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Black Mirror isn't really a show that you can binge unless you're doing extremely well, and who among us really is right now. So I've only been through all of them at once I think twice, and the rest I just pick a few and watch them. I'm surprised to hear some folks don't like Bandersnatch. I really dug it quite a bit. It was the only part of Netflix's CYOA experiment that wasn't embarrassing.
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Jun 2, 2023 22:57
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Netflix's CYOA often sucked because the choices were pretty arbitrary and selecting the (a) instead of (b) would result in GAME OVER. The trick is to split the path and reconverge! reconverge!
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Jun 2, 2023 23:18
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Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too is great. It's less focused on overt drama/trauma or overt tech, but too much but just tells an almost lighthearted story within the greater BM setting. Like it still has tones and implications but it's also just a 2 sisters bonding over their surprisingly potty mouthed Furby. Zedd fucked around with this message at 01:10 on Jun 3, 2023 |
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Jun 3, 2023 00:29
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Lampsacus posted:Netflix's CYOA often sucked because the choices were pretty arbitrary and selecting the (a) instead of (b) would result in GAME OVER. The trick is to split the path and reconverge! reconverge! Didn't Kimmy Schmidt do that?
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Jun 3, 2023 08:56
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Lampsacus posted:Netflix's CYOA often sucked because the choices were pretty arbitrary and selecting the (a) instead of (b) would result in GAME OVER. The trick is to split the path and reconverge! reconverge! It's not like Charlie Brooker's intent was to make the perfect CYOA, it was more about how it would feel to be in a CYOA. Rarity posted:The Ashley ep predicted all the Britney stuff amazingly well It's not like "artist being abused by their management" is somehow unique to Britney. Swedish artist Avicii for example was forced to perform even though his mental heath was detoriating: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avicii#Personal_life
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Jun 3, 2023 11:35
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Bandersnatch isn’t my favorite episode but it gets a pass from me because it’s using the CYOA as a metaphor for mental illness. And I think it threads that needle pretty well.
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Jun 3, 2023 14:59
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Just rewatched Hang the DJ since it aired. God what a lovely episode, very balanced. Heart with a small dose of chilling, perfect. The song refers to what song was playing when the two leads found each other in real life. Perfecto.
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Jun 3, 2023 15:21
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I never did Bandersnatch because it seemed like a hassle.
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Jun 3, 2023 17:47
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I went through a bit of it but I think it came out on a day where I had other things to do and then never got back to it.
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Jun 3, 2023 17:56
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Lampsacus posted:Just rewatched Hang the DJ since it aired. God what a lovely episode, very balanced. Heart with a small dose of chilling, perfect. My take was that also, the "DJ" refers to the one calling the shots, AKA the system telling them who they can and can't date.
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Jun 3, 2023 19:05
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Personal favorites: San Junipero 15 Million Merits (close second) White Christmas Shut Up And Dance Nosedive I feel like The Entire History of You would be higher up if it weren't such an unpleasant and difficult watch (I realize this is true for Shut Up and Dance also but it's just a taste thing). I really enjoyed National Anthem and The Waldo Moment also, I feel like a lot of people hate National Anthem for all the reasons I love it. I do feel like by USS Callister the general idea of people living in a virtual reality was kind of played out and they sort of ran out of interesting things to do with it compared with earlier episodes like San Junipero and White Christmas. I like that in Striking Vipers it at least explores the idea of people trying on different identities through virtual avatars, something that we already do to a degree with our current version of online gaming. Since they've decided to rouse the show from its grave I hope the new episodes are worthwhile.
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Jun 3, 2023 19:29
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Zwabu posted:I feel like The Entire History of You would be higher up if it weren't such an unpleasant and difficult watch It was such a hard watch.
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Jun 3, 2023 21:37
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The Entire History of You was my first and still favourite
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Jun 3, 2023 21:40
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Seconding or Thirding that Entire History of You is great but also can hit a bit too close to home. USS Callister I did really enjoy, but mostly because it also felt like an excuse to just make a Star Trek homage with a Black Mirror coat. Unsure how I would make my Top 5, there are for sure clunkers as well but there are few episodes I would call downright bad/boring. Zedd fucked around with this message at 00:43 on Jun 4, 2023 |
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Jun 4, 2023 00:35
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I can immediately call out Nosedive and San Junipero as two but I'd have to rewatch them all to fill out the rest, maybe White Christmas as well.
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Jun 4, 2023 08:02
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White Christmas is definitely my favourite. It feels like 2 episodes in one, Jon Hamm is great, and that ending reminds me of The Jaunt by Stephen King.
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Jun 4, 2023 12:50
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White Bear is my favorite because It's set in a society where they have the tech to totally rehabilitate a person and uses it for petty punishment. It gets even worse because the new version of Victoria is arguably innocent of the crimes that the old version committed and yet they keep on punishing her. It's Brooker at his most incisive.
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Jun 4, 2023 15:50
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Zedd posted:USS Callister I did really enjoy, but mostly because it also felt like an excuse to just make a Star Trek homage with a Black Mirror coat. Yeah, the fundamental idea of the episode works with basically any scifi or fantasy franchise, so doing not-Star Trek was definitely a stylistic choice. It was also released roughly around the "50 years of Star Trek" anniversary and when that piece was written Star Trek had been dead on TV for a decade, so its plausible that someone in the writing team really, really, wanted to do a Star Trek tribute. Der Kyhe fucked around with this message at 18:42 on Jun 4, 2023 |
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Jun 4, 2023 15:57
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I got in an internet slap fight with hardcore Black Mirror fans about SS Callister, turns out people were really upset by just saying "it's okay they're just code".
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Jun 4, 2023 18:48
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Hey buddy, my waifu is "just code" and she's as real as any girl I've seen on TV, so gently caress off.
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Jun 4, 2023 18:51
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Wait... It might have been in this thread
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Jun 4, 2023 18:53
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It all boils down to a philosophical argument of at what level self-awareness should be acknowledged by the society as a personhood, and protected by the law. It gets unbelievably ugly fast, if there are suitable fundamentalists in the audience.
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Jun 4, 2023 19:03
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Free Guy is, effectively, the same story, except the creators of the self-aware AI are trying to preserve it FROM the hyper-capitalist. Of course, they also don't know they were successful in their attempt. I think SS Callister was one of the first BM episodes I was shown (I also watched White Christmas that night) so I wasn't sure if "AI are people too, it's the slave trade of the 21st century" was going to be a running theme for the whole show. It...kind of is?
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Jun 4, 2023 19:36
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Aces High posted:Free Guy is, effectively, the same story, except the creators of the self-aware AI are trying to preserve it FROM the hyper-capitalist. Of course, they also don't know they were successful in their attempt. I think SS Callister was one of the first BM episodes I was shown (I also watched White Christmas that night) so I wasn't sure if "AI are people too, it's the slave trade of the 21st century" was going to be a running theme for the whole show. It definitely is. And not just pure AIs or models made to mimic dead people, simulations based on snapshots of people who are still living as normal humans. When technology allows you to be enslaved without no harm or change to your original self, where is the line drawn for the digital version of you?
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Jun 4, 2023 19:43
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Goddamn, Be Right Back has so many unhealthy implications, especially the coda at the end
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Jun 4, 2023 19:47
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Aces High posted:Goddamn, Be Right Back has so many unhealthy implications, especially the coda at the end Didn't that ep come out right around the same time that Amazon was about to release a feature for Alexa to imitate your dead family members? This show hits too close to home sometimes.
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Jun 5, 2023 03:10
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Aces High posted:Free Guy is, effectively, the same story, except the creators of the self-aware AI are trying to preserve it FROM the hyper-capitalist. Of course, they also don't know they were successful in their attempt. I think SS Callister was one of the first BM episodes I was shown (I also watched White Christmas that night) so I wasn't sure if "AI are people too, it's the slave trade of the 21st century" was going to be a running theme for the whole show. It really is, to the point that it feels overused for a portion of the show.
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Jun 5, 2023 04:55
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TOP 5 Shut Up and Dance very funny and ends in an upbeat note Nosedive Bryce Dallas Howard's in it Metalhead SHOUT OUT TO A GREAT UNDERRATED CLASSIC The National Anthem Brits gonna Brit Fifteen Million Merits possibly the most "solid" episode GOOD BUT NOT QUITE GREAT Hang the DJ cute The Entire History of You really disturbing Be Right Back good and a great ending but did not push its concept's implications enough USS Callister Jesse Plemmons's in it MIDDLE OF THE PACK San Junipero leans too much into the soundtrack, that last one shot is really dumb White Bear I rated it higher before Shut Up and Dance came as a "fixed" version White Christmas UNEVEN The Waldo Moment just there MEH Men Against Fire seen and read this many times before Striking Vipers meh Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too annoying Crocodile Black Mirror asks you to accept some far-fetched premises but "Jodie Foster directs something good" is just taking it too far BOTTOM 5 Playtest generic Black Museum dumb, uneven, that guy's sweaty face Smithereens Smithereens Arkangel a joke Hated in the Nation so bad it was briefly a meme Kuiperdolin fucked around with this message at 19:47 on Jun 5, 2023 |
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Jun 5, 2023 10:26
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Kuiperdolin posted:TOP 5 Basically this, though I haven't seen Callister. Hard agree on White Christmas, though I'd rank it lower because they entirely cast an Asian actor so the reveal at the end would read better on screen. Dunno if that's the kind of thing that would bother me if it happened in current year, but I remember watching it with friends when it aired as part of an Xmas gatho and half the room recoiled. That's what primarily characterises the episode in my memory.
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Jun 5, 2023 11:12
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Der Kyhe posted:Yeah, the fundamental idea of the episode works with basically any scifi or fantasy franchise, so doing not-Star Trek was definitely a stylistic choice. Fundamentally it wouldn't take much tweaking for the main premise to work with any sort of depiction of reality. A real and virtual version of his office life would be interesting to see depicted as well, especially as it'd make it possible for the people in the simulation to not realize they're in one at first. I put Callister real high on my own ranking, and White Bear gets a lot of love from me as well.
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Jun 5, 2023 19:20
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I realized just now reading this thread that there might be a Black Mirror episode I've never seen? Smithereens looked familiar, and whenever reading the title I thought it was the one with the murder/insurance(?) investigator, but that might be Crocodile? I just looked up a synopsis of Smithereens and it doesn't sound familiar at ALL. So either its just that forgettable, or I have something new to watch this week.
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Jun 5, 2023 22:15
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Grem posted:I got in an internet slap fight with hardcore Black Mirror fans about SS Callister, turns out people were really upset by just saying "it's okay they're just code". The show is fictional. It tells us they're not just code, therefore they're not just code. Also, if they were, San Junipero wouldn't mean poo poo.
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Jun 5, 2023 22:55
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Humans are just atoms. 
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Jun 5, 2023 23:46
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It's Ok they're just actors
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Jun 6, 2023 00:49
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Don't look into what atoms are just made of because it's a pretty quick black hole to a bunch of bullshit only weird imaginary math can express.
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Jun 6, 2023 00:49
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Superrodan posted:I realized just now reading this thread that there might be a Black Mirror episode I've never seen? Smithereens looked familiar, and whenever reading the title I thought it was the one with the murder/insurance(?) investigator, but that might be Crocodile? I just looked up a synopsis of Smithereens and it doesn't sound familiar at ALL. So either its just that forgettable, or I have something new to watch this week. I started watching it, and about two minutes in I realized I had seen it already and just remember nothing about it except for that The main character specifically kept trying to uber people from one specific building because he had a problem with the company. I don't remember what his problem was or what the company in question did, so I guess it really was that forgettable.
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Jun 6, 2023 18:27
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The point of Smithereens is to show the amount of reach and power a social media company has on someone if they really wanted to use the info they have in the same way that the FBI would if the FBI had that info. The other commentary is the more standard “everyone is addicted to social media and continually jumps to the next distraction”, punctuated by the montage at the end where everyone was gripped by the situation until it ended and they immediately moved on to the next distraction. It’s one of the few episodes that is basically already 100% grounded in current reality.
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Jun 6, 2023 18:40
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They’re gonna make an episode based on Roko’s Basilisk aren’t they? I can feel it.
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Jun 6, 2023 20:08
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Grem posted:I got in an internet slap fight with hardcore Black Mirror fans about SS Callister, turns out people were really upset by just saying "it's okay they're just code". "What if empathy, but not enough"
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Jun 7, 2023 06:44
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LividLiquid posted:I'm sorry people were so upset about it with you and were seemingly dicks about it, but they're not just code. well that might be the point of the argument. You cannot upload your soul, so whatever digital recreation of your mental pathways is a separate from your physical soul. Any digital recreation of a person is it's own thing. but you are correct about sympathy. A person can still be sympathetic to a digital creation and like not fantasy-rape recreation of co-workers
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Jun 7, 2023 12:19
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