The new season of
Black Mirror is a doozy, readers. I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with this show. It's absolutely brilliant writing, but there are episodes that are so dark (looking at you, the PILOT), that it's difficult to watch them. I'll never watch some of them again. Other episodes I've seen over and over and over. The new season has more of the latter, as Charlie Booker was aiming for a bit of a lighter tone.
USS Callister is one of those episodes that I'll watch over and over. I like
Black Mirror best when it's interested in not just the darkest sides of our relationship with technology, but also the ways that humanity survives around that darkness.
USS Callister is that kind of episode, walking the line between exploring our depths and exploring how strong we can be.
To say too much about the plot of the episode would be to absolutely ruin it, so I won't. But here's what I will say- the episode centers around one of my greatest real world fears (dangerously, murderously entitled nerd boys who feel under-appreciated) and uses it to build out one of the coolest scifi worlds I've ever seen. Seriously, there's discussion of a
USS Callister spin off series and I am 100,000% here for it.
Besides this very clever world bolstered by the writing, the performances in this episode are stellar. Jimmi Simpson is a regular here on the blog because we both love him so much, but Cristin Milioti, Jesse Plemons, and Michaela Coel all give outstanding turns here. They're all asked to walk a pretty difficult line, and they make it look easy in the best way. Plus, there's that signature
Black Mirror gorgeous cinematography that we all love.
So listen, friends, readers, here's the thing. In the next few months
there is an awful lot of awesome coming up.
The Black Panther, the
100th episode of
Agents of SHIELD, Annihilation, the premiere of
Good
Girls,
A Wrinkle In Time, Jodi Whitaker starting in
Doctor Who... The
list goes on and on and on. And believe you me, we will surely have
opinions on all of those things. But this week, we have about a zillion projects going on plus day-job intensity for us both plus a few looming deadlines. So for now we're hunkered down, writing horror and watching Fresh Off The Boat so we can sleep at night. See ya next week!
Happy Watching,
CT
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