About Personal Space (Black Mirror)
Post 1382:
I haven’t watched Black Mirror in years. It’s always a coin flip whether or not I’m going to take to an episode. The upside—it’s an anthology—one and done. You don’t run the risk of wasting the time involved in watching an entire series, only to find out that the ending is a dud.
So, it definitely has its advantages. And there’s three or four episodes that are straight up brilliant and mind-bending. I love science fiction-thriller stuff. If you can pull off a trippy concept, it’s fantastic.
I decided to pick a random episode from the latest season, called Beyond the Sea. I’ve got a few things to say. If you don’t want spoilers, stop reading stat.
So, we’ve got two astronauts, back in an alternate version of the 60s. They’re aboard a two-man ship that’s out in space on a protracted mission, something like six years. They need each other to survive. This is established early.
Okay, so it gets nuttier. The astronauts, played by Jesse from Breaking Bad and Lucky Number Slevin (Josh Hartnett), have replicas of their bodies back on Earth. To spend time with their families and not go crazy, they can transfer their consciousnesses into their Earth copies when they’re not doing space things. How is this technology a thing in the 60s? It’s a show, and it’s obviously a more advanced 60s than we had.
It’s Black Mirror, so you know some crazy shiz is going to go down. It’s pretty brutal. I don’t recommend this episode for the faint. The family of one of the astronauts gets home-invaded by some smelly hippie cult losers back on Earth. Murdered. And his replica is destroyed. Is there anything worse than Charles Manson non-showering no-reason nonsense-sputtering murderers with names like Astral and Omega? No. Almost nothing is worse than that. Mannnn.
Well, Jesse Pinkman decides it’s a good idea for Unlucky Slevin to use his replica to visit Earth because he's going crazy after the tragedy. This sounds like an obvious recipe for disaster, and it is. But Jesse’s in a pickle. Unlucky Slevin is losing his shiz on the ship because his family got murdered, and Jesse needs him to complete the mission without cracking up. Not like you can call for backup when you’re out in the cold dark of space.
If you watch the episode, you’ll know from the setup that things are going to devolve. It’s a ticking time bomb, but I wouldn’t say it’s completely predictable. They could’ve taken it a few different ways. The premise is actually more feasible than it sounds, a lot owing to the actors and production.
Major themes here. The perils of isolation. The grass is always greener. The desperation of having nothing to lose. I believe the main takeaway is that it’s best not to get stranded with an unstable person aboard a ship hurtling through the cosmos when they have use of your replica body back on Earth and are susceptible to falling in obsessive love with your lonely wife.
We’ve all been there. It’s probably just good to be reminded. Cheers and see you after.
