krupocin-1
Joined Mar 2009
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Reviews72
krupocin-1's rating
There are several reviews here calling this episode "masterpiece" or "perfect" and, I understand there's no accounting for taste, but objectively speaking I have no idea how someone could feel that way about this episode unless their exposure to great storytelling, including other episodes of this same series is extremely limited. If this is a 10, what is White Christmas or San Junipero or even Euology from this season?!
First the good, I thought the concept for this was actually fantastic, and the production quality was better than it had any business being. The woman who played Dorothy was amazing, I mean she knocked it out of the park. This is a no spoiler review, so I'll just say the very end of the episode was a nice twist too, not taking the easy way out.
Now for the bad though...as others have said, Issa Rae?!? She's a good writer, but how she has become a thing as an actress is one of life's great mysteries. She is a TERRIBLE actress imo and completely took me out of this. Her character being a respected actress in the world of Black Mirror may be the most far fetched Sci-Fi concept they've come up with. Not only does she have the emotional range of a dead moth, but I found she had 0 chemistry with the other lead actress, who was carrying the both of them. I also think Akwafina can be great given the right kind of material...and this was not it. I respect her as an actress, but this was just not the type of role she excels in.
This was absolutely the weakest point of a season that was otherwise a return to form for Black Mirror, but hopefully in the future, then lean more towards the Giamattis and Christine Millottis than the Issa Raes. This is a series that absolutely needs great performances to make these episodes work, since we are dealing with such abstract and often foreign concepts & technologies. If the emotional authenticity isn't there, it all falls apart.
First the good, I thought the concept for this was actually fantastic, and the production quality was better than it had any business being. The woman who played Dorothy was amazing, I mean she knocked it out of the park. This is a no spoiler review, so I'll just say the very end of the episode was a nice twist too, not taking the easy way out.
Now for the bad though...as others have said, Issa Rae?!? She's a good writer, but how she has become a thing as an actress is one of life's great mysteries. She is a TERRIBLE actress imo and completely took me out of this. Her character being a respected actress in the world of Black Mirror may be the most far fetched Sci-Fi concept they've come up with. Not only does she have the emotional range of a dead moth, but I found she had 0 chemistry with the other lead actress, who was carrying the both of them. I also think Akwafina can be great given the right kind of material...and this was not it. I respect her as an actress, but this was just not the type of role she excels in.
This was absolutely the weakest point of a season that was otherwise a return to form for Black Mirror, but hopefully in the future, then lean more towards the Giamattis and Christine Millottis than the Issa Raes. This is a series that absolutely needs great performances to make these episodes work, since we are dealing with such abstract and often foreign concepts & technologies. If the emotional authenticity isn't there, it all falls apart.
To me this is up there with the best Black Mirror episodes of all time, but for a very different reason. It didn't have a thrilling twist or an idea for a technology or dystopic future that blew my mind. Rather, it was just essentially the evolution of what used to be the low/mid-budget film. This was better acted, paced, and more unique than 99% of these type of films (which now go direct to streaming) in 2025.
Giamatti is one of the great character actors of present day (I actually rode an elevator with him in a NYC apartment building, not realizing who he was at first, when visiting a friend 15 or so years ago and he was a super friendly & warm guy on top of that, despite often playing prickly a-holes, but I digress).
I could see some not liking this as much for the very reason I loved it - this is an episode that uses a unique technology as a vehicle to tell a very human story, one we can all understand even if we haven't experienced it. That's when this show is at its best imo. The tech is a cool idea, but it's not the primary focus of the story. I would argue most of the iconic episodes like USS Callister, The Entire History of You, the Hamm Christmas one I'm blanking on the name of, etc all fall into this category as well. We remember the tech but that's not what makes them affective, it's the very real human emotions like jealousy, insecurity, arrogance, etc that drive these stories and the tech is just how that happens. Compare that with some others like the robot dog ep, or Men Against Fire, or Hated in the Nation, etc and there's some entertaining TV but there's also a reason they're not as iconic and timeless.
Anyway, point being, Black Mirror is back (for the most part) imo after a very disappointing last few seasons, and I'm very happy to see a return to this type of story telling, as opposed to what the last few seasons had become, losing the emotional/human side often, or at least it becoming secondary.
Giamatti is one of the great character actors of present day (I actually rode an elevator with him in a NYC apartment building, not realizing who he was at first, when visiting a friend 15 or so years ago and he was a super friendly & warm guy on top of that, despite often playing prickly a-holes, but I digress).
I could see some not liking this as much for the very reason I loved it - this is an episode that uses a unique technology as a vehicle to tell a very human story, one we can all understand even if we haven't experienced it. That's when this show is at its best imo. The tech is a cool idea, but it's not the primary focus of the story. I would argue most of the iconic episodes like USS Callister, The Entire History of You, the Hamm Christmas one I'm blanking on the name of, etc all fall into this category as well. We remember the tech but that's not what makes them affective, it's the very real human emotions like jealousy, insecurity, arrogance, etc that drive these stories and the tech is just how that happens. Compare that with some others like the robot dog ep, or Men Against Fire, or Hated in the Nation, etc and there's some entertaining TV but there's also a reason they're not as iconic and timeless.
Anyway, point being, Black Mirror is back (for the most part) imo after a very disappointing last few seasons, and I'm very happy to see a return to this type of story telling, as opposed to what the last few seasons had become, losing the emotional/human side often, or at least it becoming secondary.
A few episodes into this show I was in! Despite my overall rating of this show being a 6.5/10 by episode 13, I would give the early episodes and most recent episode a solid 9/10. I thought, wow, a show about the ER that subtly focuses on how the HCPs, patients, and cases reflect the world around them without beating us over the head with a certain point of view - all while capturing the chaos of emergency medicine with a high degree of medical accuracy!
Well, the subtle part did not last. I feel like I am a good person to make this point, because not only have I worked in this setting, but also, I agree with many of the social points they're making on a practical level. I just hate when I feel like a show is preaching at me at the expense of narrative & immersion. It's fine for a show to have a point of view, and medical cases are a good vehicle for this, but it starts to feel like instead of exploring interesting characters, this becomes a tertiary focus, and many of the patients and some of the HCPs just become avatars to preach about some social issue. This would still be ok if it was just shown in an interesting way, but the writers have a tendency to preach and write these things unnecessarily into the dialogue, or go too cliche/unrealistic with the scenario.
These don't really become a big issue until the middle/late episodes (before things pop off, but no spoilers here) so it can feel a little bait and switchy.
There's just WAY too much telling over showing with any social issue, too. One example that comes to mind is an obese patient who was misdiagnosed due to assumptions about her metabolic health, because of her obesity. There's nothing wrong with showing this, in fact it's cool to show how complex diagnosing in this environment is, but after we are shown this and can deduce for ourselves what happened and why it was a problem, we get a doc lecturing another about why they're bad for for doing and why you shouldn't judge an obese person by their obesity. Or the trans woman who comes in and gets called by the wrong name from their insurance, and the doctors treat her with respect in the room. A bit unnecessary story wise but that alone made sense and showed us more about who those characters are, which is great. But then we get one of the doctors stopping her on her way out the room talking about I'm sorry your name was misgendered we need to do better etc etc. There's no need for these afterschool movie moments - just let the scenes speak for themselves!
That brings me to my last point. Some of the acting is bad, and some of the characters are quite grating as a result of this plus some thin writing. On its own it's not a big deal, but with the issues I mentioned above, you need skilled actors to pull some of this off. Dr Robby, Dr Heather Collins, Whittaker, Dr Mel King, the head nurse, they're all fantastic. But for every one of those we have a Santos, Mohan, Javadhi, many of the patients, even Langdon at times, who make this feel like a high school play. These are also some of the more obnoxious characters where it's especially important to have charismatic actors playing them. I mean "SloMo" Mohan specifically, you need a certain kind of person with a magnetism to pull off the "I'm more empathetic than you all" and "I know I'm great" schtick without it being grating and obnoxious.
Anyway, this show is still worthy of watching, but I do hope they address some of these issues for S2 if it returns.
Well, the subtle part did not last. I feel like I am a good person to make this point, because not only have I worked in this setting, but also, I agree with many of the social points they're making on a practical level. I just hate when I feel like a show is preaching at me at the expense of narrative & immersion. It's fine for a show to have a point of view, and medical cases are a good vehicle for this, but it starts to feel like instead of exploring interesting characters, this becomes a tertiary focus, and many of the patients and some of the HCPs just become avatars to preach about some social issue. This would still be ok if it was just shown in an interesting way, but the writers have a tendency to preach and write these things unnecessarily into the dialogue, or go too cliche/unrealistic with the scenario.
These don't really become a big issue until the middle/late episodes (before things pop off, but no spoilers here) so it can feel a little bait and switchy.
There's just WAY too much telling over showing with any social issue, too. One example that comes to mind is an obese patient who was misdiagnosed due to assumptions about her metabolic health, because of her obesity. There's nothing wrong with showing this, in fact it's cool to show how complex diagnosing in this environment is, but after we are shown this and can deduce for ourselves what happened and why it was a problem, we get a doc lecturing another about why they're bad for for doing and why you shouldn't judge an obese person by their obesity. Or the trans woman who comes in and gets called by the wrong name from their insurance, and the doctors treat her with respect in the room. A bit unnecessary story wise but that alone made sense and showed us more about who those characters are, which is great. But then we get one of the doctors stopping her on her way out the room talking about I'm sorry your name was misgendered we need to do better etc etc. There's no need for these afterschool movie moments - just let the scenes speak for themselves!
That brings me to my last point. Some of the acting is bad, and some of the characters are quite grating as a result of this plus some thin writing. On its own it's not a big deal, but with the issues I mentioned above, you need skilled actors to pull some of this off. Dr Robby, Dr Heather Collins, Whittaker, Dr Mel King, the head nurse, they're all fantastic. But for every one of those we have a Santos, Mohan, Javadhi, many of the patients, even Langdon at times, who make this feel like a high school play. These are also some of the more obnoxious characters where it's especially important to have charismatic actors playing them. I mean "SloMo" Mohan specifically, you need a certain kind of person with a magnetism to pull off the "I'm more empathetic than you all" and "I know I'm great" schtick without it being grating and obnoxious.
Anyway, this show is still worthy of watching, but I do hope they address some of these issues for S2 if it returns.