![]() ![]() It seems impossible for a show as creative as Black Mirror, with a lead actor as charismatic as Andrew Scott, to produce a boring episode of television. ‘Black Mirror’ Gets the Software Update It Sorely Needed in Season 6 24. (A brisk 40-minute run time doesn’t help matters either.) Credit to Black Mirror for shaking up its formula, but by opting for gory shock value, “Mazey Day” isn’t much better than the paparazzi it clearly loathes. But the real problem with the episode is that it doesn’t have anything meaningful to say about the relationship between celebrity and media-at best, there’s a heavy-handed metaphor about how fame makes monsters of us all. Naturally, Bo’s search for Mazey takes some unexpected turns, as “Mazey Day” builds to a bonkers supernatural twist that is sure to alienate some longtime fans of the series. The situation leads Mazey to go into hiding back in California-if Bo could capture a prized photo of the actress, it would allow her to pay off her debts and get out of the paparazzi game for good. The episode follows two characters on opposite sides of the celebrity-media divide: Bo (Zazie Beetz), a paparazzo who grows a conscience after one of her assignments leads to a man’s suicide, and Mazey Day (Clara Rugaard), a movie star who commits a hit-and-run while filming her latest project in Europe. While the majority of Black Mirror focuses on the horrors of tech, “Mazey Day” sets its sights on celebrity culture and the disturbing influence of paparazzi in the early aughts. And by the time our protagonist, Stripe, starts glitching out, it’s obvious that the soldiers are being brainwashed by their implants-while the rest of the episode’s hourlong run time is spent waiting for Stripe to realize it too. By maybe the 10th instance of a soldier mentioning how excited they are to kill the so-called “roaches,” it’s clear that there’s more to the supposed monsters than we are initially led to believe. The narrative inches along to a twist that the audience has likely already figured out. While the AR combat interface is a cool visual, reminiscent of shooter games like Halo or Call of Duty, and it’s an interesting idea that the military would create this technology, much of the discourse is familiar. As we come to find out, the technology is largely built with the intention of galvanizing soldiers into killing their enemies and eliminating any possibility that they’ll empathize with their targets on the battlefield. ![]() In a dystopian future, soldiers are implanted with neural “Mass” technology, which processes their senses and provides them instant data through an augmented-reality interface. “Men Against Fire” is one of the series’ prime examples of a compelling piece of potential technology being wasted by a flat narrative. ![]() If we wanted to feel bad about pop culture’s influence on our body politic, we’d turn on the news. Still, without a more complicated protagonist to sympathize with, “The Waldo Moment” ends up about as ham-fisted as the malevolent dancing bear for which it’s named. This is an outing that gives ammunition to the critics that accuse Black Mirror of one-note technophobia it’s also a reminder of the early identity the show grew past as creator Charlie Brooker developed an interest in higher-concept, more experimental stuff. But just because “The Waldo Moment” is right doesn’t mean it’s particularly artful. It’s tempting to give this episode retroactive points for its prescient warnings about entertainment and politics, and its initially mocking, disturbingly successful attempts to combine the two. The one with … the political cartoon bear Thank goodness Black Mirror returned for a sixth season after a lengthy hiatus, or else the series would have ended with its worst episode. Even with a bloated run time, there’s simply not enough time to explore all of those themes to the show’s usual incisive standard. It has erratic pacing, an inconsistent tone, and a lack of depth in the episode’s analysis of cloning, artificial intelligence, mental illness, pop stardom, and celebrity fandom. Miley Cyrus is wonderful in a semi-autobiographical role, but this episode is the most disjointed one in the show’s run. Whereas the best Black Mirror episodes zoom all the way in on one issue or one manifestation of technology, “Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too” tries to tackle way too much at once. To see how the old and the new stack up, we’ve updated our Black Mirror episode rankings to include Seasons 5 and 6. Instead of peering into the future, Season 6 mostly looked to the past-but that doesn’t mean the analog era was any less terrifying. After a four-year hiatus, Black Mirror returned with five new episodes to remind us, yet again, that technology is just about the scariest thing on earth. ![]()
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