4 years after the release of season 5, Black Mirror finally return with a sixth season. As cat gpt enters more and more into our daily lives and Apple has just unveiled its first VR headset, the technology continues to progress at lightning speed. A blessing for some, a disaster for others but also an infinite source of inspiration for Charlie Brooker, the creator of Black Mirror.
The episodes of the series being all independent of each other, it is easier to criticize each other. Here is an objective ranking (spoiler free) from the least good to the best episode of this sixth series.
5- Demon 79
England, 1979. A young Indian saleswoman with modest incomes meets a demon who teaches her that she must commit 3 homicides to prevent the end of the world.
Although the story is pretty much correct, this is not an ordinary Black Mirror episode. He shouldn’t even be in season 6 of Black Mirror. Everything that made the dystopian charm of Black Mirror: technology, future, robots, mass media... Nothing is there. The socio-political context is very interesting, in this case the racist England of the 70s. However, a simple context is not enough to make a good episode/film. Despite a screenplay worthy of a YouTube amateur medium-length film, the chemistry between Paapa Esiedu ("Gaab") and Anjana Vasan ("Nida") makes us forget the story and ties us to their characters, although they are a budding demon and murderer.
4- Mayzey Day
A brand new celebrity faces the consequences of a serious accident while paparazzi are willing to do anything to get pictures of her.
Photography is often the main subject of many realizations, the paparazzi, they are little evoked. The subject, original, is then very interesting. We are directly immersed in the toxic universe of paparazzi while a celebrity commits suicide after the publication of compromising photos taken by Bo (interpreted by Zazie Beetz). Despite a very good start, the episode then went in all directions. The final revelation was disappointing, almost laughable. Although not wanted, the reference to Twilight with the song "Supremassive Black Hole" by Muse is quite visible. Which makes the episode even less credible.
3- Beyond the sea
In an alternative world of the late 1960s, two men sent on a space mission transfer into "replicas" of themselves on Earth. But everything changes when a tragedy occurs in the family of one of the two men.
The 1960s aesthetic is very successful, the viewer quickly and perfectly plunges into this new world of Black Mirror. The 1h20 episode passed very quickly and there was no downtime. However, on the screenplay side, everything was quite predictable, too easy. However, the end was surprising. But not necessarily in the good sense of the word. It seemed out of step with the characters that the two main actors had developed so well. The writer seemed to have run out of ideas before the end of the episode, which would explain why it was so sloppy. If the ending had taken a different turn, it would have made more sense and the episode would have been more enjoyable and memorable. Finally, it is still much better than Demon 79 and Mazey Day.
2- Loch Henry
A young couple of filmmakers go to a village in Scotland to make a documentary. But a local news story from years before draws their attention.
As the "true crime" explodes, Loch Henry is a direct critic of this phenomenon. True crime is an initially literary genre that aims to portray the reality of crimes and criminals that have actually existed. Today, this genre is found in cinema but also on television and in the form of podcasts.
If the primary purpose of true crime is to pay tribute to the victims of a crime, its reception is not as laudable. This is where the main conflict of Loch Henry resides, can we pay tribute by creating entertainment? It is finally in this episode that the spectator finds everything that made the charm of the series, especially with a particularly gloomy and unhealthy atmosphere. Black Mirror also attacks Netflix, openly criticizing the platform via an alternative version of it called "Streamberry". The satire is very successful and echoes all the controversy that followed the release of the series Dahmer, recounting the crimes of Jeffrey Dahmer in a fictionalized way.
1- Joan is awful
An ordinary woman discovers that a streaming platform has adapted and widely broadcast a series largely inspired by her life, without her consent.
With an even more violent criticism of Netflix, Joan is awful presents a universal nightmare: what if all our most intimate secrets were revealed to the general public?
The story is well crafted, the script perfectly written. As with Loch Henry, though in a different way, satire, the dystopian alternative universe (far too much like ours) and the classic Black Mirror turnaround are back. Joan is awful warns of the excessive exposure of our privacy via the media, whether consenting or not. This episode also denounces streaming platforms that are gradually killing our vision of cinema and entertainment. As Salma Hayek puts it so well in the episode: "They took 100 years of cinema and reduced it to an application".
Finally, this sixth season of Black Mirror offers two perfectly directed episodes, two more that should never have been released and one last, passable. Despite the mediocrity of half of the new episodes, Joan is awful and Loch Henry allow the viewer to keep a pretty good overall memory of this new season, long awaited. It once again fuels fears about the future of technology and reminds us of all the cookies, terms and conditions that we accept without having read.
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[source: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_crime ]
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