Black Mirror

Episode Reviews

Jun. 15, 2023 – S6, Ep1: “Joan Is Awful”

Joan is an average woman with a fiancé and a corporate job. She’s not that unusual, and certainly not particularly better or worse than most of the folks she knows. Or at least she doesn’t think so until she watches the latest show on Streamberry, “Joan is Awful,” which is about her. Every action in her life has been captured and exaggerated in this new TV show starring Salma Hayek. And Joan wants it gone.

If you’re looking for entertainment that saddles you with an existential crisis, “Joan is Awful” is the episode for you. The show brings up excellent points about the state of entertainment and the strategies companies use to keep you hooked on their screens. However, coming from Netflix–king of endless entertainment and master of data analytics–the message is muddled and comes with plenty of content concerns (some of which undermine the episode’s message).

The biggest concern is language. This episode contains 34 uses of the f-word, six uses of the s-word and 15 misuses of God’s name. Characters also say “crap,” “h—,” “d—k,” “b—ch” and “a—”/“a—hole.” We also see characters smoke, and some characters sit at a bar.

Characters also make plenty of explicit references to sexual acts–both through innuendos and actions. In one scene, a character draws male genitalia on Joan’s face. In another, a character listens to a sexually explicit song while in the car. Joan texts and spends time with her ex-boyfriend, and in a therapy session, Joan explains that she misses the ardent lovemaking with her ex. Characters passionately kiss several times, and we see a couple start to make love (although nothing critical is shown). A few scenes features a same-sex couple watching TV together, referring to one another as “babe.” We also see a character wear a very low-cut top.

“Joan is Awful” doesn’t shrink away from bathroom references either. In one scene, a character watches “Joan is Awful” on the toilet. His pants are down, but nothing critical is seen. In another scene, a character gorges herself with food. Then, the character drives to a wedding and defecates in a church.

Plenty of characters yell at others, and one character gets so angry she throws her phone across the room. A character threatens to break someone’s arm. We also see a character punch someone in the face, knocking him out. [Spoiler Warning] There is also a scene in which two characters break into a facility to destroy a computer server.

Although “Joan is Awful” provides a valuable message about the danger of media obsession, it also has an overarching theme about self-satisfaction and the importance of being the “main character” in your own life. This humanistic idea and the vast array of other content concerns will probably have most families avoiding “Joan is Awful.”

Jun. 15, 2023 – S6, Ep5: “Demon 79”

After accidentally summoning a demon with a talisman, Nida has a choice: Murder three people or watch the world burn.

In case the title didn’t make it clear, “Demon 79” contains a lot of problematic spirituality. The episode’s action begins when Nida cuts her finger, spilling her blood onto a mysterious talisman. Gaap, the demon inside, explains that Nida has bound herself to him. Their mission is simple: prevent Armageddon by making three human sacrifices before May Day. Gaap coerces Nida to invite him to enter her body, and when she does, she sees his horrific demonic form. Throughout the episode, we watch Gaap follow Nida, directing her murder mission. Gaap helps Nida choose her victims by showing visions of their immoral actions. Each time Nida sees a vison, her eyes glaze over. Later, Gaap explains that the reason he was able to possess her was because she was “corruptible.” At one point, Gaap explains that if he and Nida fail to make the three sacrifices, he will be sent into “eternal oblivion” where he will cease to exist. By the end of the episode, a human character expresses desire to join him in this “eternal oblivion.”

Perhaps the most disturbing part of the episode’s spirituality is that most of it is approached with levity. Although Gaap’s original form is a monster, he soon shapeshifts to look like Bobby Farrell, the lead singer from Boney M.–and the writer of the song “Rasputin.” The demon cracks dark jokes about murder and cannibalism. At one point, Gaap claims that murderers are playing for the “home team.” Several times, Gaap explains that many people deserve to be murdered, and by the end of the episode, the viewer is prompted to root for Nida’s murder spree.

Speaking of murder, “Demon 79” contains an abundance of violence. Before being possessed, Nida has visions of strangling and beating people, and we hear references to murder and suicide. Once the murdering begins, the episode shows all the gore and blood associated with these very violent deaths. We watch Nida mercilessly bash the heads of various people, spilling blood everywhere. A character stabs someone, and we see the blood-covered knife afterwards. In the aftermath of these murders, the episode often shows the victims’ blood-covered corpses. We also see a character get into a car crash.

The episode contains quite a bit of sexual content as well. One of Nida’s victims is a man who has raped his 8-year-old daughter. Gaap shows Nida a vision right before this horrific act occurs, where the father begins to take off his belt. There is also a scene in which an older man plans to have sex with a younger woman. We see him take his pants off and stand in his briefs (though nothing critical is seen). A character asks if the woman plans to “shag him.” Porn magazines are strewn on a character’s bedroom floor.

In terms of profanity, “Demon 79” is not afraid to use it. There are 16 uses of the f-word, two uses of the s-word and a misuse of God’s name. Characters also use “h—,” “p-ss,” “a–,” “bloody” and “b-llocks.” We also see a character vomit, and a man urinates on a wall (though nothing critical is seen). Several characters smoke, and in one scene Nina goes to a bar and drinks several glasses of alcohol.

What is redeemable about this episode, then? For most families, not much. However, the show provides some commentary on the treatment of immigrants. Nida, an immigrant from India living in Britain, deals with discrimination in her workplace. A coworker complains about her “smelly food,” and her boss later instructs Nida to eat her food in the basement, so she won’t bother others.

Dec. 28, 2018: “Bandersnatch”

In this special interactive episode, viewers meet Stefan, a young, talented, rather unstable videogame designer who lives with his father. Working in a time (1984) when videogames were in their infancy, Stefan’s latest game is based on a Choose Your Own Adventure book by Jerome Davies. Alas, Davies went mad while writing Bandersnatch and cut off his wife’s head. Could Stefan go mad as well? In this Choose Your Own Adventure-style episode, it’s entirely up to you, the viewer!

With a reputed five hours’ worth of possible content available for this 90-minute episode, we can’t unpack every possible ending. But we can say that possible storylines include the murders of multiple people (blood seeps from a horrific head wound of one of the victims); the dismemberment of a corpse (we see the saw at work); a bloodied, disembodied head sitting on a bureau; and a backyard burial. One man leaps to his death: We witness that fall and see the body land with a grotesque splash of blood.

Because of the show’s unusual narrative construct, we may see these deaths multiple times; and sometimes those dead characters return, apparently unharmed. We glimpse crime photos from Davies’ original act of butchery. A person or people die, off-camera, in a train derailment. A rudimentary video game features someone leaping off a balcony: The object seems to be to “collect” balloons on the way down.

Stefan is taking antipsychotic medication: We see him swallow those pills, as well as being prescribed a higher dosage and/or dumping the medication in the trash. Another game designer, Colin Ritman, rolls and smokes his own cigarettes. He and Stefan apparently share a huge marijuana joint. And the consumption of LSD is a huge plot point in, presumably, most of the episode’s storylines as well. People may drink wine, too.

Characters swear liberally in almost every timeline, including some sporadic uses of the f- and s-words. At least one viewer choice (which viewers can select via keyboard, touchscreen or TV remote) contains an f-word. We hear some references to a demonic entity in Davies’ book (and Stefan’s game) called Pax.

Dec. 29, 2017 – S4, Ep1: “USS Callister”

Robert Daly leads two lives: In his “real” life he works as the chief technical officer for Infinity, a massive online gaming universe. But off the clock, Daly lives in his own version of that universe—skinned to make it look like Star Fleet, an old Star Trek-like TV show. There, he’s captain of the USS Callister—and he’s populated his ship with sentient clones of people he works with.

While Daly’s real-world workmates have no awareness of their coworker’s virtual identity, those online clones—made from their originators’ actual DNA—know that they’ve essentially been kidnapped by Daly. They’re forced to live out his fantasies, serving as whipping boys (and girls) for his insecurities. They’re also utterly powerless: Daly punishes them by making their faces vanish (rendering them unable to breathe), turning them into gigantic insect monsters or even killing them. Because he still possesses their DNA, he can bring them back and repeat the process anytime he’d like.

For example, Daly procured DNA from the 6-year-old son of one of his workmates, uploaded a clone of the boy into the game and them launched him into space, where the child instantly froze and cracked “like a porcelain doll.” One of Daly’s “crewmembers” says that they all live in a “bubble universe ruled by an a–hole god,” and they all long to die.

Daly kisses his female crewmembers regularly, but he adheres to Star Fleet’s 1960s ethos: “No tongues,” someone’s told. Moreover, none of the crew members have genitalia: One male crewmember drops his drawers to reveal a featureless crotch. Crewmembers describe how they’ve tried to rub their crotches together in hope of sexual stimulus, but to no avail; moreover, they also live without any way of defecating—an act that many deeply miss. (After the universe changes, one crewmember peeks in his drawers and is gratified by what he sees.) One crewmember tries to blackmail her real-world self by threatening to leak sultry pictures she took during a trip to Las Vegas. We see shots of that woman in lingerie (including one where she’s covering an exposed breast with her hand), and we learn that she was in Vegas with another woman. Daly and a crew member strip down to their skivvies to swim in an alien lake.

A man is shot with a laser gun. A woman is turned into a horrific monster, and the transition looks painful. Someone sacrifices himself, painfully, for the benefit of the rest of the crew. A character gets choked and used as an ottoman. A ship blows up.

Characters drink various beverages, presumably alcoholic. One contains vodka, while others may have more exotic, galactic ingredients. Characters swear a lot: We hear more than 35 f-words and nearly 15 s-words, along with “a–,” “b–ch,” “b–tard,” “d–n” and “h—.” God’s name is misused about 15 times, five of those with the word “d–n,” and Jesus’ name is abused twice.