above average, I rate the third episode as the weakest due to its intimate scale (thanks to which, however, it has a chance to burrow deeper into the viewer’s mind) and the experience-recording technology’s similarity to the device in Strange Days, where it was a means of more far-reaching social change. 90% (16.07.2012)

At first, I had a feeling that I just needed to tune in to the specific corrosive mood, later I believed that the best episodes were yet to come, but even after five seasons, my disappointment had not improved. The title explicitly suggests that it will address issues of contemporary society, but I cannot shake the impression that despite the diversity of themes, the individual plots are almost always about the same thing in the end. In more than half of the stories, the latest technological innovations appear and are eventually misused by people to disadvantage, humiliate, or even kill either someone close to them, a stranger, or themselves. And however technically well made the series is as a whole, that depressing routine always kicks in almost immediately. (16.03.2017)

"Basically the world we live in." Holding up satirical, unflattering mirrors to Western civilization, to us, to you, to everybody... And through a triptych (so far) of stories, each of which is unique, and is unafraid of being original, controversial, worrying and cuttingly accurate, but never a trace of cheap moralizing or literal. Here they touch lightly on things, letting your mind and imagination do the work, but the end result is that much more powerful for it. Without exception it is outstandingly written, acted and filmed. And, thanks to the budget, it looks convincing and they don’t have to pretend that pasteboard studio scenery is the latest in touch-screen technology. (06.01.2012)