The scene that most sticks with me is the visit to Quagmire, the club for those digital people who are jaded with their digital immortality and cannot actually feel any joy. I actually think San Junipero is a dark story, in that Quagmire implies Yorkie and Kelly's future. I love the call-out to Max Headroom in the show, as the original digital person.
It honestly seems like it would be a sort of hell. Sure, they don't have to die, but if they change their minds, they'd have to do it themselves. I think the fear of death would keep most people trapped and constantly looking for distraction from their situation. In a weird way, not having a choice is liberating. The thing I liked most about their story is when Yorkie comes to realize that even though SJ will always feel hollow and fake, their relationship is real enough for them both. Cool, conceptually and uniquely Black Mirror.
I loved the Max Headroom Shots, as well, especially because I’m a huge fan of that show, which was decades ahead of its time. One fact about Max Headroom that is hilarious and amazing is that computer graphics were not advanced enough to make Max with CGI. Instead, the actor Matt Frewer who plays him had to wear a ton of makeup and act glitchy while in front of a backdrop. Max Headroom was /not/ animated!
Damn apparently I need to rewatch Black Mirror! Great video!! Awesome to see my name in the credits tho and the shoutout. I feel seen today :) glad to support you my guy! You’re putting in the work you deserve all the rewards!
Hey, Heather! It's the least I could do. Thank you for keeping me inspired! I've been re-watching them because it's been so long since I've seen them. So good! More to come!
Great to see you're a Black Mirror fan, as a Brit i'm familiar with Charlie Brooker and his work. I had seen a few episodes over the years then recently (this year) binged almost the entire run. Great show. Can't wait for more videos and the new season. I've had a few theories come to mind for certain episodes I will share if you cover them. The dating episode where they're paired up for different periods of time and the killer robots episodes were some of my personal favourites.
Hey, Ricken! I believe that's Hang The DJ and Metalhead that you're describing. Both are good picks. My personal faves are Shut Up and Dance, Hated in the Nation, The Entire History of You and Crocodile. I plan to cover a fair amount, almost all of them. Be on the lookout!
Black Mirror always gives me that itch in my conscience, making me inconfortable and reflect about tech. I love it! This is one of my favourite episodes. Thank you for the reflection, i've been following your analyses on severance and i appreciate it very much. Besides, i love the depht of your voice. Are you black? You have that jazzy velveted quality of black radialists, at least it sounds black. Anyway, it doesn't really matter. Congratulations and keep up, nice job!
Hi, Ana. Yeah, I think Black Mirror is an important show and a credit to the sci-fi tv series genre. It's up there with the Twilight Zone, for me. It really makes me think about how much tech derails social evolution in ways we can't foresee. When I started this channel, I knew it was something I was going to cover eventually. Yup, I am black. Panamanian-Jamaican to be exact lol. Thanks for the compliments and, of course, for supporting my work!
This is easily the best episode of the series. While it seems like it has a happy ending (not the standard for Black Mirror) there is this underlying existential dread to it. That after we die, we all come down to ones and zeros, just to be shelved in some servers warehouse to be lost and never managed again.
I love Black Mirror. They are always so well written and convincingly performed. All situations are completely outrageous but with expert writing and acting we are always right there. I think you are going to spur a rewatch 😄. I just finished binging your content on Severence. I look forward to more Black Mirror content.
Hey, Kelli! Thanks for the kind words. I'm a big Black Mirror fan too, and I couldn't imagine not covering it here. Rewatching reminded me of how great the storytelling is, as well the introspection it provoked in me the first time through. Definitely more to come!
Kelly had stage 4 lung cancer, Yorkie always 'spawns' into the simulation on the near by beach, at 12:00 AM when it cuts to black you can hear the hospice that Yorkie lives in, I think Wes has been dead a long time and is fascinated with Kelly because she is the first women that actually means something to him in the sim. Ironically Kelly talked about how she was committed to Richard for 49 years but she will be committed to Yorkie for the next billion years - not forever because at that that point the sun will start to make the earth inhospitable lol.
There is an Amazon Prime show called Upload which has the same premise as this episode: i.e. getting uploaded into an "afterlife" before dying. I really like how the show tackles how capitalism affects us even in "death" or in this case, upload. In the case for Black Mirror, I like how you see the continuity of technology. For example, is this the next stage of tech similar to Playtest or as you mentioned the Cookies from White Christmas? If so, while this episode was very wholesome, what horrors got us to this point? Quite interesting.
This is my favorite Black Mirror episode, although I’ve been watching the show from the beginning and seen them all (and did ALL of the Choose Your Own Adventure option in the interactive episode) and I am really glad you covered it. Do any of your other Black Mirror episodes discuss all of the San Junipero easter eggs in other Black Mirror episodes and how the show covers the evolution of the tech used to create the “afterlife”? *Black Museum* probably focuses on the downsides of the tech the most (a lot of people didn’t like that episode and while I found it very uncomfortable to watch, I thought it had some incredible ideas and scenes) but in between those two episodes (and after *Black Museum*) there were so many little breadcrumbs spread around! In this video you said you were going to cover how Black Mirror episodes are interconnected [paraphrased]… did you ever get around to it? If not, that is something I’d love to see! Thanks for doing this! Now, back to your *Severance* videos….
Huge yes to this! One of my favorite episodes, beautifully done, so compelling... And bonus throwback to my childhood with that Belinda Carlisle song. I heard it like 500 times when I was around 9 and would dance to it just like that. Also I had a huge crush on Belinda Carlisle 😅
Hi, Max! Hmmm, well if I'm recommending shows that are similar in feel/atmosphere I would say Phillip K Dick's Electric Dreams, Westworld, Dark, Room 104, Love Death & Robots, Mr. Robot, Russian Doll, Utopia (the British version), and Maniac. The shows that are similar in format, as in they are dark scifi anthologies: Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, Tales from the Loop and again, Electric Dreams.
Hey, thanks a lot for these recommendations. I have watched and loved all of them except Utopia and The Outer Limits, so I will check them out. Of course, I did my research in the past regarding similar shows, but I hoped you could give me some additional ones since you seem to have a very similar taste or interest in this kind of themes. And you did so thanks again I will definitely check them out. I appreciate your pace and style of analyzing, so please keep doing these videos as long as you enjoy doing them. :) Ahh and one more thing, maybe I can also give you a recommendation. I did not watch many episodes until now, but Inside No.9 seems to also be a very interesting anthologies show. I highly recommend checking out Season 2, Episode 2: the 12 days of Christine. The first time watching it had me in a very emotional state.
