Black Mirror Review

I had high expectations watching Black Mirror (C4) last night. The previous programmes (mini-series? Micro-series? Vignettes?) were all excellent, original and very thought provoking. The theme of near future technology is highly believable and plays an essential part of the programmes but never becoming the focus is eminently laudable. Too many programmes have shiny toys that they over explain and wave in front of the viewer’s faces whereas in Black Mirror they are background enablers of the plot and don’t impinge upon the emotional urgency of the story. I was not disappointed – it was very good and one of Charlie Brooker’s better stories.

The story itself was excellent if a little over-wrought (a modern day Monkey’s Paw) and it is easy to see that if technology was the enabler, then the story would still work if it used bygone or parallel ‘magic’ like the summoning of golems or the friendly undead. The very real loss felt by someone who has had someone close to them pass away was dealt with very well. Having lost someone close to me recently I really could empathise with the main character’s plight. It also raised the spectre (sorry) of what happens to your online life which is increasingly encroaching upon the real. What will become of your facebook page, twitter account, or (gasp!) blog? Will they be eventually purged and deleted or live on by themselves forever as ghostly reminders of the dead? Unless passwords are shared by the person before they die then that might well be their fate.

Maybe this blog will be preserved and pored over by historians seeking to enlighten themselves trying to understand our primitive lives. Hehe. Yeah, right. Yo Future Historians? Things are just XOPOWO, you feel me?