To jump directly into the spoilers, this episode sees the military fighting a mutated foe of screeching and deformed humanoid creatures. When one character has his implanted enhancements interfered with in some way, it causes them to switch off and he sees that actually these monsters are just people, and that they have been hunting and killing unarmed civilians.
This is delivered in a dramatic way, where we start with the soldiers and quickly come to understand what is happening to Stripe, and therefore what has been decided at a high level. On a near- future level, the episode is interesting in how it sells its own logic. In the same way as the show Utopia was chilling because so much of it ran as logically possible to those with no moral core, so too does this world. Michael Kelly is very well cast as the person to explain it, because he is detached and logical in his justification. This aspect is not as strong regarding the reason they go to war against the roaches, however it works well enough, plus is not as interesting as the concept of helping people kill other people as easily as possible.
I watched this in the first week of 2017, and as a result this episode hit other nerves. These were the way that we already do this without the technology, and so of course we would if we had it. Whether it be the media or the politicians (or more and more, a collusion of both), we already are targeted to not see others as people – and this is not me pushing a liberal agenda here, because it is the same on all sides. However to see Russia, Muslims, white males, feminists, immigrants, and all other groups all being painted as monsters by different groups in order to justify their agenda and goals, it does feel like the same principle as here. This made it seem much closer as an idea and thus more engaging and chilling. The end of the episode is also really good because deep down I think almost everyone would make the same decision that Stripe does – we make it in much smaller ways, so of course we would in that scenario.
Another strong episode of a really good season. When I heard that Netflix had commissioned almost twice as many episodes as Brooker had previously made, I worried that the time-pressure and output would see quality drop but 5 episodes into the 12 and there is absolutely no sign of that.
This is delivered in a dramatic way, where we start with the soldiers and quickly come to understand what is happening to Stripe, and therefore what has been decided at a high level. On a near- future level, the episode is interesting in how it sells its own logic. In the same way as the show Utopia was chilling because so much of it ran as logically possible to those with no moral core, so too does this world. Michael Kelly is very well cast as the person to explain it, because he is detached and logical in his justification. This aspect is not as strong regarding the reason they go to war against the roaches, however it works well enough, plus is not as interesting as the concept of helping people kill other people as easily as possible.
I watched this in the first week of 2017, and as a result this episode hit other nerves. These were the way that we already do this without the technology, and so of course we would if we had it. Whether it be the media or the politicians (or more and more, a collusion of both), we already are targeted to not see others as people – and this is not me pushing a liberal agenda here, because it is the same on all sides. However to see Russia, Muslims, white males, feminists, immigrants, and all other groups all being painted as monsters by different groups in order to justify their agenda and goals, it does feel like the same principle as here. This made it seem much closer as an idea and thus more engaging and chilling. The end of the episode is also really good because deep down I think almost everyone would make the same decision that Stripe does – we make it in much smaller ways, so of course we would in that scenario.
Another strong episode of a really good season. When I heard that Netflix had commissioned almost twice as many episodes as Brooker had previously made, I worried that the time-pressure and output would see quality drop but 5 episodes into the 12 and there is absolutely no sign of that.