Black Mirror Season 1 | How the Episodes Connect - Making Choices
Hi and welcome to chroma film tv, this video is the first in a series I've titled, black mirror connections - taking a look at how the episodes of each season connect to make overall statements about life, choices and Introspection. and without further ado, let's get into it.
Season 1 of Black Mirror included 3 episodes: The National Anthem, 15 Million Merits and The Entire History of You.
Each episode had it's own message, but they all included an overall theme about choice.
In The National Anthem, we meet Prime Minister Michael Callow who is in the throws of a terrorist negotiation, having to make the decision to go along with demands of terrorists or risk the exclusion of Princess Susannah. The Prime Minister ultimately makes a decision that will save the Princess, but will cause him to loose the respect of his family and those he's in charge of leading.
The decision he made went against what he felt comfortable doing, but he did it to maintain his place in society and appease those closest to him in his personal life.
In the end, no one cared about his intentions but instead saw him as a degenerate for his decision.
The message about choice here is to make your own choices based on your independent evaluations. Regardless of what others think, you're the one that has to deal with the final choice you make in the end - and you'll probably have to deal with the consequences alone.
In 15 Million Merits, we meet Bingham Madsen who lives in a world, where everyone lives in a rigid, boxed society, where the highest aspiration is to win on a talent show.
Everything included in life is synthetic and forced - keeping the residents in a numb state of mind.
In my video 15 million merits- what it got right so far, I talked about the technological advancements in this society and linked them to advancements in our world today,
but under the technology is a story about a young man that realized how this life impacted the mental state of everyone in the buildings and addressed how people were not free to think or feel, but were led in a direction that would compromise their well-being on some level.
By the end of the episode, Bing had to make the decision to join the ranks of those he criticized or continue to live a life only valued based on the amount of resources he could generate for the collective.
Some may agree or disagree with his choice, but either way, he ultimately made a decision that undermined the arguments he made about the life that the average person had to lead. Giving him a better life, but also making him akin to a hypocrite.
The message about choice in this episode involves confronting our motives and being real with how dedicated we are to our stances before choosing to ridicule someone for a choice they made.
In the Entire history of you, a device is available that allows the user to view snapshots of their memories and replay them in real time, like a video recording or image. Allowing the viewer to hone in on things they didn't pay attention to when the memory was initially created.
Liam is an attorney and young husband dealing with the impending feeling of rejection after his disappointing interview with his firm. Due to his feelings of inadequacy, he starts to pay close attention to the actions of his wife and goes into a downward spiral that ultimately leads him to removing the chip or the grain as it's called in the episode.
This story, expresses the repercussions of making assumptions and living in the past, putting all of one's focus on the coulda, woulda, shouldas and projecting those feelings onto someone else. He was able to discover things he missed the first time around, but in doing so, he realized he was so focused on his work, that he didn't recognize the disconnect between him and his wife.
The episode makes the statement that unlike the future, the past is something that can't be changed. And spending too much time retracing mistakes can be detrimental for the present and can destroy the future. Instead of taking the time to focus on everything we've done wrong, we should take that energy to come to terms with our past decisions and use what we already know to make better decisions in the future.
Liam recognized this and made the decision to start anew and live his life from that day forward experiencing every moment in the present.
Every season of Black Mirror, with the exception of season 5, had fluid themes about life underneath the dystopian delivery.
Stories with a focus on introspection and warnings about the future states of society once technology is involved.
If you want to watch these episodes, they're currently available on Netflix.
and on that note, have an awesome day - be good to yourself, be good to others, peace.
Image Credits (Video)
Netflix
IMDB
Vimeo
Music
Cymatix