![]() ![]() We would pay Plemons to read the Starfleet Spacefleet manual. Seriously, Jesse Plemons’ Shatner impression is so lovingly wrought that it would bring a tear to Spock’s eye. The delightful sets, ridiculous scenarios, and hokey alien encounters would’ve been enough to thrill any Trekker, but the performances bring the tribute to the next level. While “Galaxy Quest” is the ultimate homage to “Star Trek” fandom, “USS Callister” delivers us a brilliant parody of the original series itself, interpreted through the psyche of an anti-social coder. “Black Mirror: USS Callister” Jonathan Prime “Black Mirror” can weave an intricate plot if it wants, but sometimes this kind of focus on one relationship leads to the most satisfying kind of story. And the overriding, conflicted nature of her life-salvaging purchase gives Hayley Atwell the chance to deliver one of the best performances in the run of the series. It’s not easy to imbue a robot with just the right amount of personality to seem both loving and frightening all at once, but it’s a divide that Domhnall Gleason manages to pull off. Proof that the show can do romance just as good as any darker human emotion, the unconventional love story between a woman and the replicated android version of her late husband is a consideration of what makes us human and what we are willing to sacrifice for our own version of happiness. While some of the most potent “Black Mirror” episodes focus on people trying to escape things outside of their control, this episode is proof that getting exactly what you want can be just as paralyzing. “Black Mirror” has always had a fraught relationship with social media, but it’s the way Brooker slips in some insidious cell phone surveillance thread into this story that, along with Chris’ unhinged outbursts, make this the only Season 5 episode to leave the audience with a lingering sense of dread. It’s an uncertain swirl of anger, regret, and doubt that even extends across a transatlantic satellite phone when Topher Grace’s Jack Dorsey-esque tech CEO enters the mix. Both Scott and Damson Idris (as Jaden, the hostage in this international negotiation) anchor the tension here, especially when the two are confined to a car in the middle of an empty field. So if there’s a problem with “Smithereens,” it’s that the tech-based motivation of a distressed rideshare driver Chris (Andrew Scott) seems shoehorned into an otherwise-gripping kidnapping tale. The best episodes of “Black Mirror” feel like they couldn’t exist as part of any other series. “Black Mirror: Smithereens” Stuart Hendry / Netflix (Also, this episode does have Hayek shouting “Paragraph A can suck my dick!” so that’s not for nothing, either.) Time will tell how potent this chapter ends up being outside the context of the ongoing WGA and SAG strikes, which should make for some illustrative future context. Like those, your enjoyment of this is almost entirely dependent on how well you respond to the one track it sets itself and stays on for almost its whole runtime, Salma Hayek-as-herself-subplot and some other trickery notwithstanding. ![]() This show has a growing tradition of episodes based around watching one person melt down as their entire perception of reality is shattered (see also: “Nosedive,” “Entire History of You”). In maybe the strongest “call coming from inside the house” episode of the show so far, Brooker and director Ally Pankiw turn their attention to Joan (Annie Murphy), whose life is inverted when she finds out a streaming series is recreating her life in real time. “Black Mirror: Joan Is Awful” ©Netflix/Courtesy Everett Collection It’s bleak enough to pacify the most masochistic technophobe, but ends with a parting message that offers the faintest bit of hope that the future isn’t as unconquerable as we might think. But what this episode truly delivers is an overwhelming sense of physical terror, the starkest example of characters wrestling with their own bodies - and even their own souls. With allusions to past installments and extensions of others, it’s the “Black Mirror” equivalent of a bonus track. Rolo Haynes (Douglas Hodge) is as good a narrator as he is an unreliable one, making for a tour guide through the show’s cemetery who delights in the twisted artifacts of his own creation. As a road-tripping visitor (Letitia Wright) stops into a gas station collection of technological curiosities, the accompanying trio of shorter stories make for a bizarre trip through the show’s self-contained history. “Black Mirror: Black Museum” Jonathan Prime / NetflixĪs gutsy a season finale that the show’s put forth so far, “Black Museum” is somehow both a love letter to the series and a massive grenade designed to blast it to smithereens. ![]()
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