Black Mirror 2.03

The Waldo Moment

Comedian Jamie Salter voice of Waldo (a foul mouthed, cartoon, blue bear) gets talked into using the bear to heckle incumbent politician Liam Monroe during an election. Liam pushes back at his employer's demands but keeps doing his job, heckling Monroe, until Salter decides he's had enough. His employer takes over the character and turns Waldo into a worldwide phenomenon.

Thoughts

Tobias Menzies played the part of Liam Monroe. I know him best from HBO's Rome, where he played the part of Brutus, but I may have seen him in a few other things. I didn't recognize any of the other actors in this episode.

Black Mirror 2.02

White Bear

Victoria wakes up. She can't remember who she is or anything about where she is. She goes outside. People are watching her from a distance, taking pictures and video of her with their phones. A masked man drives up, gets out of his vehicle, and pulls out a shotgun. She starts running. People see what he's doing but they do nothing to help her.

Victoria meets a couple at a gas station. They try to help her. The man gets killed. The woman helps Victoria keep on the run from the man with the shotgun. Vitoria keeps remembering things but they aren't full memories, only scraps.

Black Mirror 2.01

Be Right Back

Martha loses Ash, her boyfriend. He is killed in a car accident. She learns soon afterwards that she's pregnant. She grieves until she learns about a service that uses A.I. to create a facsimile of a lost loved one.

It starts with text messages, then moves to conversations over the phone, and then finally she pays for an android copy of Ash. At first it is wonderful but then she starts spotting the differences and realizes that it isn't the same.

Black Mirror 1.03

The Entire History of You

Liam, like many people has a Grain, an implant that records everything he sees. He becomes obsessed with the attention that Fi, his wife, is paying to Jonas, another guest at a dinner party they attend. Liam's obsession pushes him to interrogate Fi after they get home that night. He learns that Fi had a fling with Jonas before she and Liam met.

The next day Liam goes to see Jonas and violently forces him to delete all his memories of Fi. When Liam gets home he interrogates Fi some more.

Thoughts

This is dark through and through. There is nothing upbeat about this episode. I guess that there's a message here about some people not being able to deal with the impact that technology has on their lives.

Black Mirror 1.02

Fifteen Million Merits

Bing lives in a world where he rides an exercise bicycle for a living. He earns merits riding the bicycle for a living. He uses those merits to pay for everything he wants and needs. He has a little over fifteen million merits.

Bing meets Abi, a woman who also rides an exercise bicycle for a living. She has a really nice singing voice. He encourages her to go on Hot Shot, a talent search type show. She doesn't have the money but he does. He insists that she take it. Abi refuses at first but Bing keeps encouraging her to and eventually she agrees to take the money.

Black Mirror 1.01

The National Anthem

A princess of the British royal family is kidnapped. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is given a choice, have sex with a pig on live television or the princess will be killed.

He tries to get the princess back without doing the livestream but in the end the PM goes through with the demand of the kidnapper. The princess is returned. The PM's ratings soar but his marriage suffers.

Thoughts

This episode is beyond bizarre. I tried watching it once, years ago, and gave up after 10 minutes. This time I stuck with it. I probably should have just skipped it. I was expecting some sort of a twist ending but I don't feel as if there was one.

Black Mirror 3.04

San Junipero

Yorkie (Mackenzie Davis) and Kelly (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) meet in Tuckers, a night club. Kelly looks like she belongs there, Yorkie does not. Kelly comes on to Yorkie but Yorkie doesn't know how to respond and runs off. She later regrets the way she reacted to Kelly, seeks her out, and eventually finds her.

What isn't readily apparent from the beginning of this story is that San Junipero is a virtual world. As it progresses, it becomes clear that things aren't exactly as they appear to be. The story starts in the 1980s but then jumps backwards and then forwards in time without the characters aging. It is over halfway into the episode before the story pulls back from San Junipero and the real world is shown on screen. Kelly and Yorkie aren't young in the real world. Yorkie isn't able to communicate in the real world and has been a quadriplegic for most of her life.

This is the first full episode I have watched of this anthology series. I watched it because they talked about it on one podcast I listen to (Deathcast) and the hosts of another podcast I listen to (Movie Bears Podcast) said they were planning to talk about it on a future episode. I have held off on listening to the San Junipero episode of Deathcast which dropped early in December 2016. I'm still waiting for the San Junipero episode of Movie Bears Podcast to drop.

The story has a couple themes that run through it: the right to love who you want and the right to die. There is a twist or two towards the end that really added a dimension to the story and made the story that much more poignant. Both actresses were excellent. I have seen Mackenzie David before on Halt and Catch Fire where she plays Cameron. I have seen Gugu Mbatha-Raw before on Doctor Who where she played Martha Jones' sister, but it has been several years since I saw those episodes.

I am very happy that I decided to watch this episode of Black Mirror. I tried watching Black Mirror once before and was completely turned off by the premise of the first episode 1.01. I never finished watching it.