Black Mirror - The Complete Episode Guide E-Book

Nick Naughton

• Herausgeber: epubli
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 241

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

A comprehensive episode guide to the cult science fiction anthology television show, which was first aired on British television in 2011. This book contain in depth reviews, plots, analysis, themes, influences, Easter eggs and other fascinating information about the series. All this and much more awaits in Black Mirror - The Complete Episode Guide!

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Black MirrorThe Complete Episode Guide

Nick Naughton© Copyright 2025 Nick Naughton

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ContentsIntroductionSeries 1The National AnthemFifteen Million MeritsThe Entire History of YouSeries 2Be Right BackWhite BearThe Waldo Moment2014 Special - White ChristmasSeries 3NosedivePlaytestShut Up and DanceSan JuniperoMen Against FireHated in the Nation Series 4USS CallisterArkangelCrocodileHang the DJMetalheadBlack MuseumInteractive Film - BandersnatchSeries 5Striking VipersSmithereensRachel, Jack and Ashley, TooSeries 6Joan Is AwfulLoch HenryBeyond the SeaMazey DayDemon 79Series 7  Common PeopleBête NoireHotel ReveriePlaythingEulogyUSS Callister: Into InfinityPhoto CreditINTRODUCTIONBlack Mirror began way back in 2011 on Channel 4 in Britain with an episode called The National Anthem about the prime minister having sexual relations with a pig to rescue a kidnapped member of the royal family. Although the early episodes are very highly regarded (some feel the show was never quite the same when it moved to Netflix) few who watched The National Anthem would have predicted that Black Mirror would still be going in 2025 and successfully establish a fairly wide international audience. Fantasy anthology shows are nothing new and seemed to be especially popular in the 60s, 70s and 80s. Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Night Gallery, One Step Beyond, Thriller, Journey to the Unknown, Ghost Story, Beasts, A Ghost Story for Christmas, Tales from the Darkside, Tales from the Crypt, Monsters, Perversions of Science, Tales of the Unexpected, Hammer House of Horror, Hammer House of Mystery & Suspense, Ray Bradbury Theater, Amazing Stories etc, etc. The list goes on and on. There are a number of factors to explain why Black Mirror managed to establish itself in such a familiar and venerable genre. A key factor was Black Mirror shrewdly finding its own niche and identity within this genre. Black Mirror is - in the broadest sense - a dark anthology show about technology. Not every episode of Black Mirror is about technology and not every episode of Black Mirror is bleak and dystopian but bleak stories about near future technology (sometimes plausible and sometimes fantastical) are what put the show on the map and what we generally expect when we tune in to watch. The remit of Black Mirror, as far as it has a remit, has been stretched and experimented with over time but the technology theme is still a big part of Black Mirror's identity. Another salient factor in Black Mirror's success is that while anthology shows are still around it hasn't exactly been a vintage time for them of late. Black Mirror is not being compared to Alfred Hitchcock or the original Twilight Zone or Outer Limits. The other (fantasy/horror) anthology shows during the Black Mirror years have been things like Creepshow, a forgettable Twilight Zone revival, and Channel Zero. The greatest anthology show of modern times away from Black Mirror is Inside No.9, but that brilliant BBC show is very British and never got much fame or attention outside of its home country. Black Mirror, thanks to the Netflix platform, was able to get a wider audience and it also broadened its appeal with American based stories and famous guest stars.Black Mirror has therefore enjoyed certain advantages but it would not have lasted so long if it wasn't good. Episodes like White Bear, White Christmas, San Junipero and USS Callister are justifiably lauded as modern anthology television classics. As we'll shall see though not every episode of Black Mirror was a home run and there are plenty of episodes too which seem to divide opinion. That's one of the interesting things about Black Mirror. There is no clear consensus when it comes to rankings. Subjective lists of the best episodes can fluctuate wildly. In the book that follows we will go through every episode of Black Mirror and examine what worked and what didn't. We'll look at the themes, subtexts and influences too. It goes without saying that what follows is merely my own opinion and may differ from your own personal ranking of the episodes. That's fine though because it's all part of the fun of anthology shows. SERIES 1 (2011)THE NATIONAL ANTHEM (Directed by Otto Bathurst, Written by Charlie Brooker)SYNOPSIS - A popular royal named Princess Susannah (Lydia Wilson) is kidnapped. The kidnapper (who obviously keeps his identity hidden) demands that Princess Susannah will only be released if the prime minister Michael Callow (Rory Kinnear) has sex with a pig on live television. If this becomes the only way to save Princess Susannah will the prime minister actually go through with it?REVIEW - The National Anthem was the first ever episode of Black Mirror. Choosing this as the first episode was an interesting decision to say the least because you suspect it might have driven a fair few viewers away! Though the episode is quite well regarded The National Anthem - with its bestiality theme - is definitely not going to be everyone's cup of tea. Despite the ludicrous nature of this premise, The National Anthem is played straight and the ramifications of this highly distasteful and strange scenario and ransom demand are explored. The prime minister - naturally - explores every option to avoid the bestial ransom demand but the kidnapper turns out to be a lot shrewder and elusive than expected. There is also the not inconsiderable question of public opinion. How far is this prime minister really willing to go to secure Susannah's release and his own poll ratings? Well, in this story he is forced to go all the way. The National Anthem was apparently an idea Charlie Brooker had stewing for a long time. His original idea had the beloved late celebrity Sir Terry Wogan forced to have sex with an animal but this eventually changed into a more political sort of story. The early work of Charlie Brooker often went in more for shock value - hence the grim 'high concept' of this story. It is doubtful he'd write a Black Mirror story like this today. A big inspiration for The National Anthem was the case of Gordon Brown and Gillian Duffy. In 2010, Gordon Brown was the prime minister and campaigning (badly) for the impending general election. On the stump in Rochdale, he ended up chatting to a pensioner named Gillian Duffy. Duffy had been a Labour supporter her whole life. In her brief chat with the prime minister she complained about levels of immigration and the state of the economy. When he got in his car and drove off with his aides, the bungling Brown had forgotten to remove his mic so his private conversation was picked up by radio feeds. In his car he berated his aides for making him meet Duffy and basically called her a stupid bigoted woman. It was certainly a revealing insight into what politicians really think of the great unwashed - even the ones who actually vote for them. Brown was castigated for this incident and for the sake of the polls had to go and personally apologise to Gillian Duffy in grovelling fashion. The Brown/Duffy affair was certainly a vague inspiration for The National Anthem then in that ambitious politicians are at the mercy of public opinion - sometimes to the extent that they are forced to do things they really don't want to do. Paying a humiliating visit to Gillian Duffy to apologise in front of TV cameras was probably the last thing Brown wanted to do but he had no choice because an election was coming up and he would have been toast if he hadn't (not that Brown won the election anyway). Another big theme in The National Anthem is the morbid fascination with what you might describe as underground material. The base and tasteless. The horrible. If the BBC put live executions on once a week I'm pretty sure those live executions would probably beat Blankety Blank and Doctor Who in the ratings. Imagine a hypothetical scenario where the prime minister has to have sex with an animal on live television. Though you'd like to think otherwise the ratings would probably be through the roof. But a lot of the people who watched would probably feel ashamed of themselves afterwards. The National Anthem is well aware of this duality. The National Anthem is quite an atypical sort of Black Mirror episode but the theme of technology being a curse as much as it might be a blessing is very prevalent. The prime minister and his team are seeking to quash this ransom demand story and resolve the matter as soon as possible but technology makes that impossible. How do you censor and hide things in the internet age? With great difficulty is the answer. One is reminded of the recent example of the New Yorker article about the Lucy Letby (the nurse convicted of murdering babies in a Cheshire hospital) case being blocked in Britain because she still faced retrials for some of her charges. Anyone in Britain who was interested in the case though could easily read the offending article online if they looked hard enough and circumnavigate the ban. Trying to suppress information in the modern world is complex and difficult. The National Anthem is sort of like an episode of 24 or Spooks crossed with The Thick of It and then sloshed with a liberal sprinkling of Chris Morris style anything goes absurdity and black comedy. The story is surprisingly plausible for a good chunk of the running time (despite the fact that in reality the government has an official policy of not negotiating with terrorists and no prime minister in their right mind would have actually gone through with the ransom demand - no matter what the fallout might be from such a refusal) although the ultimate denouement doesn't feel very credible. In reality it is rather hard to believe that a politician would have intercourse with an animal on live television and then resume their political career as if nothing had happened! If one was the participant/victim in such a scenario - whatever the circumstances or motivation or indeed result of your actions - you'd probably never show your face in public again.I suppose the most basic message in The National Anthem is that politicians will sometimes do anything to further their career. This is not strictly true though. Politicians, however much we may dislike a great many of them, do have their limits. If such a ransom scenario happened in real life Sir Kier Starmer is not going to have relations with a pig on television. The National Anthem is basically then a grim sort of fantasy episode with some cynical jabs at politics and a commentary on the herd like qualities of public opinion. The National Anthem is not my favourite episode of this show and not something I tend to rush back to watch again (the bestiality theme is icky and unpleasant and betrays the more juvenile 'shock' quality to Brooker's early work) but it is a solid and gripping drama for what it is and has a fine supporting cast with the likes of Lindsay Duncan and Donald Sumpter. When people say they prefer the early Channel 4 very British version of Black Mirror it is episodes like The National Anthem they are probably thinking about. That dark and depressing sort of quality which felt very Black Mirror. It wasn't really until the Netflix years that Black Mirror gave us some more optimistic and sentimental sort of stories and even some happy endings. What is interesting about the viewing figures for season one of Black Mirror in Britain is that The National Anthem accrued over two million viewers and then the following week's episode (Fifteen Million Merits) slumped to 1.5 million - losing over half a million viewers from the previous week. You probably don't need to be Columbo to work out why there was a drop. A lot of people watched The National Anthem and went - thanks but no thanks, this show is gross. The National Anthem is unpleasant in places and won't be for everyone but the bleak absurdity of the premise is also the reason why many like this episode a lot. The next episode would be very different - which is hardly surprising because, lest we forget, this is an anthology show!There was a method to the madness when it comes to The National Anthem because Charlie Brooker said they deliberately chose to have a wild and controversial sort of concept in the first episode as a sort of means to give the show some publicity and get people talking. Although the viewing figures dipped after this initial story you could argue that The National Anthem did its job because this did become an infamous episode of the show and one that people definitely wouldn't forget in a hurry. So you could say that The National Anthem laid for the foundations for Black Mirror. Though not exactly a blueprint for the type of episode you would get in the future (The National Anthem is something of a one-off) it did indicate that all bets would occasionally be off in Black Mirror and this was a show that could take you to some surprising places. In a television landscape where shows can sometimes be samey and safe this was an interesting and effective hook for the show going forward. It made people feel that with Black Mirror they stood a chance of getting something very different and perhaps even unique from time to time.The ransom demand in The National Anthem turns out to be the work of an artist named Carlton Bloom. Bloom releases Princess Susannah before the prime minister has sex with the pig but news of this doesn't travel fast enough to stop Callow going through with the act. Over a billion people watch the live broadcast and Bloom commits suicide. His worst fears about humanity have been confirmed. His grotesque 'performance art' was treated by the public as something akin to a live football match. Everyone was complicit. The public soon forget about the broadcast and go back to their lives. The prime minister has a poll boost. But by the end of the episode his marriage is broken beyond repair. He is the person who paid the biggest price.One of the interesting things about this episode is that we have to put ourselves in the position of the prime minister. If we were in his position we definitely wouldn't go through with the ransom demand. No way. But what if a life was on the line? Would we go through with the act with the pig to save a life? Well, a lot of us still probably wouldn't go through with the act - not even to save Princess Susannah. It is not saving a life that primarily motivates the prime minister though. It is his public reputation and his family. So this story has a deeper cynical subtext about politicians. One potential plot hole in this episode is that Bloom sends the authorities a finger as proof he has Princess Susannah. It turns out to be one of his own fingers he cut off. One would presume the authorities would be able - through DNA testing - to establish this was not really Princess Susannah's finger. The National Anthem, as it edges ever closer to its grim and shocking conclusion, becomes quite uncomfortable to watch - which is though the point. We, the viewer, are also becoming complicit in this dreadful performance art stunt. The National Anthem is what you might describe as morbidly compelling. It is horrible but we can't turn away - a lot like the people watching the act the prime minister is forced to take part in. This episode is weird and quite unpleasant in the end but it is well made and well acted. Though not to all tastes it set a dark 'all bets are off' sort of template for Black Mirror that the show sometimes struggled to live up to and sometimes patently wasn't interested in living up to anyway. Though the show would run for several more seasons there was nothing quite like The National Anthem ever again. And this is why it was chosen as the first episode. To get people talking and give Black Mirror plenty of publicity. The National Anthem, for better or worse, is a memorable entrance for Black Mirror and put the show firmly on the map. FIFTEEN MILLION MERITS(Directed by Euros Lyn, Written by Charlie Brooker & Kanak Huq)SYNOPSIS - Fifteen Million Merits depicts a nightmarish future world where a group of people in a Big Brother style compound are constantly surrounded by entertainment screens pumping out porn, prank shows and reality television. They live in some sort of constrictive underground high-tech facility and must peddle bikes to generate electricity and thus earn money for essentials and also extra entertainment options on the screens which cover the walls of the tiny rooms they sleep in. They appear to be virtual prisoners in this tedious little world and the only means of escape is to be get hired on one of the moronic talent shows being pumped into their rooms 24/7. "Bing" Madsen (Daniel Kaluuya) decides that he will use the 'merits' he has earned on the exercise bikes to help Abi Khan (Jessica Brown Findlay) enter a talent show called Hot Shot. Bing has taken a shine to Abi and also noticed that she has a lovely singing voice. However, things do not quite go the way Bing might have hoped...REVIEW - Fifteen Million Merits is the first Black Mirror episode which feels like the broad stereotype of a Black Mirror episode. The technology and digital landscape depicted here is sort of like our world except MORE - much more. This is also the first overtly dystopian story in the show. The world in Fifteen Million Merits is apparently some sort of near future society where people are confined to bunkers or silos. We never get this world explained or see outside. It could be the case that some nuclear or ecological disaster has occurred but we simply don't know. Maybe there is still a world outside but these people are not permitted to go there? It's up to the viewer to fill in the blanks for themselves. The characters in this world seem to be pretty low on the class system - but some of them do look down their nose at the cleaners so have the illusion of being mildly important or privileged even if they are not. These poor blighters having to peddle on bikes all day for little reward is an obvious commentary on the often pointless drudgery of work. How many of us, at some point in our lives, have done some tedious low-wage job that did little to alter our financial circumstances? So most of us can, in a roundabout sort of way, relate to the characters in Fifteen Million Merits trapped in this little hamster wheel existence that seems to go nowhere. It is never even made clear in this story if all the furious bike peddling is actually accomplishing anything or merely a ruse to keep these people occupied. So you could describe this episode as Kafkaesque in the way it sets up this little nightmare world where nothing seems to make much sense. This episode was co-written by Charlie Brooker's wife Konnie Huq (billed as Kanak Huq on the credits). Konnie Huq is best known in Britain as a former presenter on the famous kids TV show Blue Peter, but she later had a stint as a presenter on The Xtra Factor - which was a companion show to The X Factor. The X Factor, as you hardly need reminded, is a singing talent show presided over by Simon Cowell. Talent shows of this ilk are hardly a new idea. Decades ago there were shows like Opportunity Knocks and The Gong Show. The X factor (and others) dusted off this ancient format and gave it a modern twist. This format was now slicker but also nastier - with more sarcasm and ruthlessness expected of the judging. Some people find these shows distasteful in the way they reduce contestants to the status of performing monkeys to be mocked and judged but there are never any shortage of participants willing to try their hand and take that shot (however unlikely) at instant fame. Fifteen Million Merits riffs on the modern talent show landscape of television with Rupert Everett's Judge Hope on Hot Shot clearly inspired by Cowell. Konnie Huq said her experience of X-Factor opened her eyes to the fact there seem to be vast swathes of young people who have no other ambition but to be famous - even if they don't appear to have any obvious talent to facilitate this goal. Who needs qualifications or a trade if you intend to be famous? The real world holds no appeal for these fame hungry day dreamers. And this is where reality television and talent shows come in. They offer a small fleeting window of opportunity which doesn't exist in the real world. A means of potential escape from harsh reality. Thanks to Bing saving up his merits, Abi is able to get a ticket to sing on the talent show Hot Spot. Her performance of Anyone Who Knows What Love Is (Will Understand) - which will become a recurring theme song of Black Mirror and features in White Christmas, Men Against Fire, Crocodile, Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too, Joan is Awful and Common People - goes down well but this all counts for nothing in the end. The judges imply they simply don't have room for another good singer because they already have plenty of those. Being a good singer is not an especially prized commodity in this society it seems. They don't appear to have room or an appetite for too many of them. Judge Wraith (Ashley Thomas) suggests instead that, as an alternative to being a singer, Abi become a 'Wraithbabe' - one of the performers on his porn channel. Wraith is not interested in singers but he is always on the lookout for young women to turn into porn performers. The onlooking Bing is mortified by this turn of events but Abi, in a vulnerable state thanks to some sort of sedative (Cuppliance) she has been given as a drink agrees. So it transpires that Abi's only means of escape from the hamster wheel is to do porn. In a sense then, Fifteen Million Merits is even more relevant today in the age of OnlyFans - where women can make much more money taking their clothes off than they might have done singing or acting or working a regular job. Abi has become nothing more than a commodity. Nothing more than flesh on a screen. Despite her talent as a singer and nice personality she is only useful to this grim society as fresh meat on Wraithbabes. So this episode continues the bleak Black mirror aura established by The National Anthem. Fifteen Million Merits shows that you don't need a huge budget to make a good episode of Black Mirror. This episode has quite a constrictive feel and is very studio bound but it is well designed and atmospheric and the nightmarish near future society it depicts is strangely believable. It doesn't feel as if we are too far off this society ourselves. Living standards have collapsed and culture becomes ever more moronic. Bing is distraught when Abi is dragooned into becoming a porn star. He is forced to watch commercials for Wraithbases featuring Abi in his room on the screens which surround him. If he tries to cover his ears a high pitched screech is deployed and he can't look away because the screens follow him around. This is a truly horrific detail. If we watch YouTube or television most of us mute the commercials or simply look at something else while we wait for whatever annoying advert is playing to end. What if you were forced to watch all the commercials though? What if you didn't have the option to avoid them? That would be horrific wouldn't it? Being forced to watch every single moronic commercial. The chilling thing about this detail in Fifteen Million Merits is that we know companies and advertisers in our own (real) society would love to do this if they could! There are websites where the commercials follow you down the screen if you scroll down. Fifteen Million Merits presents this advertising tactic and amplifies it to a terrifying degree. So you could say that Fifteen Million Merits, like the best Black Mirror stories, works as a sort of five minutes into the future nightmare. This is science fiction but not science fiction which feels implausible. You just take the worst instincts of corporations and technology companies and picture what they will be like a few years down the line. Fifteen Million Merits clearly takes some inspiration from the Mike Judge film Idiocracy with its depiction of a dumbed down society which is fed the lowest common denominator when it comes to entertainment. It's a landscape which doesn't seem far-fetched at all when you peruse the television channels on a Saturday night. The characters in Fifteen Million Merits are trapped in a mindless soul-destroying world of pornography, commercials and reality television. The shallow society they are forced to endure mirrors some of the more mindless aspects of our own. Bing vainly attempts to shatter this world, or at least deliver a few home truths, by saving up to get on Hot Shot himself. Once on stage he threatens to kill himself with a shard of glass and launches an impassioned speech castigating the judges and this world for (to borrow an old phrase) knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing. Rather than shatter this society with truth bombs, Bing is rewarded with his own show - where he dispenses these rants against the system for entertainment. He, just like Abi, has been commodified. His rants are not changing anything. The system is merely patronising him. Bing now has more lavish quarters - the virtual screen now depicting a forest rather than pornography or a moronic prank show. Bing has sold out. There is no escape. He has swapped one prison for another. Fifteen Million Merits, oddly, was initially judged to be quite a weak episode of the show by critics but has grown in stature over the years as Black Mirror has run and run. While the episode is not wholly original and takes on some rather obvious targets it does have a lot of Black Mirror essence with its downbeat aura and the absurd system technology has imposed on these people. Daniel Kaluuya and Jessica Brown Findlay are good as the two leads and there are memorable supporting turns by the likes of Julia Davis and Rupert Everett. Over time this has come to be seen as one of the strongest episodes in the show and gives you more or less all you would expect from an early Black Mirror episode. It's a nightmarish look at the worst aspects of our society through the prism of a near future that we may or may not manage to avoid ourselves. THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF YOU (Directed by Brian Welsh, Written by Jesse Armstrong)SYNOPSIS - In the future people are implanted with a device called a 'grain' which records everything they see and hear. This gives them the ability to play back old memories and events and see them exactly as they occurred. So you can basically rewind back through your life and watch the recording (from your POV obviously) of any given moment you witnessed. A lawyer named Liam Foxwell (Toby Kebbell) attends a party with his wife Ffion (Jodie Whittaker) and becomes aware and irritated by the chemistry and familiarity she seems to have with the suave Jonas (Tom Cullen). Liam becomes more and more paranoid and jealous about what might have happened between Ffion and Jonas - the thought that his child might not even be his own but rather that of Jonas eventually becoming his ultimate fear. Ffion insists that Liam is being paranoid but is she telling the truth? The 'grain' technology provides the increasingly frazzled Liam with a possible way to find out...REVIEW - This episode was written by Jesse Armstrong of Peep Show and Succession fame. There is though none of the humour in The Entire History of You we've come to expect from Armstrong's work. This is a bleak episode which revolves around a crumbling relationship and Liam's futile and doomed attempt to retrospectively gain some sort of control over every aspect of his wife's past. The moral of this story is that technology has its limits. What's done is done and no matter how clever our inventions become they can't rewrite the past. And if you forensically trawl through the past in obsessive fashion the chances are you are going to find something you don't like in the end. So this episode is basically then a relationship drama with a technological theme as opposed to an overt science fiction or horror/fantasy episode. The acting is good in this episode - especially Jodie Whittaker as Ffion. This episode came out six years before Whittaker was cast as the Thirteenth Doctor in Doctor Who. Whittaker got her fair share of criticism for what was an underwhelming era of Doctor Who but The Entire History of You indicates she is an accomplished supporting actor and probably better suited to that than being someone you'd stick front and centre as the lead of a show. The grain technology in this story is an implant which goes behind the ear. The ramifications of this technology are mentioned early on when Liam learns that law firms are using it for cases where people are taking legal action against their parents for not showing them enough love when they were children! Liam is troubled by the ethics of this application but will go on to use the technology in a way that one might argue is equally troubling. The Entire History of You is the earliest example of what you might argue is a mild weakness in Black Mirror - and something which does occasionally become a trifle grating in the show. Black Mirror is not very good at depicting realistic ordinary people - to the extent that we rarely see them in the show. The characters in Black Mirror are more often than not upper middle class and catalogue model handsome. These people are not hugely relatable. They live in luxurious houses, have posh dinner parties, and work in professional occupations or the arts or in some swanky office. The characters in the show often represent this little metropolitan well heeled bubble of the type that Charlie Brooker is presumably very familiar with.