Netflix's Black Mirror season 5 all episodes streamed earlier this week and like always, fans were all geared up to see something dark and witty take on the technology. All the three episodes had an amazing cast including Miley Cyrus but in the end, the gold simply did not shine this time.
If you recall the very first episode of Black Mirror, you will remember how they portrayed a Prime Minister of a country having sex with a pig. That was an eye-opening episode and with a plot like that, we were left wondering what to expect next from this amazing TV series. Over the years, we saw several such episodes where the earth pulled our jaws but sadly, the recently released season five of Black Mirror was not up to the mark in any scenario.
Striking Vipers:
The very first episode featured Anthony Mackie and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Danny and Karl, two long-term buddies who love to play a video game. From the very beginning, they have established that Danny likes to play as Lance and Karl enjoys being a girl character, Roxette. This was not at all a subtle hint of any unhidden desire. It was right in front of us.
When the two meets during their mid-life crisis, we see them playing the same game but now in Virtual Reality where they can become the person they play in the game. What's the first thing they do when they come into the digital world? They have sex.
Over the next couple of weeks, they both engage in all sort of sexual activities but what was more problematic for a lot of viewers was the fact that they chose a video game, a virtual gaming word as an excuse to come out of the closet. There is this one dialogue in the virtual world where Lance asks Roxette how does he feel in a woman's body? To this, Roxette (Karl in the real world) stats that his male body feels like a guitar whereas this woman's body is like an orchestra.
With such a splendid cast and production budget, they could have used the technology to present the coming out story in a completely different way.
Smithereens:
Well, it's about Facebook or Twitter or other social media websites similar to this. It shows how technology and these websites have completely taken over our lives. It depicts the hard reality that even if the sky will turn purple tomorrow, we might not realise because we are so much into our mobile phones.
The story shows a cab driver who only takes passengers from Smithereens. At one point in the story, he takes a Smithereens employee only to find out that he is an intern only. The cab driver, Christopher 'Chris' Gillhaney is played perfectly by Sherlock TV series star Andrew Scott and he is the only one good thing about the entire episode.
What happens next is a mouse and cat chase that leads to a long telephonic conversation between the cab driver and the founder of Smithereens where Chris tells how by checking the notifications on his mobile phone, he accidentally killed his wife. The conversation had a lot of gravity but in the end, it leads to nothing.
Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too:
This was the only episode in season five which came a little close to showing the dark realities. The story featured a young girl, Rachel Goggins, who is fascinated by a pop star Ashley O (Miley Cyrus). Ashley is a fun loving pop singer who is managed by her evil auntie.
The episode showed the hidden truth behind the lives of the singer from the entertainment industry and how even like the rest of us, they too face several turmoils in their lives.
As merchandise, they introduce an Alexa-like AI robot who has the brains of Ashley. That AI comes to life after some tweaks by the elder sister of Rachel. That AI now goes on an adventure with these two girls only to prove to the world how evil Ashley's aunt is. A good start with a terrible end.
