In its 3d season Black Mirror expanded twice the size of any of the previous seasons (the initial expansion was planned even larger than that but was rethought later), and it underwent certain changes as a result of that. Nothing very significant so far, but it’s the tendency that counts.
First off, the essence of the show is not purely dark futurism anymore, it’s more like general science fiction, because many of the stories do not take place in the possible future, but rather in the alternative present (including the 1st episode). Also, one of the stories received a happy ending, which is not typical for the show at all.
Second, – although, I’m not entirely sure here, it’s just a tingling sensation of sorts, – there might have been weak points in 2 of the episodes: in the episode with the troll face in the end, the teenager watching that kind of porn seems like a stretch, or at least it doesn’t agree very much with my understanding of adolescence and American society. Of course, it doesn’t mean it’s false or anything, but some discomfort is definitely in place. Then again, the story wouldn’t have worked if the incentive was just a teenage embarrassment. My second complaint is about the final episode, the one with the artificial bees. It’s pretty obvious how those bees operate when being hijacked, and it’s clear that all they can do is find a hole and dig into it, so naturally one would at least think of protecting not the whole person, but just the body holes – the ears, the nostrills and the mouth, – and yet no one thought of that. Seems a little implausible, all I’m saying.
Having said all that, I should mention that the overall quality of the story, as well as of everything that comprises the narrative, is just as high as it was before. The acting, the direction, the dialogs, the characters, the sound, the music, the special effects – all these things and more are insanely powerful. There are not technical drawbacks whatsoever; watching the show is pure pleasuse, same as it always has been. Even with the aforementioned tendency (which is not carved in stone, by the way), the show demonstrates outstanding vital capacity, – an object of envy for any possible competitor.
Year: 2016
Created by: Charlie Brooker
Directed by: Joe Wright, Dan Trachtenberg, James Watkins, Owen Harris, Jakob Verbruggen, James Hawes
Written by: Charlie Brooker, Rashida Jones & Mike Schur, William Bridges
Performed by: Bryce Dallas Howard, Alice Eve, James Norton, Cherry Jones, Wyatt Russell, Hannah John-Kamen, Wunmi Mosaku, Ken Yamamura, Alex Lawther, Jerome Flynn, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Mackenzie Davis, Malachi Kirby, Madeline Brewer, Ariane Labed, Sarah Snook, Michael Kelly, Kelly Macdonald, Faye Marsay, Benedict Wong
Time: 6 * 51m-1h29m
Entertaining quality: 5+ out of 5
Art quality: 5- out of 5
®shoomow, 2013-2016
Cinegmatic 