9.4 points fell to 7.4 points, the divine drama "Black Mirror" yellow?

Time Contributor | County Howe

Older youth in a cinema.

In 2011, a story of "The Prime Minister and the Pig" refreshed everyone's perception.

In order to save the princess from the kidnappers, the prime minister had to have sex with the pig at the request of the kidnappers, and broadcast the process live to the national audience.

Crazy imagination and extreme absurdity made this 9.4-point drama called "Black Mirror" quickly become popular, and the renewal followed.

As of 2019, Black Mirror has five seasons and two Christmas specials.

Now, after 4 years, the show is back again.

The sixth season of "Black Mirror"

This season recently launched its full episode on Netflix, and judging from the word of mouth feedback from the audience, although it is not as good as the first to fourth seasons, it is far better than the fifth season, which almost smashed the signboard.

The domestic score is 7.4, the IMDb episodes are averaged 7.1, the freshness of Rotten Tomatoes is 77%, and the MTC score is 67.

British magazine Radio Times praised the show as still thought-provoking, chilling and a rewarding adventure.

The American "Decider" magazine believes that although the quality of the episodes of this show is different, they are all interesting, and the first episode "Joan Sucks" is a good start.

Although the sixth season is not as stunning as the original surprise of this IP, it is still at the upper middle level in terms of creativity and narrative, and it is worth talking about.

(The following contains some spoilers)

Alienated humans

The sixth season consists of 5 episodes, still a complete story for each episode, followed by "Joan Sucks", "Henry Lake", "The Other Side of the Sea", "Messie Day" and "Demon 79".

The corresponding genres are science fiction, crime, science fiction, fantasy, fantasy, and all contain thriller elements.

Many people's impression of "Black Mirror" is "black technology", such as the memory chip in the first season, the android in the second season, and the scoring system in the third season.

The android in season two

In Black Mirror, the purpose of "black technology" is to blur the boundaries, including morality and technology, personal privacy and public information, and between humans and humanoids.

The blurring of boundaries leads to the destruction of the contours of both the human body and spirit, gradually being alienated into a mixture of real and virtual. This is made clear in "Joan Sucks" and "The Other Side of the Sea".

In "Joan Sucks", Joan is a middle management of the company, and after she fired her subordinates and met her ex-boyfriend, she saw a drama called "Joan Sucks".

Actress Salma Hayek (Masterpiece "Frida") plays Joan, who is "live-streaming" Joan's instant life to a global audience.

The screenwriter also added oil and vinegar. For example, Joan originally had a gentle attitude when she fired her subordinates, but Joan in the play directly said ruthlessly: If you are not fired at this time, when will you be treated?

This instantly discredited Joan, lost her love and lost her job.

In "The Other Side of the Sea", Cliff and David are two space-based astronauts who clone their physical bodies on Earth, and through memory links, they can return consciousness to androids to get along with their families.

Extremists opposed to bionic technology wiped out David's family, and in order to get the real David out of his pain, Cliff decided to "lend" his link and family to him.

However, in the process, David develops lust and affection for Cliff's wife.

Both stories link between humans and virtual worlds, allowing humans to be swallowed up by virtual worlds, and the identity and definition of "human" no longer exists.

The drama that Joan sees is created and released completely automatically after the AI grabs Joan's life information in real time, and even the actor Hayek is a virtual image generated by Hayek himself with his permission.

What's even more terrifying is that the world Joan is in is also a completely virtual universe, without any entities.

So, where is the real Joan?

And when the real Cliff and the real David share the same body on earth, how can Cliff's wife rationally distinguish the boundaries?

Whether it is Joan, Cliff, or David, the attributes of human beings as independent individuals have disappeared, and the change and development of science and technology is likely to further erase the face of people or stimulate conflicts between people.

This is the black warning brought by "Black Mirror" with black technology.

Amplified humanity

Human nature is another theme of Black Mirror.

Such as "White Bear" in the second season.

The heroine watches as her boyfriend kills a little girl and filmed the process.

After her boyfriend committed suicide, the heroine was locked up in the park, and every day someone played the role of a hunter to hunt her down, while tourists watched the filming. This process will continue to be zeroed out and repeated.

This kind of public trial, seemingly punishing the heroine, actually amplifies the gray, indifferent, and vicious parts of the human nature of the public group, leaving justice and evil only a line apart.

"White Bear"

This season's "Lake Henry" also uses video shooting to convey complex human nature.

Davis and his girlfriend Pia return to their hometown of Henry Lake and accidentally learn the story of murderous maniac Ian, and the two decide to make the story into a documentary to enter the BAFTA Awards.

Davis's police father also died indirectly because of Ian, so the two wanted to get first-hand information from their mother, but they didn't expect their mother to agree.

However, the shooting was obstructed by the local bar owner, who seemed to know more about the inside story.

In the end, Davis learned that her mother was behind the incident, and she also recorded the entire process of torturing tourists and archived the video number.

The matter was revealed, the mother committed suicide, and before she died, she left Davis a large number of videos and a note that read:

Give you a film with Mom

On the one hand, there is a murderous maniac, on the other hand, there is a strong maternal love, and the symbiotic coexistence of two extreme human natures makes Davis' mother the fullest character portrayed in this season's "Black Mirror".

Just as audiences don't know whether to hate or sympathize with the White Bear heroine, Davis' mother has this emotionally swinging complexity (of course, murderous demons must be duly punished).

And when Davis won the Best Documentary Award for this film, the happy sound and light at the award scene, the scenery of Lake Henry when it became a tourist attraction again, and the carnival when tourists put on the same mask of the devil, how is it not a more profound expression of human nature?

The fourth episode, "Messie Day", also magnifies human nature to the point that it is impossible to see directly.

After actress Mezzie Dai hit "people" in a car accident, she has been mentally abnormal and disappeared from public view.

A group of professional sneakers investigated everywhere in order to get a reward of 30,000 US dollars, and finally found the hiding place of Mezzie Day.

The horror is that Mezzie Day is actually chained in a state of delirium!

Despite her pain, the camera picks up the camera and frantically photographs her curled up body without a single gap.

The flash of the camera makes the dark room dazzling, and this whiteness seems to be the most piercing core exposed by the evil of human nature after it has been peeled off.

The unexpected ending of the third episode "The Other Side of the Sea" is also one of the cross-sections of human nature, that is, how bloody people can be in pursuit of equality in emotion and pain.

Overdrawn IP

After the word-of-mouth fiasco of the fifth season, Netflix made a lot of efforts on the script of this season (the first two seasons of "Black Mirror" were produced by Channel 4 in the UK, and from the third season onwards it was produced by Netflix).

The first is the courage to blacken yourself.

In "Joan Sucks" and "Henry L.", the "streamberry" Streamberry is mentioned.

The logo of the streamberry is exposed in the same way as Netflix, that is, the initial S or N is enlarged and broken into vertical color bars to cover the screen, proving that the streamberry is the embodiment of Netflix.

In "Joan Sucks", Streamberry uses user privacy, AI to generate episodes, and signs "fraud" terms with actors; In "Henry Lake", the murderer documentary is produced by Flowing Berry, which has the taste of creating cannibal blood steamed buns through art.

These can be seen as Netflix's "reflections" on touching moral and creative forbidden areas in the process of its own development.

Image of Cate Blanchett in the Streamberry Body

The second is cultural tribute.

The fifth story "Demon 79", whether it is color grading, soundtrack, photography, or the heroine's imaginary killing, is modeled on the style of classic horror films such as "Ghost Street" and "Scream" in the last century.

The setting of the police and townspeople teaming up to do evil in "Lake Henry" may be a tribute to the best horror film "Lake Eden" in Empire magazine in 2009.

The heroine Pia excused herself to go to the bathroom after knowing the truth, which is even more reminiscent of the despair and suffocation of the heroine Jenny hiding in the bathroom at the end of "Lake Eden" but just stepping on a dead end.

Lake Henry & Lake Eden

Among the 5 stories of this season, science fiction, mystery novels such as "The Pattern Man" (by Ray Bradbury in the United States), "Smiley's Centaur" (by John Lecarré in the United Kingdom), "Rasputin" (sung by the former West German black group Boney M) are constantly mentioned, as well as retro hits, which can be regarded as a good book/song list for the audience.

The above efforts, coupled with the series' consistent excavation of technology, human nature and other elements, at first glance, make this season of "Black Mirror" have the possibility of turning over.

But in fact, Netflix still failed to save the decline of this IP.

For example, the story "Demon 79".

Nida, an Indian-born department store, accidentally picks up a wooden talisman and summons the demon Garp, who persuades Nida to complete three killings in three days at the frequency of one person a day, otherwise the world will fall into a fire of doom.

At 74 minutes, the plot of "Devil 79" is also solid, and then there is nothing exciting about the story.

The setting of the ending seems bold, but in fact, Hollywood has written similar endings many times on the grounds of flipping the audience's consciousness.

One of the writers this season is Charlie Brooke, the veteran author of the "Black Mirror" series, who won the Emmy Award for Best Screenplay in his fourth season. But obviously, now he is also consumed by this IP a little bit of donkey skills.

I only hope that if there is another season, I would rather have fewer episodes, and the screenwriters will also work harder on seeking newness, change, and depth, so that "Black Mirror" can regain the surprise of 12 years ago.