Season 6 trailer for Black Mirror.
Lia De La Cruz recommends Black Mirror
Within the newest season of Black Mirror, launched on June 15, 2023, creator Charlie Brooker returns with a renewed sense of creativity and a contemporary perspective on our probably dystopian future. Certainly, every episode seems like a film outright, with totally different characters and a brand new storyline, much like The Twilight Zone. And whereas know-how performs a supporting position, the sequence is all about human conduct. It explores the varied methods we’re seemingly to reply to our altering atmosphere.
Aptly named Black Mirror, viewers are inspired to see themselves on the display and look inward. In my private opinion, it’s a most palatable sense of horror that everybody ought to deal with their eyes to witness.
A well-known tackle contemporary concepts
The season opener, “Joan is Terrible,” follows a disenchanted company worker. She discovers a present on a streaming platform that recounts her every day life. It’s a basic Black Mirror stage, exploring themes of id, surveillance and the implications of know-how. This episode harks again to the present’s earlier successes, even treating followers to Easter eggs, such because the tune “Anyone Who Knows What Love Is” from season one.
However what units this season aside is its willingness to discover totally different genres and time durations. In episode two, “Loch Henry,” screenwriters use VHS tapes to dive into society’s obsession with true crime dramas, analyzing their affect on the folks concerned.
Brooker additionally ventures into the previous with “Past the Sea,” set in 1969. This episode follows two astronauts on a deep space mission who remotely management synthetic clones on Earth. It successfully delves into societal norms, gender dynamics and the human expertise. Total, it highlights the present’s potential to inform thought-provoking tales with out relying solely on futuristic know-how.
“Mazey Day,” the season’s fourth episode, takes the viewers by way of the lifetime of a younger paparazzi photographer. This episode skillfully captures the technological developments of the time whereas incorporating an old-school aptitude. It means that our exploitative nature has continued because the conception of cameras.
Surprisingly, this season of Black Mirror additionally embraces pure horror with the finale, “Demon 79.” With out heavy technological components, it pays homage to ’70s horror movies. Brooker calls it the “Red Mirror,” suggesting viewers ought to direct their eyes from screens and discover their reflection in a metaphorical pool of blood as an alternative.
Life imitates artwork
Brooker and the present writers have succeeded in delivering a stunning, canny and maybe prophetic assortment of episodes. The episodes seize the essence of what made the present so fascinating in its early seasons. Black Mirror stays an impressive instance of how life imitates artwork, and is a treasure – or a cautionary story – for anybody who watches it right this moment.
Backside line: On this installment of Media We Love, EarthSky author Lia De La Cruz recommends Black Mirror, a TV sequence that faucets into the collective unease in regards to the trendy world.
