“Black Mirror” season 4 review

Imagine growing up and seeing only the good things in life. Where a dog barking can be blurred and a dead bird on the ground is censored. Imagine your parent easily checking your vitals to see if your sick for school or if that cough is strep throat. Once grown, you get exposed to things you never knew were there. As if you had just been born and the world is knew. You’re probably in “Black Mirror”.

Netflix has recently released the fourth season of “Black Mirror”. From advanced dating to high tech killer dogs, “Black Mirror” has once again amazed viewers with unpredictable episodes.
Last season we exhibited social media scoring, realistic gaming systems, glitchy PTSD, and other topics. This season, “Black Mirror” shows us the craziest of imaginations once again.

The first episode of the new season was a hit right off the bat. Although slow in the beginning, “USS Callister” didn’t fail to deliver a good story. Robert Daly is an ignored and disliked worker for a tech-entertainment company, where he had created an advanced VR system. To escape the reality of his horrible job and coworkers, Robert uses the realistic game system. Based off a show he watched as a kid, he imagines himself as the commander of a starship while his coworkers work for him. But with every “Black Mirror” episode there’s always a twisted turn. The sims and Robert himself are stuck in the game.

Following “USS Callister” is “Arkangel” with an interesting and unexpected storyline. After an incident of almost losing her daughter, Marie chooses to place her daughter under a tracking system, which allows her to see vital signs, location, and even her vision. Having a parent be able to see everything you can, probably isn’t the most joyous thing. Alicia grows up with her mother censoring the negatives of her life and isn’t exposed to things most are. After realising that some things should not be censored (like her grandfather having a stroke in front of her-like come on), Marie decides to put the system away. But as mothers always do, they get worried if they feel something is up. Everything goes downhill when Alicia hangs out with Trick, a rebellious boy. Marie tries her best to protect her daughter, but you can’t protect everyone from the world they live in.

“Crocodile” appears as the third episode of the season. Having a slow and gloomy look to it, “Crocodile” covers a successful lady, Mia, who had murdered several people to cover her mistakes. An insurance investigator, Shazia, is just trying to figure out a biker and a self-driving pizza van incident, when she has to view the memories of Mia because she was a witness. She first murdered her old friend and then proceeded to murder Shazia and her family because Shazia views her murder. Let’s just say that she didn’t get away with her killings. She doesn’t really think about what she’s doing, she just lives in that moment and that moment only – resulting in deaths.

“Hang the DJ” revolves around a world where people are placed in a dating system to find their true love. Only having a certain amount of time to spend with a date until the expiration time, can be quite stressful. Frank and Amy are placed together for 12 hours. Once their time is up, they move on to the next partner in order to gain more information about themselves through the system. Frank and Amy begin to question the system and run away together. After running away, it’s revealed that all the couples in the system are part of a phone dating system. The episode is sweet because in order to find your true love, you’re supposed to rebel against the system.

“Metalhead” is set in a post-apocalyptic area where civilization is not around. While looking for supplies, scavengers are attacked by a high technology dog after waking it. The dog is equipped with many weapons, and speed is one of it’s best features. When the so called “dog” runs, it gives off a creepy beatle vibe – at least for me it was too realistic for a metal creature. Immediately, two of the three characters are killed by the creature with a gunshot to the head, pretty gruesome. The remaining scenes of the episode follow the last survivor on her journey to get away, but it always finds a way to her. Set in black and white was a good idea, but the slow storyline and little dialogue creates a slightly boring story.

Finishing the season is “Black Museum”. Stopping at a roadside attraction, Nish enters a museum while waiting for her car to charge. The owner, Rolo, welcomes Nish into his museum showing his “authentic criminological artifacts” which were articles from previous criminals. Getting in depth, Rolo tells the stories of some of the felons. Dr. Peter Dawson had an addiction to feeling pain with a feeling transferer, a husband transferred his wife to the head of a stuffed animal, and an inmate who signed away his life to a hologram to avoid death row. The story unravels when Nish announces that she’s the daughter of the man in the hologram. Creating a twisted ending, this episode gets you on the edge of your seat. The show does stall in the beginning with the stories, but it was a plus because not only do you get a good ending, you also get some little stories in between.