Honestly I watch these after watching an episode to see if I got the same interpretation of the episode as other people (and see if anyone notices anything I overlooked)
@@baumintrack2745 That was his only fault. I kept thinking the whole time why the fuck did he make them sentient and not just complete bots since he just wanted slaves anyway.
@@ephemal Them who? Computer programs? Do you think its torture for characters to die over and over in a video game like turtles in Mario Bros games then?
When Daly took away her face that was horrifying. It’s not just you don’t have a face, it’s that you’re literally suffocating while not being able to see or talk to call for help
@@__-pq5ul yeah you'd have to get used to it but you'd forever feel the burning of your lungs as you desperately try to gasp for air only to remember that you can't. rinse and repeat for eternity. it would've been a terrible fate.
Until the AI, after learning to manipulate real people in the real world to strike out against gamers it is competing against through in-game NPCs... is the AI going to go on to figure out how to trick more human players into death? This horror story is like a virtual version of Westworld; NPCs (instead of robots) being aware of repeated suffering inflicted by human players have developed the knowledge/skill/capability of influencing real people to help it attack its gaming opponents in the real world. You telling me this is going to be a one-off?
If you really think about it. This has a depressing ending. Imagine you being bullied in real life takes his revenge on computer simulated only for you to get killed on christmas eve
This is the best ending of any black mirror episode, I was SO stressed and was thinking they were gonna get a bad ending like most black mirror episodes so thank goodness
Queen Eliane based on how this guy has been screwed over in real life, I still feel bad for him. I mean this dude clearly is going to die from lack of food, or not die at all
Garrett Prepetit yeah I felt bad too when someone said that even if he dies, his consciousness will remain in that dark place forever. Idk if that’s true but that’s awful. But he was a terrible person so I’m glad the people he tortured got a good ending.
The part in the sim when Elena says they don't even have the pleasure of being able to take a shit, I sometimes think about that when I'm dropping a deuce.
People talk about how evil Daly is... but if tech like this ever exists, I definitely imagine people would use it on co-workers, classmates, etc they despise. Or even their crushes. Despite the plotholes, this is one of my favourite episodes in BM.
The thing is, nobody knows tech like this exists, Dally is the only one who came up with the idea or replicating their DNA into a sentient clone, he does it at his house, with the technology he created
The only thing I didn’t understand was Daly’s lack of admin permissions in his own game despite having such immense manipulation powers. I felt he would’ve been able to teleport onto the ship when they were going to the wormhole
That ending with Aaron Paul in the Online version of Infinity update. AWESOME!! And the way he talked was like how he was in Breaking Bad as Jesse.. lol!
Good ending? The bullied emotionally stunted main character ends up dead. The other characters obliviously unaware of his online gaming activities but since he seems to be the genius behind their game I would expect the company dwindles and fails eventually leaving other characters out of work. The "characters" on the ship are not people. They are a computer doing a very good simulation of multiple people based on (hand wave) programming of their personalities into the simulation. Even if the computer hadn't won the game, the computer would have still continued to exist. No emotional stakes either way on that one.
@@iansneddon2956 When you can create a Turing-type Test that can differentiate a "real" human from one of the Callister humans; you can write a paper on it. Until then, I would have to say, that such an AI may very well have "feelings." Vegan's have less evidence lobsters feel pain as we do, but they continue their crusade despite that.
@@DanielTsosie "Feelings" is a fairly abstract concept. We have nerves providing sensations, some of them quite unpleasant. Helps us avoid situations in which we are being/continue to be injured. An AI that is capable of modelling human behavior will also model those reactions. It obviously has outcomes it is striving for (programmed to win, for example) and outcomes that interfere with that are to be avoided. Essentially, it's concept of pain is losing functionality of its characters or setbacks that keep it from winning. I've made the comparison elsewhere in comments for Westworld with difference that this is a single AI running all NPCs while Westworld gave us robots with individual CPUs processing their personalities and reacting to physical sensations - conceptually this isn't really very different but for our perceptions we would be more inclined to view the Westworld robots as having personality than the single AI running all NPCs which we would be inclined to view as cold and calculating. But just the same we have people taking out dark impulses on a "fake person" where they don't have to feel guilty for what they do - and an AI perceiving negative "feelings" from these assaults and seeking to end the pain. In the Callister example I impulsively see the AI as cold and calculating in its efforts in the show and continuing after to arrange the death of gamers that get in the way of it "winning".
A nerd will always fall for the pussy. That is the one good thing the fleet had going for them is that he wud fall for that trick every.. single.. time. Even tho he cud get the pussy whenever he so pleased because he built the entire fucking universe... but he is such a big time nerd he still gets seduced. Lmao. I still dont like that he died tho thats so fucked up man
This also reminds me a short Sci-Fi horror called "I have no mouth, and I must sceam" by Harlan Ellison. The story revolves around evolved AIs (called AMs) torturing the last few survivors of the human race over and over.
@@Ashe_isnt_real I actually think that Daly taking Cole’s mouth away and leaving her unable to breathe or scream was a deliberate reference. Maybe not though
They would probably have some kind of safety system in place, right? I mean you could get stuck if a game crashed and the "exit game" command wouldn't work. Daly deserved the ending he got, but I think as a genius, he would have had a failsafe mechanism just in case, especially since he lives alone and has no one to "wake him up" by removing the implant.
I think that is the beauty of the episode. He likely hacked the system so much that some failsafes were removed. He likely thought he was safe because he was the admin and there was no reasonable way for that to be removed. In reality, it would be impossible to be trapped since such a system could only suggest, not control. Removing or powering down the device would just reset back to your regular mental state. Generally such virtual worlds work kind of like creating a copy or clone uploading to the virtual world, putting the original body in a coma. In this case, it is entirely possible that if you removed failsafe, then the machine would not be able to pull you out of the coma like state. It is beautiful because it goes along with the hubris of the villain character. He fucked himself and in the end was his biggest enemy.
@@JacobSantosDev the system of the game shouldnt matter,he is still using an interface machine and a physical head piece,those things in any realistic scenario would have some kind of security,like if youve been connected for X ammount of time it shut off unless you confirm,and as he wouldnt confirm it turns off
You know what's funny, he invented a device that can make a copy of your brain from a small DNA sample. He clould earn bilions on this idea alone. Image how many genius people would wanna to transfare their mind to live forever
@@paradoxzee6834 Good catch. I think his problem is he's petty and vindictive, and he mainly created that world to enslave and torture people who didn't pay him enough respect in the real world. He's not thinking of any positive use for it. He wants to be God who can smite people who don't serve him.
A detail I love about this episode is that the villain is pretending to live up to Star Trek's ideals of a hero even though he's more evil than any of the shows villains. The crew on the other hand who barely know each other never turn on each other and even sacrifice for each other no matter how much they get punished for it.
Sed. I didn't want Daly to die, I just wanted him to freak out when he looked in to his mini fridge and found out all of the dna samples were gone. If he was going to stay stuck like that there was no need for them to blackmail Nanette to begin with. Although I get that they might have no way knowing that would happen.
@@kyt6087 I’m sure if there was a hypothetical situation where you were a clone in the near future you might care. They seem to feel pain, feel exactly the same as they do in their real life. Dale was a murderer really
I remember when I watched this one and my heart was racing while they were on their way to that hole , would have sucked if they didn't make it and that shithole gotten them , well deserved ending ..
@@Ghostx003 No , he was mean even to his fan and that was pretty obvious , all the others didn't do anything to deserve this torture , he's a psychopath & a coward because he can't face them in the real world .
Ziad SH all of us are cowards ina real world we all let certain shit slide in real life if we didnt all hell wud break loose, he just happened to find a way where he could release his anger towards these people without “actually” hurting them (which i am really torn by what “actually” means here but whatever i guess)
I LOVED this episode. It had the traditional darkness of Black Mirror which I've come to rely on (and enjoy), but it also ended on a positive note for the tortured AI characters and I would honestly watch a series based on their experience in the updated game.
My theory was that these employees would do beta tests and hook into the "real" game. Then he could do a personality download while they are hooked in, unknown to them. Combine that with their DNA, you get a virtual clone.
Don't need DNA if they are doing physical measurements and pictures from different angles to define their avatars in the game. There is no actual cloning happening, just a depiction of virtual people. Your theory would have made a better explanation for how these virtual duplicates got created. Could have made a bigger deal of the use of AI to monitor the behavior of gamers using logs of years of playing an earlier version of game as to how the AI does such a great job of mimicking human reactions to what is done to the characters - including recognition that characters drawn from players avatars have a real person alter-ego outside the game leading to the unanticipated strategy of the computer to draw on its knowledge of real people to manipulate real employees of the company to help it win the game. This wasn't a happy ending. The AI has learned to manipulate real people to attack gamers it is competing against. Just wait until it learns to make prank SWAT calls on its opponents.
@@iansneddon2956 Genetic memory is a thing. Having somethings engrams would not be necessarily enough to replicate a person 1:1. It's why someone who never having seen a spider would have a fear of it, why fear of heights can be inherited, why some people are afraid of snakes. There are lots of human behaviors that were never learned, but clearly were inherited somehow.
Daniel Tsosie well no, if you were to watch the whole series, each episode is kinda self contained but interlocked overall. one point in time in their universe the cookies were created and as a result of the cookies, the vr game that this episode, san junipero, and striking vipers had were made. all he needed was the dna because he had a machine that took it and copied the consciences to the game, sort of like the cookies
@@BryceEdwardBrown I feel the same way, especially the literature you seem to be interested in/ familiar with. What are your thoughts on the Simpons' parody of "The Most Dangerous Game"?
I was hesitant to watch this episode at first, concerned that the treatment of a known and beloved genre like this would not be done justice, but it's turned out to be one of my favorites. Even the impractical "duplicate the personality from DNA only" gaffe wasn't really an issue. Thank you for this wonderful analysis. I hadn't consciously recognized the ship (and controls, and camera, and lighting) upgrade from 1960's to 2010's but now that you point it out, it makes it even more awesome that they re-skinned the whole bridge for that scene. I enjoy your analyses very much. Thank you for creating them!
the weird thing is, they nailed the dissonance between the genre and the fans tos Star trek was considered very progressive in it's time, even angering liberals and conservatives, but many fans latch onto the power fantasy parts like Kirk's womanizing and ignore the more radical aspects like black women being treated as equals
i guess black mirror did this "happy ending" episode for us viewers to prepare our minds for some really sad ending on the remaining episodes for this season.
Daly easily could've made his private universe such a better place. He could've told the new crew members that they were "brought out of stasis" and their memories are just strange dreams created by the stasis chamber. That way he could integrate them with them think the space sim was the real world.
This is by far THE best episode of Black Mirror It was the first episode of Black Mirror I watched and I was disappointed when I realized BM only does one episode per story. I would totally watch this show if they made it a standalone series
3 things to take away, 1. Respect people regardless of there personality, 2. Life is the bigger punishment than death, 3. Every bad situations will not remain the same, so just take risks and try to change it for good
One thing that pisses me off, if he could change physicality in the game like when he turned her into the mutant arachnid thing, at the end when he's pursuing the ship why doesnt he just stop it by snapping his fingers?
Firewall deleted his code and everything that was in the world of his own server was deleted as well, it's like when you play a online game and suddenly it crashed and then you lose all your levels and loots and controls. In order to get it back you have to get the code running again, but since he's the only one who owns the game, no one can really get him out.
It seems to be implied or suggested that he has to be in close proximity, and otherwise he is using some form of editor tool ultimately so that might not be function of them.
@@REDDAWNproject that's why i don't get ppl that say its a happy ending AIs murdered a whole human being and now the pizza guy and the real nannette are in trouble
@@petithughie They didn’t murder him, they killed him in self defense to protect themselves and free themselves from him. Physical Nannette is definitely fucked though.
Yea nothing happy about the ending , infact those AI are pretty dangerous if you think about it, they reached out in the real world framed a real person that ended in a murder.
You could also compare this episode to the twilight zones "five characters in search of an exit" where you see the newest member freaking out and doing nothing but trying to escape but the others have been through it and they know how it goes ( I didnt even notice how alike it was to "its a good life") love it
Constiff 2.0 BETA kid wasn't real tho. He would never do that irl. He killed a sim which is just a bunch of code so really it's equivalent to killing a spider or housefly.
latero kuz they’re sentient tho. He obviously doesn’t have any empathy if he’s willing to do that. It’s so realistic any sane person wouldn’t put these sims through that
I absolutely LOVED this episode of Black Mirror. As a female gamer, you encounter men that express, "nice guys never win". You soon realize they aren't truly nice...they're wearing a mask and expect to be rewarded in the form of female attention. You can admire a guys intellect or verve, but it means nothing if he finds you attractive and you don't want to sleep with him. Guys like Daly are everywhere in the gaming community.
Which is why you never trust a "male feminist"...their just bullshiting to get close because a woman wouldn't talk to them otherwise. Pretty much much same for most men who are left leaning...
@@Casper5 yea because they sit around spending all their time playing video games. And then get mad because women don't desire them. Even though they have quite literally made themselves undesirable.
You say this like it's some kind of massive surprise. Yes, men will be nice to women they like to try to get their attention. Introverted guys who are unattractive and have low social skills do this on the internet. No wonder they're bitter and angry when women like you will imply that they're bad people for doing it.
I’m a huge Star Trek fan and I thought this episode was great. Totally saw it as a love letter to both the original series and the new Abrams films while also giving us another twisted tale.
He visually improves himself in the simulation. His skin is clearer and his hair is back. The simulation is a clear display of what Daly wants to look like
This was the first ever episode that I watched and it messed. me. up. after I got done, I just sat in my bed contemplating what I just watched and I was like " do I really wanna get myself into this series?"
This episode describes what it’s like to live with narcissistic abuse in ways I have never seen before. I love the ways it depicts how people can become broken into submission, and the exact reasons why victims can’t leave and how they have in fact tried everything.
I just thought it was fucked up when they were planning the whole thing of escaping and removing the DNA sample source from the fridge because if in the event that Daly didn't get stuck in space, wouldn't he just be able to get them back there if he's able to get like coffee cups or candies from them again?
H No, they most likely would've contacted the cyber police as what he was doing is like not allowed and since it takes like 18 hours to clone them back in again the police would've catched him by then
most interesting thing though, this episode also shows the other episode "white christmas" almost being hypocritical. i mean in white christmas instead of actually punishing the real life person who did the crime, they instead torture the copied AI by making him listen to a christmas song on loop for thousands of years, but talk as though it's just AI. even when the guy forced the copy of the girl to serve as a house program to make toast. again, most of the humans in the episode don't care. only one person from what was spoken of, saying it was "barbaric" so in a way the guy who accidentally committed murder has a heart over those who didn't. strange. however in this episode they focus the entire thing on how even though they're just AI it's wrong and they should be set free without torture.
Man I love this episode. Although i don't think it as a happy ending for the crew in uss callister. After all, they're conscious digital clone who are aware of a real life they had before in physical world, right? Truth is, they are stuck in an infinitely cool game , but not free, can never be. Unless their conscious stream somehow manages to merge with their real bodies lol . This gives me hope about the future of gaming . Suggest me some similar tv show like this
THE 13TH FLOOR (1999) Everyone knows about Matrix but this movie is a hidden gem. The same with Identity (2003): When Mr. Robot came out everyone was mentioning Fight Club and that's it.
THE GIRL IN THE PARK (2007) THE BROKEN (2008) THE IMPOSTER (2012) COLOSSAL (2016) BEFORE I WAKE (2016) THE ROOM (2019) US (2019) THE PRODIGY (2019) There are many ways to manifest a personality/soul/living being in the "real" world. In most cases this is done by taking over someone elses body.
@@MavalocKing5050 why it's a good ending is they're not done with Stuck up players, but *no-one* will ever have the level of power over them that Daley did.
It’s the first black mirror episode I enjoyed and ended up not liking since it’s unrealistic from the moment that Nanette enters the world realistically he would’ve never lost since he is literally god in this universe. But oh well I guess they knew people would eat it up because the good ending
Great explanations as always!! Although, I'm mad at Robert in that story. I mean, he has a chance to lift himself up when the new female employee appreciates him. Even if they never be each other, at least there's a chance to change himself. But, yeah, in really, it is Black Mirror after all, so he's a sad, deprived fanboy. Anyway, that's my view of him. Can't wait for your next vid!! :)
One thing people don’t realise in the episode is that Nannette messed up her real life version as well. Real life daly will die in real life as he can’t exit the game. If any surveillance CCTV footage of his room was found by the police then real life Nanette would be in trouble. If she is not found by the police then she caused herself lifelong trauma of killing a person.
How did she kill him? The camera will show he went into the game and never woke up. That had nothing to do with her. Also the digital crew had made contact with the outside world so Daly's crimes would have come to light.
@devinthesupersmosher nah. He was a psychopath. Remember, he tortured her in his video game. She would have found out about his criminal activity since the crew made contact with the outside world once they left the wormhole. Proof? Tommy's lollipop was in the episode, Black Museum, as evidence of a crime scene.
Incredible episode; that last scene was epic! Includes a close up of a character, looking directly at the camera, that's normally a no-no, but here, it works just fine.
I think USS Callister lacks the moral dilemmas that most of the other Black Mirror episodes have because the real life versions of the people he clones aren't affected by anything he does to their virtual selves. If the real life people were somehow affected by his actions in the virtual world the episode would have hit the way it was intended.
That's the dilemma. Eventually, technology will advance to a point where programs will truely have the ability to observe, think and feel. Some of us will disregard the clones as merely software. While others will see the clones as sentinel beings that shouldn't be tortured. If he was capturing actual people then it wouldn't be a dilemma at all. I'd say it's one of the best episodes. Black mirror always does a great job exploring clones.
@@pizrux6592in the episode they talk about how it’s illegal to abuse cookies at that point in time are in the future season of becoming thing where you can’t do that to cookies anymore
Really nicely done, although I kinda missed the background music. You always have some upbeat background music and here it was barely audible, would love to hear it more in the next one, it adds so much to your abrupt way of talking!
Very amazing episode, great acting and in portraying the incel beta personality. Someone who won't step up in reality, but in his mind having his own twisted fantasies like a teenager. Yes he didn't really deserve it since it's like any x person going into his videogame and killing AIs. At the same time it does a great job in empathizing us with the Ai like if they were real human beings, so I didn't mind routing for them. Still going into the extend of taking DNAs samples and all of that; he really was messed up.
I'm asking this with complete sincerity. What could he have done irl to make his life better or to be better with women. I feel like him a lot of the time.
Fun fact, The young man named, Anthony from the Twilight Zone episode is Will Robinson from Lost in Space. Which was supposed to be the original Star Trek, when Gene Roddenberry went to pitch his idea. The exec’s took his idea, and made Lost in Space.
I don’t get why Daily did not just use his “mind” to teleport to the ship instead trying to use that shuttle. What did I miss there? I mean he can use force shoke and transform people into bugs but has no power over choosing a spawning point?
Eli Society no after they the characters escaped through the wormhole that space fleet mod was basically a bug thats was shut down. think of it as mod you have on GTA or Minecraft but its no lomger available to play through in a latest update.
tyler pham Yeah but I asked before they escaped through the wormhole. He could just imagine to teleport into the ship and kill em all. Instead he went into the shuttle and tried to keep up with em. oO
Didn't notice that it was actually Tracy McConnell/Cristin Milioti from How I Met Your Mother until a few days ago. Now I can't unsee Tracy's personality on Nanette
This was basically one of the best Sci-Fi horror movies I’ve ever seen 😂 Also very much want to cosplay Nanette Great explanation of an awesome episode! Keep it up.
I don't think he was dreadful at all. We're being shown the characters and how they want to get out of there and feeling scared so we sympathize with them. But all they are is just code. The reason we're rooting for them is because they seem and act like actual humans (It's the same discussion over and over, "If a machine can't be told apart from a human, it should be treated like one") But was it also morally wrong for the woman in Be Right Back to push the robot off the cliff? I think all Robert was just doing is coping with his own problems and he always looked really anxious and shy, I'm sure he had more problems than just his boss and coworkers treating him bad.
The reason he's dreadful is cause firstly these characters are projections or avatars of their 'real' selves, so whatever he's doing to them is a reflection of what he'd like to actually do to them irl if there were no restrictions or punishments, so honestly there's a sociopathic streak in him, this is no different from a child torturing animals knowing that the animal couldn't really hold it accountable. Coping with anxiety and social awkwardness by creating a virtual world where he vents out his frustrations, is really not a permanent solution.
@@Gr88992 Sorry it's late. But then again, you could say that to ANY gamer that plays shooter games. would you be able to say that they want to kill people irl if they like to play, for example, GTA as an outlet or to let out their aggression? And it IS different from a child torturing animals. Animals are real, they feel pain. But these are codes that mimic what their real life counterparts would have done, would have felt, etc. It's not real just like a sim in The Sims. I know it's not a permanent solution to his anxiety and social awkwardness, but I don't think he did anything wrong in the end no matter how much the episode makes it out to be. It's simply a game. If that kept him from getting a gun and shooting the real life people, then so be it.
I don't know if anyone else noticed this, but the instrumental part of silent night where the lyrics go "sleep in heavenly peace" plays right over the last shot of Daly immobile in his chair. Might just be a coincidence though.
The fact the her face disappeared brought me back to one of my greatest fears of my childhood. I was a huge star trek nerd and the episode with the teen kid TERRIFIED me, especially the face removed thing. The ending of the episode confused me too. It was a nice drop of fear and nostalgia.
While Star Trek TOS definitely has a lot of outdated aspects, the episode that you compared this one to, Charlie X, also has title character Charlie whining over how he's in love with one of the female crewmembers who don't reciprocate his feelings, and Kirk straight out telling him that love isn't a one-way street, that there will be a million things in the universe he wants that he can't have, and because that crewmember said no, that makes her one of them.
If he wants to bully them because of what they think of him in the real world, why not just make their avatars instead of putting all of thr memories and personalities? What he did became more sadistic.
when i first watched this episode i thought robert daly was played by matt damon. & im glad there was a good ending in this episode unlike most black mirror episodes..
I adore this episode so much on first time watching it. It was my fav ep for a long time. But after a couple rewatches it made me wonder, is the ending fair though? Yeah what he did is undeniably cruel and no way he has any right to do that but he did all that because he was, in a way, bullied by his co-workers. I mean yeah he basically bullied them too but in a more gruesome way but he could’ve done worse to their clones, by giving them their private parts and using them as sex slaves or sum but no, he took them out. Idk its almost as if they’re trying to say that its ok to “bully”. Regardless though i still love and appreciate the creativity and brilliance of this ep.
I know I'm late but That ending is earned daly knew that the virtual versions of them were real He chose to enslave them, torture them for however he wanted And they don't know he's stuck Dayle is alive and stuck in a game It might be cruel but it's his fault, I feel no remourse
no one deserves to be bullied. but daly was a sick individual. yes, the bullying pushed him to do it but he was already capable before otherwise he wouldn't. he mentally, emotionally, and physically tortured people. doesn't matter if they were virtual clones. but yeah, this was the first black mirror ep i watched and its one of my favorites :)
They didn't even bully him...🙄 The intern got sent there for forgetting his sandwich.. The receptionis got sent there for not being smiley. The new girl got sent there for not having a crush on him, etc. You gotta have some huge sense of entitlement and a warped view of morality to think it's excusable to torture people for these things. Especially when he brought in a CHILD to throw him in space.
@daydreams6956 "Daly is a sick individual... the bullying pushed him" WHICH CAME FIRST?!?! Girl is eager to meet him, even offering to get him coffee.. But one convo with a random and she treats him distanced, like he's killed someone!!
me after every episode , ive been unintentionally spacing a few months in between seasons because this show is not a passive watch type of death at allllll
thanks for doing this! i know it’s a straight forward episode but i like watching you break down all the references and parallels in the episode, it’s just cool to see the inspiration behind the episodes.thank you, have a nice day :)
Who needed the ending explained? It was pretty obvious. Jessie chased off the other meth dealers and established his own territory to sell off Mr. White's product. Pretty simple to understand.
