Posts for 2025

I'm back with more Black Mirror! For those who are new to this, Black Mirror is an anthological series with standalone episodes around the theme of technology gone wrong. Sometimes it can be funny, but often it's bleak AF.


We're now in Series Five of Black Mirror, and there are three episodes to go through. Prepare to be shocked, disgusted and entertained in varying degrees.

Warning - spoilers ahead, important plot points discussed!

I try not to hold back where spoilers are concerned, and at this point, Black Mirror isn't exactly new. There's really no point in being coy about spoilers.

Also... if you don't approve of video games, stop watching. If you don't like bad language, stop watching. And if seeing two grown men kiss makes your brain implode, definitely fuck off and stop watching.

The Premise

Striking Vipers is the first episode, and it is centered around two old friends playing a fighting video game, but with VR Black Mirror style.


As both of them become obsessed with their time within the game, however, this results in their real lives suffering for it.

Generally, this episode warns against the dangers of getting too absorbed in a game. The tech used appears to be the same one used in USS Callister, and bears the same Aesop.

The Characters

Anthony Mackie as Danny Parker. He's the serious responsible type who's now married with a kid, but sex has become a bit of a chore. Mackie gives us a tremendous portrayal of a man who's not a cheater by nature, but gets caught up in something that doesn't feel like cheating until it's too late. I've been watching Mackie on-screen as Sam Wilson in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and this isn't too far from what he portrays there.

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as incorrigible manchild Karl Houghton with Peter Pan syndrome. He's finding it increasingly harder to relate to the girls he dates, because they're so much younger, even though the sex is presumably great. And the actor delivers with such earnestness lines like the one below.
Only in a series like Black Mirror would that quote make sense.

Anyway, I've seen the actor in superhero flicks like Aquaman and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. He gets a lot more to do here.

Nicole Beharie as Theo Parker. She has a role as Danny's wife and Tyler's mother, and while her portrayal is a little generic, Beharie does bring in some sassy charm into it.

Pom Klementieff is a breath of fresh air as Roxette. I loved seeing her in Mission Impossible: Dead Recknoning Part One and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and she brings the same zany offbeat quality to the role, almost perfectly mirroring Karl offline.

Ludi Lin as Lance. Last saw him in a similar role as Liu Kang in Mortal Kombat. This time it felt a little flat, if I'm being honest. Nice abs, but I can't seem to buy him as Danny Parker's online alter-ego.

Fola Evans-Akingbola portrays Karl's girlfriend Mariella as this slightly bimbotic girl who's obsessed with her phone. Serves to show us that Karl gets great sex physically but he's missing that extra emotional connection. Someone who gets him.

August Muschett is Danny and Theo's son Tyler Parker. He's a cute little tyke, perfectly normal. And only serves to underscore how much Danny has going for him.

The Mood

Scenes of wedded bliss and suburban serenity are interspersed by nighttime landscapes within the game.


Unlike the usual Black Mirror fare, none of this is particularly unsettling, but there is a fair bit of drama and tension as we get into it.

What I liked

The banter between Danny and Karl, at Danny's birthday barbecue, is delightful. It really serves to illustrate what a vibe these two buddies had before things got weird.

I normally prefer Black Mirror episodes to be dark and creepy (maybe even violent) but this episode focused on the friendship between two men and it was glorious even though relationship drama isn't really my thing.

The name "Striking Vipers" is really such a sly nod to gay sex. Not that what's between Danny and Karl is 100% gay sex. When it happens, they're choosing to use avatars Roxette (a female) and Lance (a male).


The locations within the game are gorgeous. We can really see the effort they put into it. Also, the fighting moves. So outlandish. Love it! Especially that pancake slam by Roxette.


Could be just me, but I thoroughly enjoyed this over-the-top visual representation of Tetris.

What I didn't

I find it extremely hard to believe that the anatomical accuracy in the game would be so high as to facilitate sexual intercourse. And since this is a major plot point without which nothing else makes sense, it's pretty difficult to ignore.

The ending's also a little off, I think. So once a year Theo and Danny both get a license for infidelity? Looking at how obsessed Karl was, is once a year even enough? What does he do in between, fuck more polar bears?

Conclusion

This episode had so much promise despite the nagging little plot holes. The premise was decent, that's for sure. Thematically, it fits right in with the mythos. It was a fun watch.

My Rating

7 / 10

This next story, Smithereens, is set in the UK - London, to be exact. Smithereen is the name of a Social Media company owned by Billy Bauer.


As the exclamation mark icon would suggest, Smithereen produces some kind of Twitter-like Social Media product.

The Premise

Rideshare driver Chris Gilhaney takes a man hostage in an effort to speak with the founder of Smithereen, Billy Bauer. That's pretty much it; this is, in broad strokes, what takes place. The rest of it is in-character drama and backstory.

The tragedy itself is a commentary on the addictve nature of Social Media.

The Characters

Andrew Scott as Christopher Gilhaney. At first we think he's an unkempt cab driver with an unusually intense stare. We later find out that he's extremely stressed and has a hair-trigger temper, but ultimately a decent chap at heart. He's also got a fair amount of tragedy in his life which leads him to do this.

Damson Idris plays Smithereen intern Jaden Tommins as a scared kid taken hostage. He does this wonderfully too, and really elicits sympathy here. At the end, the character exhibits loads of empathy with his kidnapper Chris and even tries to stop him from killing himself.

Topher Grace as Smithereen CEO Billy Bauer. Grace appears like I've never seen him before - as a new-agey man-bunned hipster out on a "silent retreat". Pretensions aside, he's entirely sympathetic as a tech geek who begins building his product with benign intentions but ends up creating a monster.

Calum Callaghan as male cop, Damien Cullen. Slightly goofy, but the portrayal of a stodgy cop seemed entirely authentic.

Ambreen Razia as female cop, Najma Haque. Portrayed as the more on-the-ball and alert partner.

Amanda Drew is Hayley Blackwood. She is a grieving mother whose daughter took her own life, and has a one-night stand with Chris. I liked her in this role, but I'm not sure if her inclusion was necessary at all.

Caitlin Innes Edwards as Hannah Kent from Smithereen HR. Nothing much to see here, really. Honestly didn't do much. I get that the plot warranted her inclusion; she just wasn't that interesting to watch.

Maggie Bain as Maryam, who appears to be in charge of Smithereen in London. Another superfluous role.

Ruibo Qian as Penelope Wu, COO. She acts as the counterfoil to Billy Bauer's empathetic nature, mostly cold and calculating and concerned with the less human side of things.

Monica Dolan as Chief Superintendent Linda Grace, who tries to take charge but does a really bad job of it.

Daniel Ings as David Gilkes, negotiator. Another role that felt superfluous.

Quincy Dunn-Baker as Don from legal and Mirirai Sithole as Shonelle from Analytics. Fucking superfluous. FFS, they should have just combined the two roles with no loss to the story. Were they trying to set some kind of record here?

Jorge Cordova as Ernesto Cruz from FBI. Wow, this is Superfluous with a capital S. What did the character contribute here, really? Neat pornstache, though.

Adam McNamara as Harris the sniper. Alice Bailey-Johnson as the other sniper. Supremely incompetent at their jobs, considering how much they missed and how little distance it was.

Crystal Clarke does a decent job playing Tipi. Upbeat and earnest. Clarke made the most out of the limited scope of the role as the staff member sent to alert Billy Bauer.

The Mood

It looks like a typical dreary day in London but soon (after an unneccessary sex scene) the action picks up and becomes some kind of hostage thriller. Doubles as tragedy when one realizes what led Chris to take such extreme measures.

What I liked

I really enjoyed the fact that this episode was all about existing tech. Smithereen was like a real-world Twitter (now X), Persona the equivalent of Facebook or Instagram, and Hitcher like Uber. It made it all the more relatable, especially since the bleakness was a dark (or black, hur hur) mirror to the all-too-real ills of Social Media today.


The transcriber being a prude as it recorded Chris delivering a cluster F-bomb, substituting all instances of "fuck" with "duck". I probably shouldn't find it that amusing, but I did.

What I didn't

The cast just felt unnecessarily huge. There was a number of speaking roles in the episode that felt like they were there just to make up the numbers. The characterization for these roles were just flat.

The plot was bloated beyond belief. A lot of it felt like meaningless waiting. Did it ratchet up the tension? Maybe a little. But not enough to warrant sitting through a whole lot of stuff that could have been cut out.

For example, Hayley's subplot. Near the end, we see that Billy Bauer has called in to Persona to request that they give Hayley her daughter's password. But anyone who works in tech (or even has the faintest idea how this shit works) knows that passwords have not been stored in cleartext since the last decade. Basic web security. There is no way for anyone to go into the database and search for a user and simply retrieve a non-hashed password. The best they could have done was reset the password or send Hayley a link to do so.



Now, normally I could have overlooked this... if it weren't for the fact that this password was a plot point (the password apparently matched the number of the boat in a photo that Hayley and her daughter took together), which resulted in the password thing being a gigantic fucking plot hole.

Cut out this entirely, and we would have eliminated Hayley and her one night stand with Chris -and- the plot hole. Though it would have been a pity because I actually liked Amanda Drew as Hayley.

All in all, this amateurish error ruined the episode for me. You want to make a show about tech, get a writer who actually understands tech. Jesus!

Conclusion

A poor, poor episode, especially since it could have been halfway decent once a lot of fat was trimmed. I liked the premise and the Aesop of the episode, but the huge plot hole and execution flaws made this one just about unsalvageable.

My Rating

4.5 / 10

Next

Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too The final episode, titled Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too, stars Miley Cyrus!


Yes, you got that right. Black Mirror is full of surprises, eh? What's perhaps even more surprising is that this episode isn't dark and gloomy like most of the other Black Mirror episodes are.

The Premise

Ashley O is a huge star who gets put in a coma. Her consciousness is placed inside robotic dolls electronically. One of these dolls belongs to a girl named Rachel. An adventure ensues as Rachel and her older sister Jack, follow a trail that leads to Ashley's rescue.

The Characters

Miley Cyrus has the main role of Ashley Ortiz. Cyrus is actually in her element here. The song and dance sequences, while sometimes goofy, are on point. Cyrus isn't afraid to get ugly too, in the sequences that see her wake up from her coma.

Angourie Rice is Rachel Goggins, the lonely kid who's still distanced from her older sister and harbors dreams of being a star like Ashley O. I didn't really like watching her, not sure why. Maybe it was the cringey dancing the script made her do.

Madison Davenport as Jack Goggins, Rachel's older sister. She's mean, snarky and ill-tempered, with a soft center. Her facial expressions are to die for - those looks of WTF did I just hear she throws at Rachel and Ashley Too? Such delicious disdain. Davenport outdid herself here.

Susan Pourfar as Ashley's aunt Catherine Ortiz. At the beginning, she comes across as cheerful and friendly, if a little stressed out, which makes it even more chilling when her true colors as a scheming bitch emerge.

Marc Menchaca is Rachel and Jack's dad, Kevin. He's a basement geek who tries to be a good dad after the girls' mother passed away two years ago. Well-intentioned, if a little oblivious.

Nicholas Pauling as Dr Munk, the goto guy for drugs. He's ostensibly a doctor, but this guy just feels comes across more like some kind of sleazy thug, especially later on as he's choking Jack.

James III as Jackson Hanabera, technical director, who comes up with the scheme to harvest Ashley's dreams while she's in a coma. Weird, the guy just didn't give off that kind of psycho vibe.

Daniel Stewart Sherman as Bear, security guy. Huge and menacing. I loved watching his quizzical expressions when Jack feeds him bullshit.

Jerah Milligan puts in a brief appearance as BusyG, a TV host.

The Mood

It's upbeat and bright, kind of like a Disney movie. Even as the story progresses, it doesn't ever get -that- dark. This episode has more of an adventure movie vibe going for it, and actually ends on a positive note (bad guy gets nabbed, heroine gets rescued, etc).

What I liked

The commercial Ashley's music and lyrics are corny and shallow and major cringe. It's a good contrast to the work that she actually wants to produce.

When the limiter around Ashley Too's "brain" is removed, the ensuing expletive-filled rant it goes on, is marvellous. Later on, the sarcasm-filled exchanges between Ashley Too and Jack, as well.


The entire subplot revolving around Kevin's mousetrapping technology, and how it ultimately helps in freeing Ashley Too.


And of course, that damn car!


I think the scaled-up holographic concert was pretty neat, as well.


This shot of Ashley Too at the end, turned into a punk rocker, was amusing.

What I didn't

The scenes of Rachel dancing with the encouragement of Ashley Too, are a little draggy and pretty cringey. But I suppose that was the whole point.

Watching the 15-year old character Rachel dancing to lyrics like "Oh honey kiss me up against the wall" and "I can't take it so don't you fake it" gave me the ick.

This is a minor one, but the episode title's a little lazy. It's literally just the names of the two sisters, and the doll. Somewhere along the way, someone stopped giving a fuck about catchy episode titles!

Conclusion

The series ends on a high with this one. Although, it has to be said, expectations were low after the last one. But even judged on its own merits, this episode stands strong. Even though the villains were almost cartoony, I couldn't help but enjoy myself. The plot wasn't all that original - pretty sure I've seen some variation of that story somewhere - but boy, was it an engaging hour or so.

My Rating

8 / 10

Final Thoughts on Black Mirror Series Five

The weak link in Black Mirror Series Five was undoubtedly Smithereens. And while Striking Vipers was more thematically Black Mirror, its glaring flaws hinder it significantly. Still, it did serve as a decent opening act.

Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too, conversely, has less of the feel of Black Mirror, but takes the prize due to an almost flawless execution. Or it could merely seem flawless coming right after the severely flawed Smithereens.

All in all, Black Mirror Series Five is a worthy addition to the series, though far from the best offering.