1-1-1:Black Mirror Season 6

2023, 5 Episodes - Netflix
Created and written by Charlie Brooker

The new season of Black Mirror is finally here. It's a departure from prior seasons for sure, with Charlie Brooker bringing us five very different stories, three of which are some of the strongest in the series (but also the most radically distant). Three of the five episodes are period pieces (and one more is obsessed with a story from the past), which indicates that maybe Brooker is exhausted with forward thinking, and instead wants to look back and see how the past could have influenced today, or if the past were different what that might look like. 

Between "Beyond the Sea" and "Demon 79", I get the sense that Brooker is itching to do a bigger budget genre movie, whether it be a mid-budget horror, or a bigger-sized sci-fi, but I also get the sense that he's quite comfortable in this TV zone where he has much more control and is hesitant to do something bigger that might be scrutinized more.

But hey, if he wants to keep making Black Mirror, especially in this more diversified form, I'm still all in.

"Joan Is Awful" (d. Ally Pankiw)

The What 100: Joan pops on the in-world Netflix to find a TV show starring Salma Hayak who is styled like her and is reenacting moments of her immediate life. Joan's world is thrown into chaos. It gets pretty meta from there.

1 Great: Brooker's career largely originated in comedy and satire. Until this episode he's more been focused on satire and horror than comedy. But this one's a straight-up comedy. 

1 Good: I don't want to spoil anything, but I loved how meta this episode went. It really doesn't hold up to too much scrutiny, but it doesn't matter, it's a blast. It's the most "star-studded" episode of the season, but it is so with purpose.

1 Bad: The conceit of this episode is that a clickwrap agreement tied to downloading an app that grants an app unfettered access to your life, your story and your likeness (by listening and observing through your phone) is somehow legally sound is complete garbage plotting. A class action lawsuit would utterly bankrupt the company. 

Meta: Diving back into Black Mirror after an absence (it's been 4 years since we last saw a new Black Mirror episode) is always met with trepidation. I mean, the series started with the Prime Minister of England being blackmailed into fucking a pig on live TV... we're always expecting the worst. But this brought us in gently, and it was really, really fun. Perhaps not the best episode of BM but maybe its most fun.

"Loch Henry" (d. Sam Miller)

The What 100: A young documentary filmmaking student turn his attention on his depressed Scottish hometown, and the murders that rocked it a decade earlier.

1 Great: For me, this was a very middle-of-the-road episode that looks at the industry of true crime documentaries without a whole lot to say, but it ends so strongly with its character-focused epilogue 

1 Good: I had no idea that Bergerac was a real TV series. I thought it was an in-world creation... I don't know if it's more awesome or less awesome that it actually exists.

1 Bad: "Loch Henry" never really escapes its ominous tone...it's so even tempered that when it should be raising its stakes into anxious horror territory, it just simmers. I think it's more to do with direction than scripting, and there seemed to be a choice made not to turn it into something scary, but instead something at the terror level of a, well, true crime documentary/ 

Meta: I like how Black Mirror has established connecting threads between the various episodes but it's not all one reality. Here the filmmakers pitch their documentary to Streamberry, the Netflix-like service (right down to the "Dun Dun" and interface) central to "Joan Is Awful". Although, confusingly, one character references Netflix, which makes me think that Streamberry was a late addition and they just kind of goofed on leaving the Netflix mention in. 

"Beyond the Sea" (d. John Crowley)

The What 100: in a different reality of 1969, two astronauts are on a long-term space mission, but are able to send their consciousness between their real selves aboard the ship and the androids on earth that allow them to continue their lives. Things go unexpectedly bad and then get predictably awful.

1 Great: It's not Black Mirror's first movie-length episode, but it felt the most filmic of any BM so far. It's got a really far-fetched sci-fi conceit that forces you to accept it immediately, and just invest in the story that is being presented.  It builds a stripped-down-to-basics alternate reality, focusing on two astronauts and their families, and not caring so much about the details of the androids or the technology or the space mission the men are on.

1 Good: I didn't watch much of Breaking Bad so I'm not an Aaron Paul devotee (he was good on Westworld but he always felt a little out of place, being the latecomer to the cast in the third season), but he delivers a really, really good performance here, having to portray one very reserved, very insular character, then also having to play Josh Hartnett's much more outgoing spaceman. It's pretty seamless.

1 Bad: There's a pivot in the story in the first act (which seems to be the only impetus to set it in 1969) that I didn't see coming, but from there it plays out quite predictably, until a finale that seems to be a twist for twist's sake and not in keeping with the spirit of the episode.

Meta:  I really wish that Brooker had greater ambitions for this episode than just doing a sci-fi nod to Once Upon A Time...In Hollywood . The characters and situations are so baked into the conflict of stoic puritanism and burgeoning sexual liberation of the late 60's that it kind of fails to say anything interesting about them. I can't help but think how engaging it would have been if the scenario had turned into more of a throuple situation, hitting more on the sexual and relationship dynamics explored in last season's "Striking Vipers". It's ultimately a well made but disappointing watch.

"Mazey Day" (d. Uta Briesewitz) [SPOILER WARNING - this episode is best watched with no knowledge of what it's about. Even me giving a spoiler warning may be revealing too much]

The What 100: In mid 2000s, a reluctant paparazzo (Zazie Beetz) chases after a famous starlet who has seemingly disappeared after being fired from a shoot for unknown reasons. What she doesn't know is the starlet was involved in a deadly hit and run and is having a very hard time.

1 Great: I didn't see that coming.

1 Good: I really didn't see that coming.

1 Bad: I wished it had lasted longer. This could have been a wonderful horror movie

Meta: Brooker seemed to be setting up a potent message about celebrity and right to privacy and predatory industries, but then there's a pivot and it's such a delight. I think it's even more fun than "Joan Is Awful" but I wonder how it will hold up on rewatch. The surprise is 90% of everything.

"Demon 79" (co-writer. Bisha K. Ali [Ms. Marvel], d. Toby Haynes) 

The What 100: In 1979 England a young shoe sales woman of Indian descent experiences constant racism - overt, veiled, systemic, etc - but when she's accidentally tethered to a demon, she's given the opportunity to let out some of her pent-up frustrations...because she has to kill 3 people or the world will end.

1 Great: A cracker of an episode, another movie-length one that really doesn't make any false moves in the story its telling and the character journeys it presents.

1 Good: The two leads, Anjana Vasan and Paapa Essiedu are outstanding. They are my top contenders for best duo in all of Black Mirror. Vasan plays the complex emotions of someone questioning whether their having a psychotic break perfectly. Essiedu is just pure charm poured into a white disco suit and furs. Both performers are on shows I've heard are tremendous (We Are Lady Parts and I May Destroy You) and which I really need to give a go.

1 Bad: The opening moments of "Demon 79" -- the establishing shot and title card and late-70's sets and street scenes and the grainy film look that overlays it all -- imply that this episode is going full-blown grindhouse. Alas it doesn't commit to the bit. Brooker can't seem to get away from his own writerly tendencies and just go pure exploitation. 

Meta: I'm torn between really loving this episode as is, and wishing it was the pure grindhouse it teased. The characters would have been much different, where Vasan's rage would have been much less complex in full-blown revenge-a-matic mode, and Esseidu's demon would have been far scarier. The chemistry between them would have been very different, and that's kind of the magic of the episode. Can't we have both?