Season four is what I was scared of when Netflix acquired the rights. While Brooker maintains that the increased budgets have enabled him to tell a wider range of stories, I fear the opposite may be happening. Call me a Black Mirror hipster, but it was better before it was popular. The more people you have to please, the harder it is to make challenging stories. Black Mirror is losing its bite, with many of season four’s offerings coming off as safe or samey.

Think about some of season four’s primary ideas while recalling that White Christmas already made a computer program suffer in worse ways than you can imagine. USS Callister has programs reduced to slaves to a repressed fanboy. The twist at the end of Hang the DJ has us realise that all those torturous relationships were really just suffered by simulations. Black Museum has consciousnesses transferred into prison cells, teddy bears, and key fobs. In all three cases, we realise it’s fucked up because those programs have feelings, too. How many more damned times will we see a consciousness stuck inside a computer or an inanimate object?

I get that Brooker wants the show to always be unpredictable. Doom and gloom every episode becomes predictable after a while, or so he says. But few could have predicted the gloomy twists of White Bear, White Christmas, or Hated in the Nation. You might know it’s all going to go to shit, but how it goes to shit can still be shocking and heart-wrenching. And I’d rather things go to shit in fresh and interesting ways.

San Junipero was one of season three’s triumphs. It created tension by subverting our expectations. We desperately clung to the hope that Yorkie and Kelly would get their happy ending, despite knowing that it was going to fall apart. And then it doesn’t, and it’s one of the most touching hours of television I’ve ever seen. But it also gave Black Mirror licence to have happy endings. Guess what – too many of those ruins the surprise and the appeal.

Halfway through USS Callister we all know it’ll end with the virtual crew attaining their freedom. (Admittedly, I expected them all to die, but I suppose that’s freedom all the same.) From the moment Hang the DJ begins, we all know it’ll be the nice episode. Some may like that, but it’s not why I watch Black Mirror.

Anyway, here are some thoughts I have about each episode.

USS Callister – A contrived romp

Since writing my spoiler-free review, my enthusiasm for this one has waned. There’s plenty to like – the performances are excellent and the production design is, shall we say, stellar. But fork out enough cash and it better look good. My favourite aspect is that Callister pulls the classic Black Mirror trick of attracting our sympathy for the antagonist. Daly is a monster we can understand. I love stories like this because despite their unforgivable actions, it’s important to see others – even villains – as people. But upon reflection, this overly-long episode has some issues.

The plotting is quite shocking, with revelations popping up whenever the story requires them. Suddenly, our heroine is the world’s best computer hacker. Suddenly, Daly’s offline mod receives the same update as the online game, manifesting as a wormhole for some reason. Daly gets trapped in the game at the end because he needs some comeuppance, not because it makes any sense.

Similar holes can be poked in the tech itself. I mean, how exactly does sampling someone’s DNA create a clone of them possessing the exact same memories as their real counterpart right up until the point of assimilation? Sci-fi always has to take some leaps but one of Black Mirror’s many accomplishments is its ability to create believable alternate realities with self-consistent technologies.

True, the implications of the technology are more important than its inner workings. I’m afraid I have little else to add to the conversation on this one. Smarter people than me have discussed its takes on topics like fandom and toxic masculinity. But while it’s an episode that’s thematically interesting, it isn’t one I’m excited to sit through again.

Arkangel – Failing to make the most of the premise

Probably the most frustrating episode of the season, I knew we were in trouble from one particular moment. The mother is informed that the Arkangel programme was banned in most countries shortly after Sara was given her implant. While this allows us to hone in on Sara’s story, it also misses the opportunity to paint a broad picture of what sort of impact Arkangel might have on society. This is frustrating as Black Mirror has always proved that it can do both.

The plot of National Anthem is about a man faced with an impossible decision. We see how it affects his job and his family. But, of course, we know the story is really about something larger. Similarly, Entire History tells an extremely contained, human story about a couple hitting a roadblock. But through this story we see the broader implications of the technology. The same can be said for The Waldo Moment and Nosedive.

When Arkangel cuts to Sara’s adolescence, the earlier happenings have little impact on the story. Sure, she’s a bit too into sex and drugs, but that can be attributed to a lot of things, like, say, being a teenager. I enjoyed the creepy tension induced by Sara’s mother’s paranoia, like having to watch her own daughter’s first sexual encounter. I liked how the invasion of privacy and absence of consent stretches to her mum’s decision to abort Sara’s pregnancy. But I found it implausible that so many years after giving up on Arkangel she so quickly sinks back into those old habits.

The highlights of the episode were seeing Sara barely react to her grandfather’s health crisis – something worthy of the episode’s climax – and her acts of self-harm as a result of her curiosity. They induced that horrid feeling in my stomach I hoped to feel later. I’d have liked to have seen a jump to the future in which Sara’s peers, who have all grown up under the influence of Arkangel, encounter similar crises.

Crocodile – Treading similar ground

It’s another frustrating episode because of its untapped potential. I was invested in the central conflict until Mia is revealed to be totally unlikeable. There’s a fine line to tread here. My favourite episode of Black Mirror, The Entire History of You, doesn’t have the world’s most likeable protagonist, but we can see how the technology has warped his thoughts to the point of obsession. It’s hard to say the same for Mia, as the technology is introduced too late and barely justifies her panic. Sure, writing an anonymous letter may lead to some incriminating stuff, but it’s hardly more incriminating than murdering someone.

I was interested to see an exploration of privacy here. Can society function once our memories are made accessible? Crocodile argues that turning humans into cameras endangers those humans, turning a woman into a killer in order to cover her tracks. But then that same technology is used to catch her, so I’m not sure what to make of it all.

The most interesting moment happens when a simple suggestion from the insurance investigator, Shazia, transforms a man’s memory of a woman’s coat. He believes it was green, but when reminded it was yellow, he recalls it was, in fact, yellow. That set my mind spinning with all sorts of juicy possibilities. It was the first time the tech was explicitly different to anything else featured on Black Mirror, and I got excited. What if he was told the coat was actually pink? Would his memory change again?

Later, Shazia mentions that she gets a bonus if she solves a case within a certain timeframe. I was hoping for a twist where Shazia is revealed to be a fraud, manipulating people’s memories to get the result she desires, thereby “solving” cases rapidly and reaping the bonuses. Instead, that whole aspect of the tech is abruptly forgotten and the plot cat-and-mouses its way to its grizzly conclusion. Dark with some tense moments, but ultimately an unclear message and an enormous missed opportunity.

Hang the DJ – Why does everyone like this one again?

It’s being touted as this season’s San Junipero, but for me, it’s no such thing. It’s sweet, it’s funny, and it pokes fun at awkward dates, but there’s nothing revealing or moralistic in this nonsensical story. I have to praise the chemistry between the leads and the stunning production design, but that’s about it.

I didn’t buy any of it. The System doesn’t make sense. Paired with someone so irritating, of course Frank is going to crave the girl he fancied on his first go-around. After a series of unfulfilling sexual encounters, of course Amy will pine for the one guy she felt an emotional connection with. Or, maybe these two felt such a strong connection in their first twelve hours together? In which case, I’m not sure why the System needs to be so damned complicated.

What do we learn along the way? Breaking promises to loved ones is a bad thing. Love is stronger than whatever is trying to hold you back – even if that’s a squad of taser-wielding doormen. These are barely the groundbreaking revelations I’ve grown accustomed to with Black Mirror, and after these eye-rolling moments, I was left waiting for a neat twist.

But the final reveal is nonsense, too. Let’s think about what this story is really about. Are we meant to buy these two characters as living, thinking, sentient beings trapped inside a computer program? If yes, then we ought to be horrified by the implication that thousands of such agonising simulations are being run every second. If no, then we lose all investment in the love developed between them. And yet, the show ends on a sweet high that maybe these two real humans will wind up together anyway. I frowned and felt nothing.

They might fall in love and rebel within the confines of the System, but that cannot be indicative of their real-life compatibility. In the real world, they are agents burdened by memories of their pasts which are conveniently erased in their simulated counterparts. They have bills to pay. They have responsibilities to honour. They have the freedom to choose other people; in the System, they are restricted from all such other temptations.

If Hang the DJ is commenting on the effect of dating technology, the conclusion I can draw from this episode is that it’s a sixty-minute meditation on how those dating app match percentages are utterly meaningless. And through that lens, I might learn to like Hang the DJ. But it ends on such a sickly sweet moment that I’m not sure it’s a valid interpretation.

The reveal also negates any thematic relevance it might have had going. Tinder relies on choice, but the System chooses for us, so it fails as a critique of that. I held out hope that maybe the episode is exploring how desperate we are to find love. Indeed, the characters would rather choose to enter into the tedious System than risk living without ever finding the one. Nope, since these simulations are revealed to never have had a choice in the matter. We have no idea to what lengths real-Frank and real-Amy would go in order to find love, so scratch that idea, too.

For me, Hang the DJ is a disaster. It all unravels after a moment’s thought, and I’m not sure I can say the same of my other least-favourite episodes.

Metalhead – Season four’s triumph

Man, I loved this episode. Easily the strongest of the season. Mostly because it made me feel more than the others, but also for its unique minimalistic take on its themes.

First off, this episode is a technical masterwork. The cinematography is gorgeous. The high contrast black and white is an artsy choice, sure, but it’s a wonderful choice when it pays off as well as this. It’s a wilderness where nothing looks natural. Rolling hills are drained of life, steely-grey trees hang still, and river-water churns like oil. It was a hellscape I couldn’t wait to flee from. Slow motion is used sparingly to heighten moments of excruciating tension, and the choppiness induced by deleted frames a la Fury Road emphasise panic in chase sequences. Top-notch CGI brings the machine to life, and a jabbing score of strings adds to the nightmare, evoking Hitchcock’s Psycho or Kubrick’s The Shining.

This is a story of human versus machine – not why or how the machines came to hunt us, but what happens once they do. The animalistic nature of the “dog” and the wilderness setting pitch the encounter as an evolutionary contest. Through the battle, Metalhead constantly interrogates the differences between humans and robots.

The dog shows a relentless disregard for its own body as it catapults itself through a van window. When it gets stuck later, it painlessly pulls its own leg off to free itself, and this is intercut with Bella cutting the tracker from her own leg – it’s equally necessary for survival, but for her, it’s agony. Though the dog isn’t slowed, Bella limps through the rest of the episode, often howling as her leg stings. At the house, Bella is again burdened by having to maintain her body. She cleans her hands and dresses her wound; the dog uses the time to enhance itself with a knife.

Human adaptability is showcased when the dog is unable to climb Bella’s tree. Though we are reliant on sleep – and drifting off almost sends her to her doom – we can go one night without it. The dog can’t, and she tricks it into draining its power. I love how she exploits what is essentially a bug in the dog’s software – the kind of trickery humans have utilised since the dawn of the computer.

It’s also worth noting that the humans are shown to be reliant on machines. Bella needs to report via walkie-talkie, and needs a car to flee the dog. The former alerts the dog to her presence, the latter dashes her hopes of escape. Not only are they reliant, they are ill-equipped for the world they’ve created. They struggle hacking into a van’s onboard computer, Bella agonises over obtaining keys for the house and car, and hauls herself over a locked gate. The dog hacks each of these within seconds. Not only have humans created the hunter, they’ve also created an environment that’s stacked in its favour.

In the final, nail-biting sequence, we see Bella once again improvising and tricking the dog’s programming in order to best it, but only barely. Bella had to dismember, outsmart, blind, and deliver two point-blank shotgun blasts in order to kill the damned thing. But not before it sticks her with more trackers. And where Bella’s communications promised no assistance and revealed her location, the dog’s calls for aid signal only doom for our heroine. Where the dog fought until its very end, Bella gives up her fight.

And for what? There’s a moment when Bella catches a glimpse at a room with a piano, guitar, art. And we see it. A longing. The chase can’t go on forever for her. Humans need more than the will to survive. We feel, we hope, and we love. Sacrificing everything for the faint hope of bringing a smile to a dying child might have been the soundest decision of all for Bella. It’s the final reason the machines outclass us.

Did the robots take over themselves? Are they malicious, or just acting on a quirk of programming? It doesn’t matter. I doubt Bella knows. So we don’t know. We, like her, attempt to survive against something that outclasses us, in a world favouring it at every turn. Whether we intended to set it on ourselves or not, it bests us. And maybe that’s something to be frightened of.

Black Museum – Gleefully entertaining if nothing else

It’s an odd thing to praise, but I liked season four’s vague episode titles. I was annoyed at how I guessed many plot developments of season three’s entries before viewing. What else could an episode titled Nosedive or Hated in the Nation be about? I sighed when I saw the title Black Museum, because I got the sickening feeling we were about to see a museum filled with a whole bunch of shit from the other Black Mirror episodes. Black Mirror thrives on its anthology format – I’ve read the theories that posit that all the episodes take place in the same universe, and not only do none of them make sense, they also fail to realise that were they true it would doom the series. I sighed again when the episode ended – with relief this time – upon realising that Brooker got away with it.

I don’t really have much to say on this one. I don’t think it’s the best or smartest episode ever, but it’s one of the most enjoyable. The tone in this episode is perfect. Brooker’s pitch-black humour is at its very best during the pain addict story. Initially, I thought Black Museum was going to offer a meta-commentary – as the doctor required more and more pain to satisfy his cravings, so do we, the viewer, demand darker stories.

It’s no White Christmas, but it works, and the conclusion is pretty satisfying. I’d have preferred if they’d pulled some tricks from White Christmas, perhaps the narrator could have switched in telling the third story while still saving the twist for the last moments. I also didn’t mind that this one had a sort-of-happy ending, since the villain got some deserved comeuppance which was still extraordinarily dark.

It’s not one that makes me dread the implications of current technology or societal trends, but it’s damned good fun and the one I’m most looking forward to viewing a second time.

And that’s that, thanks for reading! What were your thoughts on Season 4?

Image Credit: Netflix