Black Mirror season five dropped last week, and we always have a great time talking about the show, even when we weren’t completely wowed by an episode. See below for a conversation about Black Mirror: Striking Vipers. (Warning, spoilers below.)
Saturday
Hannah
I did watch the first new Black Mirror the other night. Without poisoning the well, I’m curious to know other people’s impressions
Elizabeth
I just watched it too, I’m gonna think about it for a bit and chime in later, I’m curious too.
Also was yours the video game one or Taylor Swift?
Netflix tried to play the Taylor Swift one first, but I watched the one that comes first in the episode list.
Hannah
Video game one
(also do you mean Miley Cyrus?)
Elizabeth
Heh, yes?
I am bad at pop stars.
So, so bad.
Hannah
As someone who now has to clarify her own name with “Hannah Montana,” I am contractually obligated to know that one
Elizabeth
Heh.
Sunday
Kathryn
Hannah, what is the name of the Black Mirror episode you watched?
Hannah
Erm… hang on
Striking Vipers
Kathryn
Thanks!
…
Holy cow. Elizabeth, you watching this Black Mirror episode? I did not see that casting choice coming.
Elizabeth
Hee, watched it yesterday. Hi Sam!
Kathryn
Super impressed with the video game effects so far.
Elizabeth
It’s that zoom-out zoom-in thing they do, to show both fighters at all times in the games, it’s a neat effect with live action fighters.
Kathryn
Yeah, they really nailed the FEEL of the fighter games.
But the story has NOT gone where I expected it to.
Elizabeth
I was waiting for you to get to that moment
Kathryn
I though the initial incident was going to lead to an hour of will-they-or-won’t-they
…
NOPE.
Elizabeth
No they got through that phase pretty damn quick.
Kathryn
“Yeah, I think you ran that analogy into the ground.”
I dunno, I kinda liked the analogy.
Elizabeth
Agreed.
Kathryn
I really like how forthright his wife Theo is. Zero dodging around the issue or pretending she hasn’t noticed something is up.
Oh crap oh crap how badly is this birthday dinner going to go.
Elizabeth
Awk. Ward.
Kathryn
“I fucked a polar bear. And I still couldn’t get you off my mind.”
That has GOT to be the most weirdly and convincingly passionate statement in a TV show ever.
Elizabeth
Heh, I was going to say his logic wasn’t really sound on that one.
“I fucked a polar bear and I still wanted you more.” “Yeah one would hope that’d be the case.”
Kathryn
That episode did not start OR end as expected.
Hannah
Not that it’s badly done but I also feel like it could’ve been 20 minutes shorter
Black Mirror is becoming that person at a party who has an OK story but draws it out just to hold everyone’s attention.
Kathryn
Maybe? I guess it feels weird when a Black Mirror episode ends without someone’s life being undeniably destroyed.
Hannah
Yeah, but its resolution was ultimately “no homo”
Elizabeth
Was it? I felt like everybody but his buddy was living in denial about everything.
Or is that what you meant?
Hannah
I feel like since it was being acted out in a heterosexual way, and they didn’t like it when it was the two of them IRL, it was a bit frustrating like that, yeah.
Kathryn
The look on his and his wife’s face and the pullback on what is probably a completely empty cityscape made me think the writers were making a statement
Like, “You’re kidding yourselves if you think this half and half thing is going to make any of you happy.”
Hannah
I didn’t mind it while I was watching it but I think I’m just underwhelmed in general.
Elizabeth
I think the technology involved is almost too miraculous. His buddy felt the sex as a woman, which changes the dynamic in a way you can’t approximate in our universe.
Hannah
I think that the story is kind of a no-homo cop-out when it’s like “this only works in pretend-land, obviously we don’t like each other when we’re both men, that’s gross.”
Kathryn
That part did kind of muddy the waters.
Elizabeth
Agreed, it’s like they got close to making a statement about gender and sexual fluidity and then backed off by having them kiss and not like it.
Hannah
The story explains the difference, but I still felt like I either take umbrage with the creators for writing it that way, or wish they’d made it more overt that the attraction was a real-world thing, too (even if the physicality was initially awkward.)
They made a head-fake toward exploring romance and then ran away from it.
Kathryn
I almost thought the writers were digging into this idea people have that “If it’s only online then it isn’t REALLY cheating.”
Hannah
Right, but then they didn’t do anything profound with that concept. They sat in it.
Kathryn
They seemed to be taking the “online only” thing a step farther.
“What if it’s between two people who aren’t even physically attracted to each other AT ALL. Is it still cheating then?”
Because technology is pulling us in the direction where people may have lifelong relationships and never even occupy the same timezone.
Hannah
Yeah, I don’t think that’s profound, though. I already knew that was happening.
How an online relationship can change an IRL relationship is interesting.
But they went “nope nope nope”
Kathryn
But people still think it doesn’t really count as cheating if there’s no physical contact.
Elizabeth
Or it’s okay if everybody gets to cheat?
Kathryn
And I think everyone needs to give the same weight to emotional relationships.
*Digital relationships.
Whatever.
But I know the gay community is sick of being an object lesson.
Elizabeth
Right.
Hannah
I don’t know, I think that these are fair questions on the topic, but I didn’t feel like the story accomplished any revelations or even elevated the debate at all.
I think Black Mirror can do that sometimes and still be intriguing, but in this case the technology wasn’t even .that. far beyond current stuff.
Elizabeth
Do you think people who are hard core gamers will have more of a connection with the story?
Because none of us play online games with strangers.
Kathryn
Beyond saying “We should deal with this shit NOW before the technology gets us to this point.”
Hannah
I think we’re already at that point.
Elizabeth
I still think the fact that he was experiencing the sex as a woman changes the whole dynamic, there isn’t a real world analogy I don’t think.
Though a Trans person might feel differently?
Hannah
That’s fair, but it was also only one line that I think got drowned out.
Elizabeth
Interesting, that was the point I got hung up on.
Not that he wanted the sex, but he wanted it as a woman, with that particular guy.
Kathryn
Crap, how did I not catch the fact that the actress playing Roxette also played Mantis in Guardians of the Galaxy?
Elizabeth
OH, that’s where I’d seen her before, damn.
Hannah
About his thoughts on sex as a female character, I didn’t feel like after he said it they made it an actual point in the story. It barely even muddied things
Kathryn
That’s why I keep coming back to the “It’s not real if it’s online ” concept.
Hannah
I don’t know. Your questions are fine but they’re all questions we would’ve (and have) asked and debated without this episode existing. Beyond the bit about the ability to experience things in a different body, I don’t think it added anything.
Elizabeth
Maybe if they’d had him try sex as a different character, a male one, but they didn’t.
Kathryn
Will people be making more and more of a division between the fucking that goes on online and the fucking that happens in the “real” world if we’re not even the same gender online?
Hannah
I just don’t think that’s a new idea.
Or it’s certainly not one that you wouldn’t have thought of before.
Elizabeth
Lot of uproar on twitter about that guy who was pretending to be a woman for years.
It changes the dynamic even if it’s just online.
Hannah
Well I don’t know what else to say. I didn’t think it was clever.
Elizabeth
I liked the effects, and I thought the acting was solid, and the sex was sexy. But it didn’t blow my mind like some of the others. I put it in the category of the one about the soldiers being fed images to make them kill people: interesting concept but the episode didn’t wow me.
Hannah
That’s probably a good comparison. I liked that one but it wasn’t profound either.
Elizabeth
I thought it was a hell of a lot more interesting than the one about the bees.
Kathryn
Bees?
Must have missed that one.
Elizabeth
Where you can vote to kill someone?
Very forgettable.
Kathryn
Ah, I skipped that one on y’all’s recommendation.
Hannah
Apparently some people like that one, but I can’t even follow the the Wikipedia page.
But this one also just didn’t make me curious at all. It was too easy to write off. I don’t want to see what other people are saying because I don’t think there’s enough there to justify discussion, more than just asking the actual questions that you guys have asked, that we could’ve talked about any given day, which is a smarter way to approach these topics and we’d probably find more interesting things to say than “just share him once a year.”
Elizabeth
That part bugged me more, to be honest. An open relationship wouldn’t work for me so I have a hard time accepting it elsewhere, even though lots of people make it work.
Hannah
Yeah, the negotiability of relationships I’ve seen in all kinds of manifestations.
(“seen” = “read about maybe”)
Kathryn
I think the questions were a tad more interesting than the episode itself.
Hannah
Absolutely.
Elizabeth
Agreed.
