(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
NB! SPOILERS ON THE WAY.
The fourth season features the episodes "USS Callister", "Arkangel", "Crocodile", "Hang the DJ", "Metalhead" and "Black Museum". In particular, there are two basic themes that have been permanently fixed in this season – themes that have also been consistent in season after season, and often in several episodes in each round. One concerns fables that raise themes around new possibilities for monitoring and control (previously brilliantly treated in "White Christmas" (S2), and now in "USS Callister"). The second theme is the generic opportunities for digital duplication of identities (in "Hang The DJ" and "Black Museum"), with virtual, digital post / parallel life as the favorite field. If we include one-to-one simulations where the system directly connects to the client's brain or digitally sampled DNA recreates selected real-time experiences of life on the top shelf, we have covered almost half of the episodes.
It is in the nature of the case that all the repetitions must have something Nietzschian about them. But the one eternal return of the same in successful cases (that is, in the film script) will slip into the repetition extended, as Kierkegaard (and Deleuze) thought it – as freedom to still authentically exist for the protagonist. Such a transformation is evident in "Hang the DJ", and even more prominent in the last episode, "Black Museum". The latter also has a new, refreshing bit theme – the dialectical link between individualistic hedonism and class-based exploitation.
If you like something in the BM4 season, it is enough to take off. But maybe you've just seen the wrong episode?
Retro homage. The first – and perhaps best – episode "USS Callister" is not only a stylish and nostalgic tribute to the Star Trek universe, but on the second level also a cyber fantasy about tyranny and absolute, absolute power – a techno-fascist control system, with the hijacking of the subjects' DNA as a biological key. The episode revolves around the simulated life on USS Enterprise – a virtual reality game where participants are held captive by one of their colleagues with the self-appointed title "Captain Daly". The unfortunate victims are co-workers who have bullied Daly in the real (or rather) analog) the world, and they must spend their parallel lives undertaking meaningless expeditions in Outer Space.
Retro culture, of which there is a good deal Black Mirror (BM), is particularly prominent in this first episode. Not only in the overt allusion to Star Trek, but also in the form of the stylized action and the cartoonish characters – who for the occasion have been deprived of their genitals (by the creator Daly). Despite the nostalgia, "USS Callister" puts a subtle fox hook attack on the SciFi nostalgia. In this ugly, vendetta-driven episode, we meet the night vision of the Star Trek universe in the form of a programming engineer's wet dream – a world entirely under his control, a contradiction to the gray slave existence of everyday life.
Variation and repetition. Season 4, however, also makes it clear that the number of variations on techno-cultural themes is limited – which characterizes the season with its tendencies to recognizable action plots. One may have to worry about whether BM may have reached its point-of-no-return, thus approaching its announced culmination.
Parts of the episodes do not work optimally, and are also experienced by the undersigned as a little small. For example, the opening section of the "Black Museum" and the obscure allegory in "Arkangel". If you vile dislike something in the BM4 season, it's more than enough to take off. But maybe you've just seen the wrong episode? Given the relative breadth of variation in the themes and approaches of the various episodes, it is hardly surprising that one of them slips into the borderland between hype and banal overdramatization.
From political satire and future dystopia to paranoid romodyssees and nude nihilism – the possibilities for interpretations and associations are many.
The mixed viewing experience during the play of "Arkangel" may be related to sociology. This is a horror fantasy about suffocating parental care that is taken out in excessive protection of the child against possible dangers, with sensory deprivation as a result. Despite the exciting point of departure and Jodie Foster's clear direction, the viewer – not unlike the protagonist – remains strangely untouched. Here, too, of course, perceptions will vary across social groups, though I doubt BM's core audience consists of slightly paranoid toddler parents. When the mother – unfortunately a bit in the latest team – chooses to let go of her meticulous surveillance, the world is already an unbeatable place, filled to the brim with all kinds of violent media messages and pubertal bestialities.
Hyper check in Cyberspace. As "Hang the DJ" – an alternately hoarse and lingering actively lit melodrama – fades to the tones of the title track Panic (in The Smith's original version), the season's first U-hu experience is introduced. "Hang the DJ" symbolizes the upgraded Tinder of the future – a coveted continuation of the invisible, analog checkup from "White Christmas". With this portrayal of a slick, streamlined and cerebral hyper-Tinder world, an effective vaccine against exuberant check-ups – be it for avatars or real-world people. The episode is, of course, about personality technology and Google-based predictions, with the exception that they are completely out of the analog universe. The application corrects itself in real time while the dating process is busy. The introduction to these simulated meetings is particularly telling. Already during the prelude – the first sixty-figure characters meal – one should check their personal digital dipping coach to see how long this so-called relationship has been allocated. If it is only for one night, the meal should be taken away immediately to allow for compulsory sex.
Our rising protagonists naturally choose to rebel against the System, but thus risk revealing whether they de facto er simulations or whether the relationship continues after the party. Which it does – but with what implications?
The episode "Crocodile" – also recorded in Iceland – is also about storing personal information. A "memory-developer app" reveals Mia's hidden memories from a car murder 15 years earlier, and Mia ends up having to kill the messenger…
From political satire and future dystopia to paranoid romodysses and nude nihilism – the possibilities for interpretations and associations are many, and the same applies equally to recipient reactions. This is probably a good sign of the series' continued appeal.
Allegorical repetition. "Metalhead" is the series' first black-and-white episode, and is an allegorical Cormac McCarthy-like gem of freezing cold control in a post-apocalyptic society at zero point.
The reality of a digital afterlife – symbolized by the movie's myth of sampling or copying a brain – rounds off the three-part and concluding episode "Black Museum." As a unifying symbol, it provides an archetypal and iconic twist of a culture that can hardly let go of its fascination and desire for digital Human Enchantmentthings on the micro plane. But the representatives of this culture have neither the intellectual capacity to predict, the power to counteract, nor the ethical judgment to assess the consequences at the macro level. Perhaps there is also an important element of escapism in these media cultures: Hang the DJ, burn down the disco, or – to paraphrase Morissey's text – these movies have nothing to do with my life.
The "Black Museum" stores and exhibits all kinds of malicious, digital objects – all with a sick prehistory. The intertextual references to the golden age of the subcultures also flourish on the plot plane – for example, in the excessively blood-dripping satire in the first part of the Black Museum. This is also a clear allusion to David Cronenberg's herostrally famous Dead Ringers. The reflection relationship between BM's hyperempathic surgical doctor and the dedicated, personality-disordered gynecologist played by Jeremy Irons in the 80s cult movie is allegorical and reverts to the interpretation of the entire cinematic course of BM.
With the "Black Museum" we – as a further turn on the repeat screw – are served a Chinese box motif as dessert. For here the essence of the entire film series is staged as a synecdoke. In the opening sequence at the Ugly Museum, screenwriter Brooker confirms the series' recurring and often self-deprecating criticism. He does this by installing the poster of Victoria Scillane (child murderer from the episode "White Bear" S2) as a meta-commentary on BM's potential afterlife, which is at the same time ironically constituting the phenomenon of BM as a primary museum item.
Most episodes have a closing twist that turns everything on their head – just this makes the series addictive.
Stays well. BM is a coherent, dark-dark allegory of a technology that goes crazy in the hands of people who can't control – whether on the hedonistic, technomedial or power-critical plane. But what exactly is being problematic when trying to give a critical interpretation of these black satires in BM? Is it the realism, the story, the characters, or simply the allegory – the ever-ambiguous but ubiquitous metaphorizing social criticism? The critical look quickly returns to the critic himself, and it is required to watch episodes again with another look.
Fortunately, most episodes still offer a closing twist that turns all the present on their heads, and thus requires a new thought – even on the metaphorical plane. It is precisely this kind of excess that makes the series addictive.
In the wake of this, the emotional reactions that these smart film essays constantly leave behind must also be emphasized. The fierce satire, often combined with a dark cynicism in the portrayal of the characters, is still a trademark. Such an effect can never be an everyday cost, and BM still has this ability to create anxious dystopia in combination with self-undermining, inner reflection and external critical dialogue.
The entire series is available on Netflix.
