Don't Encourage Us

Black Mirror Season 6 (2023)

Episode Summary

Our hosts are back and ready to risk their sanity to dissect the sixth season of the Netflix sensation, Black Mirror, and its unsettling visions of the past, present, and future. Is this season a winner? Step through the scary door and find out...

Episode Notes

Our hosts are back and ready to risk their sanity to dissect the sixth season of the Netflix sensation, Black Mirror, and its unsettling visions of the past, present, and future. Is this season a winner? Step through the scary door and find out... 

Reach the pod at DontEncourage@gmail.com
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Episode Transcription

 

speaker 1: So that was a little bit odd. They clearly did not do any good psychological testing on these two before they sent them up there. That's for sure. 

speaker 2: That's, that's probably the best point that's been made so far. They just, 

speaker 1: they're like, are you good at, uh, running on a treadmill? Can you put on a spacesuit?

You're off. 

speaker 2: Let's see. We've got several candidates. Uh, one of them is an isolationist who has extreme religious beliefs and the other one smiles and is happy all the time. But underneath that, welcome to don't encourage us the show where we talk about the big ideas behind fiction projects of all different kinds, books, movies, TV shows, video games, nothing's off limits.

I'm your host vegetable. And I'm here with my co host carrots. How are you doing today? No, I'm doing great vegetable today. We're discussing season six of black mirror, the BBC turned Netflix original series about how terrible humans are. But first, so you learn anything interesting this week, got anything on your list?

Nothing really on the 

speaker 1: list since I was going through these black mirror. Episodes slowly, 

speaker 2: but surely it's a lot. I just wanted to mention a couple of things. So, uh, I read the short story that, uh, it's called wool by Hugh Howie. And it's the short story that starts off the series that silo the new apple TV show is based on.

Have you seen this? Have you heard about it? What is that? So Apple's got a new show. It's about a bunch of humans who live in a silo. The outside world is barren and you know, it's just Brown and everything's dead and they're surviving in the silo, but they don't really know why they're there. They don't know how long they've been there.

They have some very specific rules that govern their society. Anyway, I was curious. So I went back and read the book. I got the first book and the first book started with a story that. Really seemed to end and I was really curious, but it's like you read like, you know, 50 pages and it's kind of done and I was really curious.

So I did some research and it turns out that there was originally just a short story, but it was so well received that the author came back and turned it into a whole series of books. So I started the apple series silo and the first episode is like 96 percent of the short story. And I guess episode two, which I didn't watch is like probably wraps up the short story and then launches in with like new characters and new stories within the silo.

So it was really interesting way to see how they adapted a short story, both into a novel series and then how Apple adapted that into a TV show. But apparently it's doing very well. 

speaker 1: Yeah. So he kind of, he worked backwards, basically starting off with a, the short story, just kind of expanding out from that smaller 

speaker 2: work.

Yeah, you could say it that way. How, how short is the original book? So the original short story took me maybe half an hour to read, maybe 20 minutes. Probably wasn't that long. And I think I started it and then I was sort of falling asleep. So I picked it up the next day. So it's not, it's not particularly long.

It It's just one of those. It reads very much like one of those stories where the author felt inspired. They created a world. They really didn't need to fill in all the details in the background because it's just a short story. So it stays tight on really one character, sometimes two. And then that's kind of it, right?

Then it wraps itself up. And then the greater mysteries are not really that important, but then. He won a ton of awards. It got a lot of attention and it seems like he came back and said, well, how could I fill in some of those other answers? So I think if you're a writer or if you love storytelling, it's an interesting thing to go check out the first novel.

Just read to the point where it's very obviously the end of a short story and then ask yourself, like, what would you do or how would you develop this further if you had success suddenly? So it's interesting. And then to see what Apple did with that. Uh, and it was good. I mean, you know, they had great actors.

I don't want to spoil this because there's some twists and turns and things like that. But, um, it was just an interesting phenomenon and it seems to be 

speaker 1: a short story. Into movie concept is something that I'm, I'm used to, but the short story into full blown series. Right. It's not, I don't think it's as common.

speaker 2: Yeah. Short story into novel series into TV series is not something I've seen either. So just wanted to mention it. Uh, I also had a chance to read all you need is kill. Are you familiar with that? No. It's a Japanese, uh, they call it light. Novel or light fiction. It's basically or teen fiction, but it was adapted into a film starring Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt.

speaker 1: That repeating scenario. What is that movie called? Edge of 

speaker 2: Tomorrow. Edge of tomorrow. Very good. Your memory scores again. So yeah, interesting. It's gone through a few names. It was, I think they finally settled on edge of tomorrow. It was going to be live, die, repeat for a while because it's kind of a video game concept for that.

It was of course, groundhog day to ground harder. So once they changed the name a few times, they, they settled on edge of tomorrow and I read the novel. It was, it was good. It's pretty light. It's um, I don't, I don't know. Like I don't. It's not the best thing I've ever read, but it is interesting to see the differences between how they handled the aliens and the time travel in the novel versus the movie.

So if you enjoyed that movie and you're upset, there's not a sequel. It's, it's an easy read. So it might be interesting to you. I 

speaker 1: thought that movie was pretty decent. I don't know how well it did in the box office though. Like I thought they had changed the name of it so that it would kind of resonate with audiences a little bit more.

speaker 2: Yeah. So I tried to research that, or at least I recall from back then it was released under one title and then when it was released on DVD, they changed the title, but I couldn't find anything really confirming that. So it seems like there, there were some maybe sub. heading changes or subtitle changes, or it was the packaging of the DVD that tried to shift the name or the emphasis of the name.

So I'm not really sure, but it didn't land. It wasn't a flop by any means, but it didn't really connect with audiences the way they'd hoped and promoted. I think it was a big summer release. They thought it was going to be a huge Tom Cruise, you know, Top Gun Maverick style success. And it just quite didn't grab that audience the way they would.

If you're interested in Top Gun 

speaker 1: Maverick, you should listen to our. Episode on Top Gun Maverick. Just got to put that 

speaker 2: out there. Mr. Marketing on all streaming platforms. Well, good. So yeah, I just wanted to hit on a couple of those things. So today we're talking about black mirror. The title of course is an oxymoron mirrors need to reflect things in black by definition absorbs light.

So very clever there. No fat on that title. The show is created by Charlie Brooker. He gets most of the writing credit there. There are a couple other writers in there, but I think he's the. The executive producer, the writer, the, you know, he's the, the creative thrust behind this. So I did a little reading and he did an interview with Den of Geek.

Where he said that fans can think of every episode in this season as essentially a separate show on Streamberry That Netflix stand in from the first episode. So I thought that was kind of interesting I also looked at the Metacritic ratings. I prefer Metacritic. I'm not a huge Rotten Tomatoes guy Metacritic rates season 5 the lowest 66 season one, the highest 89, any guests where season six falls somewhere in the middle.

So like what? 70 something. Is that what? 73, 74, 73. Okay. 68 68 presently. So it is two points ahead of season five. So a little bit of a downward trend for the last couple of seasons. So, uh, I, I imagine I could figure this out for myself, but what made you pick black mirror season six for us to talk about today?

We love talking 

speaker 1: about this type of dystopian future, um, these topics around AI and really, I find that this series is just. So unique in so many ways, and I know this was such an anticipated season of the show, and it had been, what, four years, right, since the previous season? And I thought we'd have a lot of, a lot to talk about with this one, even though I thought it felt a little flat, and we can talk about that too.

speaker 2: Yeah, we should definitely, uh, just to continue to set the stage for that though. I briefly mentioned that my best, most succinct statement for the premise for this series is, uh, or was technology is a black mirror that reflects the darkest sides of humanity or everyone is terrible. And I feel like, uh, originally it was more of the first and now we've kind of drifted into that's the point of every episode is that we're all just terrible all the time.

All of us. Sounds about right. So, you know, yeah, there wasn't as much baby killing that we're going to talk about in this episode, but, uh, yet another upbeat, bright, sunny episode of Don't Encourage Us. 

speaker 1: We're here for you audience. 

speaker 2: That's right. So, uh, episode one, there's six episodes this season. Episode one is titled Joan is awful.

I did a little research into the, the cast and crew. It was directed by Ali Panku, Panku, P A N K I W, if you can guess how to pronounce that, Panku, Panku. Thank you. Thank you very much. Uh, she did, uh, episodes of Schitt's Creek, uh, which is why we get the star Annie Murphy. She's from Schitt's Creek as well.

Uh, we get Salma Hayek in there, I guess as herself, basically. That's one of roles she's playing. And Michael Cera has a bit part in this one as well. That was a little bit of a surprise. Uh, any thoughts about the directors or stars? I haven't really watched 

speaker 1: Schitt's Creek. So I don't really know what the tone of the show is, but I imagine that's why this, this particular episode wasn't, didn't start off as, as dark as other episodes.

Yeah. 

speaker 2: Yeah. It's a lighter show. Very satirically light kind of fun. You know, it's one of those like neurotic urbanites. And they're surrounded by the, uh, the dumb messed up locals who were, you know, not as capable as they are, but then, Oh no, it turns out some of them are actually pretty solid people. And in seeing that we see flaws in the main characters who think they're so great and so on.

So anyway, premise for this episode, Joan is awful as I would put it is a quote unquote regular person finds out they're in an ongoing. Netflix show fictionalizing their life as they live it. Any thoughts about that? 

speaker 1: Good take on this episode. They're, uh, the stream 

speaker 2: Barry episode. Okay. So yeah, the, the fictional, the Netflix stand in is called stream Barry.

It's got all the same graphics, so it's very obviously Netflix. And this woman is working at a tech company, I think, and she has a bad day and a bad experience and fires an employee, uh, not really by her choice. And then she goes home and. There's a new show on Streamberry and oh, it's, you know, her name, her day, her life, and future episodes are all basically come out a few hours after she lived it.

And it turns out, shocking twist at the end, she's not actually living her life. She is, there's this sort of like layer upon layer where it all goes down to a different woman named Joan, who's even more of a regular person and not a celebrity. And each layer of this, uh, Streamberry show has a, I guess a more famous actress.

Yeah. Is that the right way to say that? Selma Hayek's pretty famous, but. It's like a more awarded actress, I guess would be the way to put that. Yeah. So it's all happening within a computer that's generating different versions and using celebrity images and blah, blah, blah. And at the end, the whole thing crashes, they shut it down and our main character gets her life back.

I don't know if you had any thoughts about this one, but the first thought I had is without the celebrities. Would this episode be anything? Yeah, 

speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, with this episode, I was so aware that they were celebrities that it really drove my interest in the fact that I was watching Black Mirror, the first episode.

I thought there's got to be something here, but yeah, that's a, that's 

speaker 2: a good point. So when you got to the end, did you feel rewarded for your time? Not really. Do you feel like there was a good payoff? 

speaker 1: I didn't feel like there was a real big payoff in this one, in this idea that they destroy the computer and she's back to kind of a, I would still say a kind of ho hum existence.

It didn't feel like there was a really strong character arc. It's just her trying to figure out, Oh, what's going on here. And then at the end, Oh, she figures it out, but then now she's happy because she opened a coffee shop or the original, she opened a coffee shop. It's 

speaker 2: kind of right, which is weird. It was very odd from a narrative perspective because the characters that we follow, Annie Murphy plays Joan in, in the story level.

As I said, there's different levels and most of them take place in a computer. So they're all not real essentially, or they're all. They're not actually people. They're just AI generated characters. The level we're following is not the real world. So Annie Murphy is playing Joan, but then at the close to the end of the episode, that version of Joan, there's a Joan on every level, that version of Joan destroys the computer system from the inside, I guess is the right way to put that and ceases to exist.

But the actress, Annie Murphy, then for the remainder of the last, Three, four minutes of the episode plays herself, uh, who, and she was on a different journey that we didn't see. And the Joan, who's the real Joan, the original Joan is also somebody we really didn't see. Um, so they get a version of a happy ending where their friends and the actress, Annie Murphy is learned to be more grounded, I guess, or, or.

I don't know if she got her identity back or her image back, but we we've not seen her up to this point in the story. And the Joan that she's friends with is also somebody we have not seen up to this point. So their happy ending feels really irrelevant. And it doesn't really address the problems like this, the fact that there's this whole legal system that they made a big point of that allows people to be abused in this fashion.

That's not really addressed. Is it? It just felt like a very hollow ending that relied too much on celebrities to 

speaker 1: be entertained. Yeah. It was a bit jarring just to see characters who you haven't been following just kind of tacked on. Right. Right. 

speaker 2: Right. The rest of you. Yeah. I think there were a lot of gimmicks.

You know, like, Oh, it'll be funny to see the same scene conducted with a different actor or actress, but yeah, I guess so. I don't know. It just seemed very gimmicky. 

speaker 1: Yeah. The whole idea of this, the AI actor, the image issue is one of the things that actors are on strike about now. That's one of the points of contention.

I find it really ironic that there's this episode all about that issue that kind of pokes fun at the whole idea of it and how scary it can be at the same time. But now this is actually what actors are afraid is going to happen to them where they won't 

speaker 2: be compensated. I don't think it's ironic at all.

I think it's, it's not even a coincidence. I think this is something that they care a lot about. And that's why you could get celebrities like this to participate in an episode that is kind of flat and doesn't really kind of fit the series particularly well, because it was more about other things. This got made because it resonates with actors and probably writers.

So you think it's a statement piece? I just, I think it's one of those things, like if you want to be successful and you're not a great writer, not that this guy, this guy is a good writer, but if you want it to be successful and you weren't particularly talented as a writer, then you just figure out, like you tap your finger on the pulse of society and you write something that appeals to people who will come on board to, to do this project with you.

Uh, and then other people will want to release it and maybe the audience isn't going to be super into it, but it'll get made because it's something that actors and entertainment professionals care about a lot. So they'll let the fact that it's not a brilliantly written episode kind of slide. I 

speaker 1: hadn't thought about it this way.

That's a fascinating point. I 

speaker 2: mean, they made it the first episode too. Yeah. It seems like it's really like, cause that's the one most people will watch. 

speaker 1: Yeah. The fact that it, that it's a statement piece about the dangers of, of the future when it comes to technology. Right. I hadn't thought about it in that way.

I had seen it more as a standalone episode, right? Not something that could be part of a 

speaker 2: larger narrative. Well, look, I could be wrong and it could just be a coincidence like you're saying, but. It definitely felt to me like it was a pretty hollow episode. It didn't really say much or do much. And if it weren't for the celebrity faces, which were surprising, you know, I think it would have just been a little confusing that it was up 

speaker 1: first to bat.

I wonder if Netflix is going to have a statement about. Their, their take on, on this controversy, 

speaker 2: just curious. Maybe this is their statement. Maybe they're trying to stay out of it by making stuff like this. So they can point to that. Like this is where, this is where we stand, but they don't actually have to do anything, you know, or make any promises or sign any deals that say they won't use AI, or they're just trying to stay out of the center by putting this up front.

Did you not see the first episode of black? They're just sending a 

speaker 1: link to the press. That's right. 

speaker 2: Yeah. What a foolish question. I'll direct you to our first episode this season. Yeah. You know, I mean, that's a, that's a, I don't know, political game you can play for sure. Anything else about this one that stood out to 

speaker 1: you?

I know they were trying to make a statement about identity and following your dreams and who you really are and feeling trapped in your own life. But yeah, I think overall this one fell kind of flat in its, its overall. Tone. It was kind of a 

speaker 2: really a letdown. Yeah. It's confusing. I mean, cause if that's the point you wanted to make, then everything that happened was good.

Like the point is you need your life destroyed so that you can open a tiny coffee shop. I don't know. Yeah. That's not profound. 

speaker 1: And when you have an actor that you're following their ups and downs, you're trying to figure out what's going to happen and then you just kind of, oh, they're not real. This is the real actor.

Or character that you should be following. Right. I really don't think that works. I understand that they needed to do it that way for the, for the plot, of course, but it was, it was strange to have, it almost feels like there should be another episode that follows this, this new character, but I don't know what that would 

speaker 2: be.

If anything at all. So I came up with a rating system since Metacritic has their own rules. Rotten Tomato has their own rules. I thought it'd be great if we had a simple rating system for our own Black Mirror episodes here, our own rating system for Black Mirror. So just one to ten. I have two questions.

First question. Looking for a one to 10 on this. How much did this make you question the impact of technology on the future of our society? One to 10, five. Okay. That's pretty good. Uh, second question, how much did this hate make you hate other people? Nine. Okay. So then I would say that's a success. For, uh, for a black mirror episode.

All right. So our second episode, Locke Henry was directed by Sam Miller who, uh, it did a bunch of episodes of Luther. Do you ever watch TV show? The actors included a few different people, but the ones that stood out to me were Daniel Porter, Padraig Payne from game of thrones. Did you recognize him? I didn't.

He was the bar owner. Yeah. The like friend of the main 

speaker 1: character. Oh, I'd seen him in other things, but not from game of thrones. I didn't recognize him from that. Yeah. 

speaker 2: He's from Game of Thrones. Uh, John Hannah. Uh, he was the like father of that character. He's from four weddings and a funeral and the mummy trilogy with Brendan Fraser.

He's done a lot of stuff. Uh, and then of course there were other actors, but they're not particularly well known for anything that I recognized. The premise of this one is a film student makes a documentary about a small town and uncovers more than he bargained for dot, dot, dot. His parents are serial killers.

What do you think? Is there anything critical in that? No. Okay, good. So what are your thoughts? Any, did Locke Henry leave an impression with you? Locke 

speaker 1: Henry left an impression, I think, because at the end he's winning awards for this documentary, but it's really feeding off of his own misery. Right. And I thought that statement was, was really well stated.

Presented. Presented. Yeah. I thought he did a great job, the actor of not saying much, but just you could really feel the pain that and torture that he was going through. On one hand, he's a huge success, but at what cost to his own mental health, right? I thought at that point, I think it kind of redeemed itself because it became kind of farcical in the middle in terms of how his girlfriend discovers that his mom is, is the killer.

And then she just kind of runs into the, into the water, into the, that stream. And then. Yeah. You assume she's dead and I don't know, I thought all of that was very, uh, it was entertaining, but nothing, I didn't walk away with anything profound about that particular episode. 

speaker 2: Yeah, it, it was a little disturbing because of the amount of torture in it.

And some people would say, Oh no, it wasn't that much, but it felt like kind of a lot. To me, and I guess that's typical for some of the dark or black mirror episodes. So no, no real complaint there. Just not something that I enjoy as much. And they, they did seem to kind of get into that a bit with the episode, kind of going back to that idea a few times talking about the ending though.

I felt like it was a little anticlimactic. I think it resonated with you, which is great. And I don't think this is a, it was a bad ending. It's just. For me personally, seeing a character embrace the fame that he didn't want the whole time, it created a weird arc for me, one that I guess is very consistent with Black Mirror.

Like we're all sort of corruptible, but his girlfriend was the one who wanted fame. And then her arc was to accidentally kill herself. Which was weird. And then his mom feels guilty and commits suicide, which also seemed like a weird, like that, that whole sequence. Like, why, why did she feel so guilty? Why did she really care that her facade?

Yeah, it was, 

speaker 1: that's a good point. That was really odd, right? Because you see that those videos of her and how they were. just horrible sadists, her and her husband. There's this 180 where suddenly she feels really guilty about everything she did, but she seemed 

speaker 2: totally fine or ashamed or I don't, yeah, I really didn't.

And then I guess to protect her son in a way that was the implication, I guess, with some, I don't know. I really couldn't, I couldn't piece that character together in a way that. Made sense to me. So it was a little confusing and watching the main character benefiting from something he never wanted. He just wanted to make a documentary about some dude with eggs, you know, it was like protecting those eggs.

Like he, that was the path he wanted. I guess him being corrupted does fit the. The black mirror kind of motif or theme. I don't know. It was just, it was a weird, like his best friend gets his successful bar back. Okay. 

speaker 1: Did you just feel that he didn't seem like he was a corruptible character from the get go or the way that he was 

speaker 2: set up?

No, he just seemed like he was floating along. I mean, honestly, it's a little confusing that his parents were so in a way, like dynamic and organized and purposeful because they raised a kid who just sort of does whatever his girlfriend or the other, his friend, you know, whatever they said is just basically what he did the whole time.

So I thought it was a little strange. And then he just seemed to ride the wave to fame again, probably not driving that bus himself at all. I guess he didn't really change. Maybe he wasn't corrupted by fame as much as he just stayed passive. I don't know. It just felt a little like 

speaker 1: a yawn. And that's what I got, that he had stayed passive and he got caught up in this world and didn't want to let other people down.

Right. 

speaker 2: So that's why he was so tortured. So no change. Yeah. His, his ethics don't really drive his behavior. So no surprise that he locks into something successful and there he is. So he'll do that as long as other people put him in that position and then he'll float off to something else. I don't know. It almost seems like there needs to be more.

From him for it to be a total story, a complete story, you know, that's a good point. I did, uh, enjoy the film montage of filming. I thought that was pretty funny. Yeah, 

speaker 1: that was, that was funny in that barn. Just the way they, they set up those shots. It was good. I thought something was going to happen in there.

I really, I was just waiting for it for some jump scare or something like 

speaker 2: a Blair Witch. Yeah. Well, and I definitely don't want to body shame anybody. This is a totally legitimate, serious question. His girlfriend, did she have eyebrows? What was going on with her face? Did you notice that? Am I the only one?

Maybe they were died. I don't know. I couldn't tell. It looked like they were gone. I didn't know if that was an intentional choice or something else. Should we ask the audience? Can you do that in the comments? Let's not make a big deal out of that. I don't know if this is a good question to ask. I just thought maybe you'd be able to clear that up for me real quick.

So moving on, moving on to our rating system. Uh, how much did this make you question the impact of technology on the future of our society? One, I'd say one. Okay. So not much, right? Not 

speaker 1: much. Yeah, this wasn't it. But the VHS 

speaker 2: might come back. Yeah, right. Okay. Question two. So how much did this make you want to stay home and just avoid other people entirely?

Yeah, probably a nine. Yeah. A little bit higher on that one. Yeah. Yeah. Which I think is pretty typical of the show. It's moving away from the technology piece and it's just really embracing this idea that everyone is awful. Yeah. Every single character. Every single person. Or at the very least, you don't know who's the most awful, but there aren't really any like good people, you know?

Yeah. 

speaker 1: Everyone's a nine on the awful scale. Yeah. 

speaker 2: All right. If not a 10. Seriously. Speaking of which episode three beyond the sea, this was an interesting one. It really stood out to me as. I think a little bit more classic Black Mirror in some ways, but also I had some issues with it. So it was directed by John Crawley, who directed a couple episodes or a few episodes from True Detective season two.

It stars Aaron Paul from Breaking Bad and Josh Hartnett from 30 Days of Night, and I think it included Rory Culkin of Macaulay Culkin fame. I think he was one of the like hippies. Did you recognize a Kulkin in there? I didn't. Yeah. So I, that's what, at least that's what an internet search told me. I didn't recognize him initially, but it has been a while since they've had those boyish Kulkin looks.

So. It'd probably be hard to pick them out. So the premise for this one, a kind man suffers senseless violence and it turns him into a sociopath somehow. That seemed like a fair, fair premise in space in space. Well sort of in space Sometimes in space sometimes not in space and we'll get into that and why 

speaker 1: why that would be why there's confusion 

speaker 2: here Yeah, brief summary.

Do you want to take a stab at it? You want me to swing at that one? Uh, if you 

speaker 1: have it written down, it might be a little bit 

speaker 2: easier. Okay. I just, I don't, but it's not, it's not super complicated. It's for some reason, like, what is it, 1969 or something like that? Yeah. 19. Yeah. The sixties. Okay. 1959, something like that.

It's an alternate world. For some reason, there are that

out. All right. Thank you. They have a robot bodies on earth. So even though they're living and working on the space station, they can plug into their robot bodies and be with their families. They both have families at home. One of them lives in a sort of city area. That's fairly modern with his wife. And was it two kids or something?

I forget. And then the other one took his wife and one kid and moved way out into the rural, like a rural area, like a small town, some crazed hippies for some reason or another 

speaker 1: Yeah, I think they're supposed to be similar to the Manson 

speaker 2: family. Right. So some like Manson type people break into the, uh, the guy, the first guy's home, the one who lives close to the city.

They, uh, destroy or damage his robot and tie it up, I guess, and then murder his family horrifically. And then I guess they get arrested. And this guy. goes back to the space station. He doesn't have his robot body anymore. So he's stuck on the space station and his entire family's been killed. So then the other guy is partner on the space station says, you know, I'm kind of an isolationist, my family and I, or, you know, we live alone way out on our own, but since you're suffering, you can use my robot.

You can jack into my robot body and hang out. In the sort of forest around, uh, my house and find some peace and not be stuck on the space station forever, however many years they have to do it. And then the guy goes crazy. The first guy, I didn't really understand that. He just goes nuts. He has so many symptoms.

I don't understand. 

speaker 1: Yeah. I saw that as. He goes crazy because he wants to kind of equalize the relationship between him and the other guy by having the same horrors happen to the other guy as he experienced. Why would you want that? I think that's what they were alluding to that, where he's like, you don't understand what I'm going through.

And the way he thought that he would understand it would be to kill his family the same way his family had been killed on earth. Okay. That's what I got out of it, which doesn't make any sense whatsoever. 

speaker 2: So your, your family was killed. And you cannot get back to earth to do anything about it and then someone gives you access to their robot body.

Who are you going to kill? That's a, that's a good point. You know, if you're going to go rogue and you're going to try to murder somebody. I don't feel like it's going to be innocent people so much. I didn't 

speaker 1: really get that. And now you're stuck. You're stuck with the dad in the ship with you for years and they specifically mentioned, right?

But they mentioned that the ship can't be piloted with only one person. Yeah. Right. So they're, they're really kind of stuck now, I guess, wanting to murder each other 

speaker 2: forever. Your family was just killed. How sane and future focused are you going to be? I feel like this story does not go on long after where they cut the episode.

speaker 1: Yeah. I think, I think it's a quick, uh, one quick ending for, for one 

speaker 2: of them. Right. Yeah. One bloody space wrench. And I think we're done with the awkward tension in the space station, you know, 

speaker 1: or another scene where, uh, someone says, Hey, there's something outside that you've got to check on. And he goes out there and then he locks the 

speaker 2: door and that's the end of it.

Yeah. Yeah. End of episode. So I think it might've helped a little bit if they had set the stage better for the film. The idea that the two of them need each other, that no matter what happens, they both have to survive and not just for them, but for all of humanity, like some sort of idea that like they both are deeply invested in not everyone dying on earth and what they're doing is some sort of thing that happened in 1959 or 69 or whatever it was that had to be, had to happen.

Does that make sense? Like something, something that was sunshine sort of plot, right? Exactly. Like if we, it was some real world event or if they had said like, Oh no, somebody launched a nuclear weapon. And if you don't hang out in the space station, that's going to come back to earth or something. And you know, everybody's going to die or what, like, then I'd be like, okay, so that is a little bit of a dilemma.

And maybe that would cut through this, the rage and sorrow that you would feel if your family was murdered for either one of them. But as it is, I kind of know that they have that much to live for. And the guy who. Would do the murdering at the end seemed to not really care about other people at all, uh, except for his family.

So then what's his motivation to immediately murder this truly bizarre. 

speaker 1: So she didn't want to see him anymore. Okay. But he couldn't get over that because he was so obsessed with the wife. He just goes into a rage and Oh, now, now you're a murderer to or you're a murderer. Yeah. Now we're, we're stuck on this spaceship forever.

Basically, and until one of us kills the other, which 

speaker 2: could happen at any time, I mean, immediately would be where my money would go like 24 hours. I would bet well inside of eight hours. One of them or both of them are dead. Uh, so because why not? What difference does it make? They just send other people up to the mission or the space station explodes.

Who cares? Like, I haven't been given a reason to care about it. You're right. 

speaker 1: They should have set that stage better. It wasn't saving humanity. They're just on a mission. What are they doing? Just hanging out. Collecting like space rocks and coming back? 

speaker 2: I mean, if they, they weren't really celebrities.

People knew of them. So I guess you could say they had some fame, but people weren't like, Oh my God, you're all saving us. Thank you for doing this. They were all just like, Hey, look, there's the dude who's actually in space and has a robot body. Like, fine. 

speaker 1: They really could have alluded to that, right? With at least some news footage about them and the mission or them doing experiments in space, something that would have connected you to the importance of the mission.

Yeah. And I was a little confused by how these, the replicas, she said something about how it's very difficult to create another replica because it's tied to you. But then it was so easy. It was like, Hey, do you want to use my replica? Okay, sure. Lay down. Click and his entire consciousness can just seamlessly be transported into the other guy's replica.

Like there's no customization here. It's just, you make one of these, you just plug and play anyone's consciousness. 

speaker 2: Yeah. That was really odd. That was really odd. Um, also on that note, why don't they send the replica to the space station and let the humans live on earth? Another great question. Is there some sort of reason for that?

speaker 1: Right? Cause he would just be asleep on earth while his replica is piloting this ship, or at least during the. Waking hours, right? 

speaker 2: So if it was a really important mission, then maybe you could make the point that having a human there is just in case of malfunction. Like, we don't want to build like 12 replicas for both of them just in case something goes wrong.

Uh, you know, it's such a critical mission that we definitely need humans there, but then you're just going to send two humans if it's that important and it takes two people. So no backup people for a critical mission. Uh, it seems like somehow based on what we heard, you just send a couple of those replicants up there.

Maybe like 10 or 20 of them or just two, if it's just an experiment or whatever, and then pilot them from earth and have different people take turns piloting them maybe. Or 

speaker 1: once the ship gets to wherever it needs to be, then you activate the replicas in the ship. Sure. 

speaker 2: Right. Right. Because 

speaker 1: what kind of technology is this?

The ship looks like it's from 1960. Right. But you've got these humanoid. Robots that you can create and transfer consciousness between them across light years, 

speaker 2: right?

Seems a little weird. It does seem a little weird. I just, it was very distracting 

speaker 1: because wouldn't the technology just match if you can do this? You would have self piloting AI ship, right? Couldn't you transfer consciousness into the ship itself? 

speaker 2: I mean, you would think, right? At least be able to have remote control because if you can send a signal that includes someone's consciousness, like they're controlling a body with their mind in real time through space, it seems like you ought to be able to flip a suit, few switches and press a few buttons from the control center as well.

Maybe the whole thing was just an experiment to see if humans could work in space and still maintain lives at home, in which case back to immediately murdering that guy. 

speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think it's possible. 

speaker 2: Well, it's just a little, it's a weird mix of technology and decisions. Uh, and I, I guess we're not supposed to think about it too much, but it was a little confusing, but 

speaker 1: that's why we have this podcast.

Cause we're always thinking 

speaker 2: about these things, right? We're going to fix it. So, uh, that's the kind of home invasion story that sells a lot of guns. Yeah, exactly. So I'm not sure what the message was there, uh, but I imagine some people finally just. I'm buying a gun because I don't want to watch my family be burned alive in front of me.

So, yeah, there's that. 

speaker 1: Let me ask a quick question. So the, uh, Aaron Paul character, what happens to his replica? 

speaker 2: Um, I guess he arrested for murder is fine. Oh yeah, I mean, presumably it's just going to lie on the ground useless because as soon as he gets back to the space station, he's going to murder that guy and then they're both going to end up dying in space.

It's not like the cops can come pick him up from that space station, right? So it's just a replicant. 

speaker 1: Killed the family and he's off in space. 

speaker 2: I guess. Yeah, you can't. I mean, you can put the replicant in jail, but it's not a compliment. So why wasn't there any security on either one of them? Their families?

I don't know. Another 

speaker 1: good question. I hadn't thought of that, but yeah, you would think there'd be some basic security. I mean, or an alarm or a ring a little bit, something, something doorbell cam. I 

speaker 2: mean, they just, they acted like, I mean, yeah, right. Or they aren't. And then which case none of it matters, you know, there's no reason why you need two of them.

One of them can just kill the other one and go home or just. Die up there because his family's reason for living is gone. I don't know. It just, they seem both important and very not important at all at the same time for the whole episode. So that was a little bit odd. They clearly did 

speaker 1: not do any good psychological testing on these two.

That's for sure. 

speaker 2: That's probably the best point that's been made so far. They just, they're like, are you 

speaker 1: good at, uh, running on a treadmill? Can you put on a space suit? 

speaker 2: You're off. Let's see. We've got, uh, several candidates. Uh, one of them is an isolationist who has extreme religious beliefs and the other one smiles and is happy all the time, but underneath that, so let's send them up.

I think we've got her parody 

speaker 1: TV show. That would have been a black mirror twist 

speaker 2: that I could have gotten behind. Yeah. Right. Like somebody pulled, like they kill each other at the end. And then somebody like opens a door or the spaces, like a wall pulls back and they're actually in a studio in LA or something like that.

And the guy's like, ah, not again,

clean it up. There we go. All right. So how much Yeah, totally. How much did this make you question the impact of technology on the future of our society? It's a good question. 

speaker 1: I think I have a little more complicated answer before I, I give my rating, but that mismatch between technology, is there a third question, like questioning technology's evolution, like, 

speaker 2: What is, what is the question you'd prefer to answer?

speaker 1: Are the robots, um, going to come before the advanced spacecraft? I'd say clearly in this scenario, yes. Um, and space technology is going to stay in 1965 apparently, but consciousness, uh, propelling technology is going to advance by light years. So I'd give that technology a 10 out of 10 and the spaceship technology at two.

speaker 2: All right. Uh, so how much did this make you want to avoid other people and only interact with them via? You said one through 11, right? 

speaker 1: Cause we're going to go with 11.

This was off the charts, 

speaker 2: man. I thought hating hippies was like an 80s thing, but I guess that's still around. No, it's, I 

speaker 1: guess it's universal. And it's still 

speaker 2: with us generations. They had no motive at all, absolutely nothing. They're just evil because they're hippies. And everybody went, yeah, that sounds right.

And then we moved on with the plot. All right. I guess, I guess that's where we're at as a society with hippies. That's 

speaker 1: it. That's all you need to know. They were hippies. Yeah. They're killing families. 

speaker 2: For sure. Yeah, of course. I mean, peace, love and murdering strangers. Isn't that what they paint on their vans?

I think so. All right. Episode four, Maisie Day, uh, was the, was the title of that one. So for some reason, uh, it was directed by Uda. Brice a wits, who was mainly a cinematographer, directed a few TV episodes, a wheel of time. Most recently, also CSI Vegas did a bunch of those episodes, a couple stranger things, episodes from a while back, uh, actors in this one, we got Zazie beats from Deadpool two, Danny Ramirez, uh, who was fan boy from Top Gun Maverick.

And fan boy being one of the many characters in the ensemble piece that we talked about in a previous episode. That's right. And he's also the new Falcon in the MCU. Danny Ramirez should be popping up more as the, uh, so the old Falcon is the new captain America. So now there has to be a new Falcon and it's Danny Ramirez.

So the premise for this one, a paparazzo has, is that how you say that? Paparazzi, I think. Paparazzi's, like the plural, right? Is it 

speaker 1: No. Or is it just generalist and singular, 

speaker 2: plural. Papa paparazzi is what I'm gonna call her. Okay. . Perfect. Let's that, so paparazzi has a change of heart and then another change of heart, but then she has another change of heart and there's a werewolf.

And then she has another change of heart. So was it a cocaine werewolf? It's just, uh, just a regular werewolf. Sadly, cocaine werewolf would have been more entertaining. So anything you want to add basically to, to the plot here, you want to throw out, uh, it does, we really don't need to go thoroughly through this plot, right?

It's very straightforward. It is what it is. Um, 

speaker 1: right. Should I add another change of heart? Just, just confuse things. 

speaker 2: I think they covered the changes of heart for this. Yeah. Yeah. Basically it struck me as very much the same as episode one. Hollywood people, not huge fans of the humans who follow them around and harass them and say nasty things to get photos of them at their best and their worst.

I'm sure it's a love hate relationship of some sort, but it's pretty well documented ever since princess die passed away or was, you know, died. Did you add something? There was, 

speaker 1: there was really no, no depth to any of these characters. I think out of all the episodes, this is the flattest one. It's like there were just cookie cutter characters, caricatures of, of paparazzi and celebrities, and.

You really kind of, that one big twist, it was kind of like, eh, 

speaker 2: this is bizarre. It was almost like they wrote it. They wanted to write a story where a paparazzi starts to develop some ethics and more art, but then doesn't write, but then doesn't, but then does, but then kind of doesn't. And they were like, yeah, the story needs something.

And somebody just spun a wheel. And it landed on werewolf, so they're like, all right, we gotta, we gotta put a where was it? Let's go back a couple of scenes. Let's plant some seeds for a werewolf and then we'll have them fight at the end. And then our, our paparazza will, will redeem herself sort of at the end.

But not really, but not really. 

speaker 1: That would be too much. She still has to get the final shot. She's got to make money. Right. Gotta make money. So this was really just a story about paparazzi. Needing to make money, their, uh, leeches on the actors, actors are pretty terrible too. And there's a werewolf. 

speaker 2: And there's a werewolf, yep.

Yeah, I mean the characters are all, like, there's a nice one, there's a mean one. Goofy one. There's a goofy one, right? Yeah. It's pretty, 

speaker 1: who doesn't really know what he's doing, but the celebrities think, but in this case, he did know what he was doing because he changed her up for good reason. I just thought it was really just ridiculous how they needed to get that shot at all costs.

And they're just standing there while they're seeing this werewolf. Not very ballistic at all 

speaker 2: in the sense that I wrote down the dialogue, somebody yells, so they're in a room. I'm just going to paint this picture for you because it's, you've seen it a million times as an audience member. There's someone in a room chain to a bed.

Sort of. They're turning into a werewolf. The paparazzi, there's like, what, like three of them in there. They realize what's happening. So, of course, because they are professional photographers and morons, they start taking pictures as this person is developing claws and teeth. And one of them yells, and this is so cliche, We gotta go.

And then of course, two of them leave, but one stays there with his camera and he says, just a couple more quote unquote, just a couple more. Yeah. You know, he's not leaving that room. 

speaker 1: Come on. And he took thousands of pictures by this point audience audience should know it's something he just jumped in there and he's like, Oh my God, I'm not going to get a shot.

I mean, he got every shot, but I guess we're also talking about how they're incessant and driven by pure greed and it has to be the perfect job. Yeah, but they're 

speaker 2: self centered. They're not so committed to their own lives.

They could have probably established that, but I think from an, you know, what I would imagine from a Hollywood, like an actor's perspective, it doesn't even register as strange to them that a paparazzi would risk their own life for a photo, like to this extent, no matter what they're confronted with, like something you've never seen before.

For a magic shark is flying at you in midair. And I think that probably a lot of these actors and directors and famous people probably believe that paparazzi are so disconnected from reality or so greedy that they care more about getting that shot than they do getting eaten by a flying sky shark.

It's a good point. Um, but it, it kind of seems 

speaker 1: strange. It was really no, no character in this with any redeeming quality, maybe the sheriff. 

speaker 2: Well, there was a waitress who was nice? I 

speaker 1: think there was a waitress and the sheriff was like, calm down. The typical sheriff thing, calm down. Every movie, right? Every horror movie you've ever seen, there's someone who's always telling you, take a deep breath.

And they're like, oh, I'm being chased by a serial killer. He's right outside. Calm down or I'm going to put the cuffs on you. 

speaker 2: They don't even look like someone comes running in, like with ripped clothes or covered in blood or whatever. And their eyes are wide. And they're like, there's a monster right behind me or a serial killer.

And the police officer doesn't even turn to look. They don't look like just plants the other way. 

speaker 1: This is just an. Yeah. Typical Wednesday in a town of 400 where he works. 

speaker 2: Just tilt your, tilt your head just a, just a bit to look behind you now. Nope. Just wait till Jason Voorhees buries his machete in the back of your police officer head.

Like, or you see the, you see the knife coming out of your chest. Classic. You don't want to look around. You don't want to just glance, 

speaker 1: sit down, have some pancakes. We had a fresh pot of coffee on for 

speaker 2: you. Listen, lady, I'm about off my shift. So I started the beginning. 

speaker 1: What time did you drive up here? And they take out the little notepad.

All right. Got it. While the werewolf is like. Banging on the glass about to break through. He doesn't notice. 

speaker 2: Oh man. I was rooting for the werewolf. I just, as soon as I saw a werewolf in this one, I was like, Oh, thank God. I hope it kills everyone. But it pretty much did. I think I got what I wanted more or less.

Yeah, it was good. So I, the only other thing about this one that stood out to me is it's a total fantasy episode, unless this whole thing was happening on the holodeck or her cell phone turned her into a werewolf, then it's, it's just fantasy. So I don't remember there being a lot of fantasy episodes. Do you remember?

Is that a black mirror thing? No, not in this, not in this way. Pure fantasy, 

speaker 1: right? And what was the technology statement here? 

speaker 2: That's what I'm saying. So the question, how much did this make you question the impact of technology on the future of society? Zero. Yeah, like, unless they're talking about cameras that the paparazzi use?

There really wasn't anything here. No. 

speaker 1: It was kind of a plot run out of a hat. Yeah. What if a famous actress becomes a werewolf and she's chased by paparazzi and everyone dies? 

speaker 2: And it kills them. Yeah. It was 

speaker 1: really, really a weak episode on all 

speaker 2: counts. You know, I like werewolves. So I did enjoy that. Uh, as far as the premise of black mirror.

Yes, I would agree with you. It was pretty weak, but if you want good werewolf action, fast forward to what the last four minutes, I guess the last four minutes and you'll be fine. Yeah, you'll get it all at that point. Maybe it's five minutes. I don't know, five minutes, 10 seconds, something like that. So how much did this episode make you want to limit your interactions with other humans to the digital world?

We're at an 11, 

speaker 1: maybe a 10. 

speaker 2: Because of the werewolf danger? Because of the werewolf danger. Yeah. 

speaker 1: Sounds like a dangerous place. Hollywood. 

speaker 2: Uh, episode five is a final episode for this season, uh, demon 79 directed by Toby Haynes, who did and or on, uh, Disney plus, uh, and or is really well received. I'm assuming he got this off the back of that.

I don't know. Uh, he also did Sherlock doctor who, so maybe his BBC connections, uh, you know, got him kind of front runner for this. Um, I So the actors in this one, not really famous actors, uh, Anjana Vasan, main character. She had a small part in Spider Man 2 a few years ago, um, and Pepa S. Isidu, probably. Um, he did the Oliver Twist podcast.

So, uh, not huge names on this one, probably why it's episode five, I'm guessing it might be because the end of this too, kind of a good place to end the series or in this season. So anyway, the premise, a demon Lux into the most gullible woman on earth and gives her a shot at killing the next Hitler.

Anything you change or 

speaker 1: adjust about that? That was a quick one, but I think you got the whole episode in a nutshell. 

speaker 2: Yeah. Okay. So this is another fantasy episode. It's, it's very tongue in cheek. So it's kind of hard to take too seriously. Basically a young woman living in, I guess it's London. Is it London?

London. Yeah. England. Yeah. London, uh, 1979. It's an alternate 1979. I think the, the other one was an alternate 1969. So I thought it was strange that they're exactly 10 years apart, 69 and 79. And then is there some significance to that, that I don't get, I don't know. Okay. So anyway, a young woman, she's a shop clerk, works at a, like a Sears or department store.

Yeah. Uh, and everybody's mean to her all the time for no apparent reason. There's sort of racial, they sort of imply like racial. Reasons for that partially, but also this woman's really passive. So she finds a small talisman. I think she accidentally activates it. Yeah, sure. And a demon comes out and he tells her she has what three days to kill three people or it starts the apocalypse.

I think that, okay. So definitely another fantasy episode. No, no tech in this. Was there any technology? No, it was just really all 

speaker 1: the, uh, kind of the alternate reality that the demon could summon. There wasn't any technology. And he, another important part of the plot is he's driven by not being sent into oblivion because if he fails this mission, he's going to be sent cast off by demons.

Did they ever really explain the whole idea of why there would be an apocalypse? Or did he just say, hell wants an apocalypse to happen? I think he said they don't really understand, right? Because it's hell, right? Doesn't hell want an apocalypse? But I know you're saying, what you're saying is right, that they didn't want an apocalypse.

But why is that? He never really explained. Right? 

speaker 2: Yeah. Maybe hell is like a bureaucracy. So it's try, it's like trying to sustain itself. And if the apocalypse actually occurs, then maybe the devil's happy, but the rest of the bureaucracy and all the little bit of power that each demon has accumulated, like maybe it's kind of a pyramid scheme here that all goes away if there's an apocalypse.

So devil wants it, but the demon bureaucracy does not. I don't know. It would have been funny to explain that. That would have been a good 

speaker 1: reason, very satirical, if that was the case. What did you think was the overall kind of point of this episode in terms of, is it someone who is very passive and finally gets power and what can happen?

Or is it just a deep town need that this woman has to kill and now she's able to, she's empowered to do that? Or is it something else altogether that she finds, finally finds love because she's so lonely? And it happens to be this demon. I was kind of confused by all that. Well, 

speaker 2: I think their point was, or the point of the episode is everybody is terrible, right?

Back to, you should only interact with other humans virtually because everybody is dangerous and horrible. Even the people who seem innocent are capable of killing us all. Right? So that, that sort of fits what black mirror has become. But this character represents that sort of cliche. And in fact, I think many people have lived through this.

Many of us have been through this where it's that, that, that really winning strategy of being too passive until you build up so much anger that you become too aggressive. You know, because nobody wants to be assertive, you know, at any point in time, I don't know if they were trying to do that or they were trying to say that she's somehow a victim.

And this is the why you shouldn't victimize people because then they'll snap and kill us all. I don't know. I'm not really sure what the point was. I can't really answer your question, but it did seem to me like just that sort of classic. If you're too passive for too long, you just eventually explode and become too aggressive.

Right. And. That's just the way people 

speaker 1: are. In that ending, what did you think about this, the idea that everyone just saw it as a domino and not any type of talisman? Did you just think that was? 

speaker 2: Oh, you mean when, when she's been arrested and nobody believes her and then the world ends? Um, I felt relief when the world ended because it was such a cliche and where is this going?

Like once she was arrested, it was sort of like, they're just not going to believe her. That's the werewolf situation and the sheriff again. You saw that happening a mile away. Right. And what are they going to do anyway? I mean, at least the sheriff could have turned around and shot the werewolf, but in this case, whether they believe her or not was completely irrelevant.

There 

speaker 1: was no time for them to act at all to stop it, 

speaker 2: right? No one would reasonably go murder someone. Plus they'd have to let her do it, I guess, or I don't even know. Like that just. It seems kind of pointless. And then when the whole world ends, fine, like it, it's a weird world that they've created for this episode.

So for it, like there's not a lot of nice people, like pretty much everybody seems either terrible or lazy or just sort of disinterested. So having that entire world burn seem fine. Having the two of them go off together to live in the void. Okay, sure. I guess. She was isolated. Now she made a connection. I guess he was isolated before he, or maybe he had a bunch of demon buddies, but the fact that they kind of bonded and decided to live in eternity in a void together seems sort of messed up.

Not really heartwarming per se, you know, 

speaker 1: it sounds pretty horrendous. You would think she would just let 

speaker 2: the world end. Yeah. I don't know that she really thought that through. I don't know if you want to be trapped in a void forever with, with really anybody, honestly. But yeah, I don't know. I guess there's a message there, right?

Is this, is this a modern fantasy or do people, does everyone feel oppressed and they've constricted by the rules of society or getting along with everyone such that they view everyone as a victimizer and themselves as a victim and they really just want to make a connection with another human? And so even if the whole world ends.

If they make that connection, then maybe that's sort of like fantasy fulfillment for people these days. Is that where the world is at? Or 

speaker 1: if you make a connection with a demon, things could change for you. 

speaker 2: She's not really any better than the demon. She isn't. So I don't, I'm just going to label the demon a human being at this point because he didn't seem much worse.

He's got magic powers, so that's cool. So he seems a little better than people. You know, it's true, but otherwise they're pretty much the same. Maybe she's worse because at least it's apparently his job. 

speaker 1: He got sent to earth on a, on a mission and 

speaker 2: failed, but he's just killing three people, right? Killing three bad people.

That was sort of what he was willing to compromise that may corrupt one woman, kill three bad people or have her do it. And then he's off. She's the one who, I don't know, her instability took it further. Fair to say, I 

speaker 1: guess. And would she have gotten away with all of it at the end? And then what would happen?

He just disappears and she's still alone. And she got away 

speaker 2: with murder. I guess. I mean, I feel like she would have just kept murder. No, we'll have 

speaker 1: to wait for the 2nd part of this episode. Season 

speaker 2: 7, 1989.

Demon 89. Yeah. I don't know anything else. I wish something did stand 

speaker 1: out besides the, uh, pretty straightforward plot line. I think that's, that's really a theme that really pulled everything together with every one of these episodes we've discussed, right? People are awful. The world's a bad place. 

speaker 2: Yeah.

You should just want to avoid everyone because everyone is terrible or they're a werewolf. That's a good point. Yeah. All right. So obviously well produced, uh, the seams weren't showing on the productions, you know, good quality across the board. Costumes were good when that was relevant. Some solid actors that they had going here.

I think the directors did pretty well. There was nothing that really stood out to me as poor about any of this. The writing was interesting. It felt a little bit like maybe it didn't quite get to the point that it was trying to make a few times. I think with 

speaker 1: Black Mirror, it's tough because he set the bar so high on so many episodes that once you get a whole season of episodes that really aren't up to that standard.

It really loses something. I'm wondering if this wasn't called Black Mirror and we watched a completely different series, what we would think, you know, as a standalone series. 

speaker 2: Okay. But in that parallel world, uh, what would that be 2019, 20, 20, 20, 20, uh, so if it didn't have the black mirror name, the budget would be lower.

Which means no celebrities, right? Or no major celebrities. And you have to write around budget constraints. I feel like that would have made it better. They would 

speaker 1: have had to get more imaginative. But then I think you would have had really had a stronger plot line for each one of the, the episodes, right?

It would have been a different. Different show altogether. So scratch that we'd 

speaker 2: need a different show for this to get better. I mean, I think you're actually, I'm, I want to drag that back on scratch it because I think that would be better. I think it would be, they would have cut around some of these moments instead of showing as much, they would have implied more, they would have.

Had to be really clever with the directing and the editing to make it work. You would've had to use your brain more because they wouldn't have had the budget to just lay everything out in front of you and make it really clear. And there would've been more for us to talk about because they would've had to rely on implying things more than just showing.

I think 

speaker 1: you would've had something along the lines of an. Where there's a, where there's a really limited budget and we discuss Aniara also in a previous episode. 

speaker 2: Oh my God, I'm going to start calling you hashtag. All right. Yes, that's bear. If you want to go back in time and go on a very uplifting journey with a bunch of Swedish people, then check out our Aniara episode or watch the movie better yet.

And then listen, if you like, is that do it for a season six of black mirror, or do you have more? Yeah, I think that does it for me. All right. Well, thank you to the listeners. Thank you to the people who made this project. Like I said, really great on the production side. Um, maybe even a victim of too much talent and money and high quality production, but Hey, check it out for yourself.

Reach out to us at don't encourage at gmail. com. Let us know what your thoughts were. Let us know what you want us to talk about in the future. And I guess we'll be back next week with that. I 

speaker 1: think that he is a, is a good choice. Let's go with 

speaker 2: that. All right. Next week, Dead Heat.