The originator of the divine drama has long slipped off the altar
Twelve years ago, a short, dark and cold British drama was born, and the plot of "The Prime Minister and the Pig" shattered the three views of people all over the world, and thus established its status as a divine drama.
In the following years, it experienced a change of copyright ownership, from a British drama to an American drama, and its reputation also suffered a cliff-like decline.
For fans of dramas for many years, the last season of "Black Mirror" was already a bit tasteless and a pity to abandon, and every time it is updated, I can't help but hope that it can return to a city and return to the top.
After all, this is Black Mirror.
Four years later, we are waiting for the sixth season of "Black Mirror", as for the quality, let's quickly talk about it.
This season is not like the previous attempt at the "three-episode" model, and five episodes were directly produced willfully.
The first story is called "Joan is terrible", which is arguably the most "Black Mirror" episode in the entire season.
The heroine, Joan, is a company executive who is lackluster in life and work.
Every morning, she praises her boring boyfriend and the tasteless food in front of her.
After arriving at work, she handled various work tasks mechanically.
On this day, according to the instructions of her superiors, she wanted to fire a subordinate who had a good relationship with her.
Just when Joan was troubled, her ex-boyfriend, who had not been in touch for a long time, sent a text message, hoping to see Joan and make up for his past mistakes of saying goodbye.
Although Joan is full of resentment towards her ex-boyfriend, when she thinks of her current boyfriend's boredom and the unhappiness of work, Joan still replies to the text message and goes to the appointment.
Immersed in the memories of the past, the two couldn't help but kiss, and there was a tendency to rekindle old feelings.
But fortunately, Joan woke up in time and left the hotel to rush home.
Just when she was glad that she braked in time and didn't make a big mistake, the subscribed "Streamberry Body" (that is, the streaming platform set in the play, which is translated as "Streamberry Body" because of its name "Strawberry Table") suddenly launched a new drama called "Joan is terrible".
The heroine in the play not only has the same name as Joan, but also has a very similar hairstyle and clothing.
At the instigation of her boyfriend, Joan opened the show.
However, as the plot deepens, her boyfriend's expression gradually evolves from curiosity and gossip to shock and anger.
It turns out that all the details of Joan's life today were taken on the screen by the flowing berry!
This is because the smart device that Joan carries with her continuously collects her personal privacy, and after being generated by AI, the series can be produced in a day and quickly launched on the video platform.
The boyfriend saw the plot where he was almost greened and ran away on the spot, and Joan was also fired for leaking company secrets.
Overnight, Joan became destitute.
Desperate, she found a law firm and planned to sue the platform for violating her privacy.
Unfortunately, the lawyer told her that in the user agreement that popped up from the app, her casual "consent" had granted the other party the right to use her privacy.
Unsuccessfully defending her rights everywhere, Joan decides to go to the headquarters of the Flowing Berry Body and violently smash the quantum computer used to generate the script.
However, the ending ushered in a reversal -
"Joan", who holds an axe, is actually just a virtual character run by a quantum computer.
Once the quantum computer is destroyed, the world and people at this level will cease to exist, including Joan herself.
The reason why the first episode has the temperament of "Black Mirror" is because it captures the metaphor of reality in which human beings are controlled by the media and cannot escape.
The streamberry body in the play holds the right to speak, and also holds the power to rewrite and interpret other people's lives at will.
Just like when Joan faced the instructions of her superiors to reduce personnel, even if she was disgusted and reluctant in her heart, she still had to do it.
When she learned that her dismissed subordinate had just bought a house and was under tremendous pressure to repay the loan every month, Joan was even more unbearable.
She felt that she was like a microphone, whether it was work or life, she was caught in a sense of powerlessness that she could not control and had no freedom.
This feeling of "I am not the protagonist in my own life story" itself can resonate with the audience in modern society out of the sci-fi setting in the play.
In the subsequent plot, in order to pursue the playback effect and maximize the audience's emotions, the streamberry body rewrote Joan's real experience.
In that AI-generated episode, Joan is portrayed as cold-blooded, ruthless, arrogant and rude, and her relationship with her ex-boyfriend is also changed to the fullest.
This is also the reason why my boyfriend immediately ran away after watching it.
Not only her boyfriend, when her private life was added to the vinegar and turned into an entertainment project in front of the public to receive the gaze, she encountered unprecedented online violence.
What is even more desperate is that there are thousands of "Joan" who are about to be put on the screen.
Under the guidance of big data and algorithm testing, the streamberry body found that compared with ordinary life stories, the audience prefers to watch the dark side of other people's lives, which is the instinct of voyeurism, and it is also the pleasure of wantonly criticizing others and venting personal emotions.
People see AI and streaming berries as tools, but for them, a living person is just cold data.
Everyone who watches "Joan is Bad" and participates in this online violence carnival will also become the next "Joan" under the alienation and control of the media.
At the end of the episode, Joan risks losing her existence and smashes the quantum computer.
Many people criticize this treatment, thinking that it has lost the "depressing" style of the original "Black Mirror" and has become an American inspirational "healing department".
In my opinion, this is Joan's greatest rebellion against the media that holds the power to speak, and to the uncritical one-way society.
She would rather disappear than destroy the computer, proving that the return of goodness and reason in human nature, and the rebirth of ethical order in society, are certainly inspiring;
But isn't it also a great sorrow that this return to goodness and reason requires the sacrifice of the awakened to himself?
Coincidentally, the second story, Lake Henry, also focuses on streaming.
It is about the male protagonist returning to his hometown to make a nature documentary, and the shooting theme was temporarily changed to the local "perverted murderer" case.
Just when everyone was engaged in excavating this crime because of curiosity, the truth came unexpectedly.
It turned out that the culprit of this crime was the parents of the male protagonist.
After the incident was revealed, the male protagonist's mother committed suicide, leaving her son a series of murder videos, hoping to help her son finish the movie.
The male protagonist collapsed in pain because of this, but this documentary documenting his painful process became a big hit on streaming media, and the male protagonist as a director also won heavyweight awards.
Putting the stories of the first two episodes together, it is not difficult to see that Netflix, as a streaming media, is actually using the series to blacken and self-criticize.
The "streamberry body" platform in "Joan is Bad" points to Netflix, which relies on algorithms and big data to guide the script; In "Henry Lake", it uses the documentary producer "Flowing Berry" to criticize its own further harm to the parties caused by the dissemination of exploitative images.
Although the first two episodes are remarkable, when expanded to the entire sixth season, this is more like the "return to light" of the "Black Mirror" series.
"When you turn off the electronic devices in your hand, the fading screen is like a black mirror, and only you can see yourself."
Twelve years ago, the reason for the canonization of "Black Mirror" was hidden in this sentence.
At the beginning of the development of technology and media, it did not tend to be evil. But when it collides with human nature, it amplifies human desires and promotes the evil side, so that it becomes a tool of control for minorities in power, and makes society more and more totalitarian.
"Black Mirror" uses developed technology and media to reflect the weaknesses of human nature, and it can be said that in the world of "Black Mirror", the fantasy of technology and the dilemma of reality are indispensable.
But by the sixth season, "Black Mirror" seems to have forgotten the technological illusion it used to portray and indulged in the disclosure of human nature.
But this season's excavation of human nature is not so spicy and profound.
For example, the third episode "Blue Sea" tells the story of two astronauts who perform missions in space, and through their consciousness uploaded to replicants far away on Earth, they achieve the purpose of reuniting with their families.
When one of the wives separates, the deep jealousy and lust of human nature are quickly aroused.
Such a story does not have to be a sci-fi setting, it is applicable in any context, and the discussion of jealousy in the play uses the plot of "love but not kill", which is too perfunctory.
The fourth episode of "Mechidai" is about a star girl who turns into a bloodthirsty werewolf under the tracking of paparazzi, and many netizens have questioned, is this definitely not "Twilight"?
The fifth episode "Devil 79" has nothing to do with technology, and the motivation for portraying characters is slightly thin.
In short, the sixth season of "Black Mirror" is no longer cold, no longer profound, and no longer as imaginative as it was at the beginning.
Perhaps this is the fate of "Black Mirror" in the streaming era, when the copyright is handed over to Netflix, it has lost its most acute attitude when it is wrapped up in traffic, algorithms and big data.