Geek Review – Black Mirror: Season 4 (Netflix)

After three seasons of bleak dystopian foretelling, it might get really old for Black Mirror writer, Charlie Brooker, to weave up something new. Like with all previous Black Mirror episodes, each snapshot/episode of the possible future always starts off with how amazing a piece of tech is, only be be punctuated with a huge “but”, before it all goes downhill.

While this mechanic has become rather formulaic, one cannot deny how attractive the form is, considering the popularity of Black Mirror.

With season four, it very much seems that Brooker is sticking to his guns and creating what the fans are expecting him to do. If you’re here for a bleak peak into the future, you’ve come to the right place.

Containing six episodes, the biggest takeaway of the latest season seems to hint that everything that has been happening in all the past seasons are all taking place in one interconnected universe. If that’s the case, Brooker’s vision of the future is one that is pretty scary, when technology makes humans potentially worse versions of their present selves.

But amongst the pessimism, Brooker is more than happy to throw us a bone with some semblance of hope for the future. Considering that a previous episode of Black Mirror won an Emmy (San Junipero), it comes as no surprise that one episode for this season is one that centres around love once again. In “Hang the DJ”, audiences follow a couple and their experiences in modern dating, where an AI matches individuals with their future partner. It seems that as we progress technologically, Brooker’s vision of the future would mean that even love is outsourced to an AI, to help us make the best decisions. Truth be told, “Hang the DJ” isn’t quite as strong as “San Junipero”, but it reveals that Brooker has it in him to create stories that are not rife with despair.

But that’s only if he chooses to.

On the flip side, the episode “Arkangel” checks us back into reality once again. Seeing as how love and technology can be used in tandem for good, this episode showcases how parental love can be taken to the next level. Directed by Jodie Foster, “Arkangel” is a cautionary tale of how supervision might be detrimental to the development of our children. Alas, this episode is predictable, which is a waste of Foster’s pedigree. While she has been able to capture accurately what parent’s might go through when caring for their child, she does not bring anything new to the mix. Despite this, it does drive home the phrase quite accurately: If you love it, let it go.

“Crocodile” follows a similar narrative flow to “Arkangel” but it doesn’t quite have the same payoff. The challenge with working with a narrative that audiences are familiar with, is that it builds an expectation that they might have seen it before in another form. However, the episode is not quite able to hit its stride, considering the plot is made lazily convenient for the episode to make sense.

Thankfully, the other standouts of season four, in the form of “U.S.S. Callister” and “Metalhead”, are nothing short of brilliant. Geeky through the very end, “U.S.S. Callister” shows us what could really be going on in the mind of a geek, though we doubt human beings can be that imaginative but we can be vindictive. “Metalhead” on the other hand is a full on thriller that showcases how terrifying man versus machine can be in the future. If you loved Robocop, this is the episode for you.

Wrapping things up would be “Black Museum”, which is the Christmas special of season four. It’s packed with plenty of easter eggs and enthusiasts will probably find themselves watching this episode repeatedly. This is where we learn that every episode we’ve watched so far in other seasons may well be part of a connected universe. It does make you wonder if all the tech in the world, which had gone all terribly wrong, is collated in one single venue, and why everyone isn’t well informed of the repercussions.

Taken as a whole, the fourth season of Black Mirror centres around how technology and the human mind can go terribly wrong. Overall, it would have been much more appealing to have more diversity in content, which is probably the reason why “U.S.S. Callister” and “Metalhead” would likely be the better received episodes this time round, simply based on the fact on how much these two episodes stand out from the rest.

Nonetheless, the latest season of Black Mirror is still a must watch for all fans and newcomers alike. But, Brooker should be looking at refining his storytelling even more. Must the future always be this bleak? Narratively, it’s easy to pull off considering that audiences are left with no resolution because that’s just how the world is. Try that too many times, and the viewers might very well tune in to real life instead.

Recommended order of viewing (in our opinion, not in order of merit) –

1. Black Museum
2. Arkangel
3. Crocodile
4. Hang the DJ
5. Metalhead
6. U.S.S. Callister

Black Mirror returns to Netflix on 29 December 2017.