Black Mirror

[JSheppo]

Anyone watching this Charlie Brooker mini-series on Channel 4?

'Charlie Brooker, the writer of E4's Dead Set, returns with a suspenseful, satirical three-part mini-series that taps into collective unease about our modern world'

As expected it's full of dark humour and at times the first episode was pretty uneasy stuff to watch, but I think the fact he's trying to get across messages about the likes of Social Networking, Talent Shows ect in these dark story lines is a pretty clever way of doing it.

Episode 2 is on Sunday at 9.30!

[JamesIreland]

I will check it out. I love all of Brookers work.

[Paddy]

Dead Set floored me.

I'm in.

[Trent]

I watched the first one last week and it was... unsettling in a brilliant way. It didn't have the usual Brooker humour but instead ended up being a very surreal expression of our own voyeuristic nature and how far we're prepared to go to keep up appearances. I encourage you all to watch last weeks on iPlayer before you watch this weeks. They don't follow on but I've got a feeling that moods may carry over... and it's just generally bloody good!

But yeh been a Brooker fan for ages now, love all his stuff, there was no way I was gonna miss this!

[Trent]

JESUS CHRIST last nights episode (Ep 2: 16 Million Merits) was an extraordinary piece of dystopian neo-sci-fi. It was ram packed with so many brilliant ideas and such a passionate and talented cast I was hooked for all of it's 60 minutes. It's a poem to the information age and the world in which kids are growing up using iPads and smartphones and learning to type before they can write by hand. It's a comment on modern culture, technological dominace, our society, the monetary system, the economy and the possible future of it all. And it's all stylishly shot by Euros Lyn (Who directed many of the really great Doctor Who eps) and scored fantastically. The writing is, as ever, pitch-perfect and it features awesome performances from Daniel Kaluuya and Rupert Everett among others.

Seriously you've all gotta go on 4OD and watch it NOW!!!!!

[JSheppo]

Damn it I've fallen behind a little with this! Which has been your favourite episode Trent?

[Trent]

Well having just watched the third and final one (which was brilliant) I'd have to say the second one, 15 Million Merits was my fave by far. It had so much scope and such fantastic performances it's sort of lodged in my brain.

The first episode I felt was the weakest of the three, although it was quite dark and grim which I like. Charlie Brooker wrote that one on his own and I think it shows; it's very much his mind, the sort of thing he'd say on Newswipe as one of his hilarious links but made into a drama. On it's own it was brilliant, but after seeing the other 2 films it's my least fave.

The final one was fantastic and written by Peep Show's Jesse Armstrong so it had some wit and humour in it too. There's a nasty twist and it all gets pretty serious as it goes on so it's got a good mix of emotions. The performances are all bang on but they don't sizzle like the turns in Merits, mainly because the script isn't as apocalyptically vicious but also because they're just different characters. It's based on the idea that memory is no longer organic and instead digital, stored on a chip in your head. You can use a remote to play it back and wipe bits of it and it seems like a neat idea until certain events make it a torturous ability for some of the characters. It's more of a straightforward drama piece with a dark sci-fi twist so it's not as dense as the others but still fits in the trilogy really nicely.

I think the characters in Merits have more to lose and more to gain (if you get what I mean) than those in the other 2 films and that makes it stand out as the highlight of the series. I really hope it goes up for a BAFTA (and wins) though because the overarching themes and expressions really aren't being explored in TV or film very much and Black Mirror has been a supreme example of how these themes are now so current and so ingrained in our lives that we can identify with these films and see them as riffs on modern life as well as brilliant pieces of entertainment.

Sorry for the essay, just really, really enjoyed this series!