I don't consider Smithereens to be a top-tier level Black Mirror episode. This is a bit unfortunate, because I also believe that with a few story tweaks it could have been in that upper echelon.
For a very basic overview, Smithereens tells the story of Chris (Andrew Scott), a man who blames the titular social media tech company for keeping peoples' noses buried in phones all day. In an act of revenge, Chris takes Smithereens intern Jaden (Damson Idris) hostage and demands to speak to company found Billy Bauer (Topher Grace) to air his grievances.
The overall concept of Smithereens is wonderful--after years of showing folks grappling with tech-based conundrums, Black Mirror does the first real critique of the entire social media or smartphone medium here. This is a nice progression for the series and even a little ahead of its time (before the general public got smart to what social media apps are truly doing to grab our eyeballs). The overall story of Chris and how his life was affected by that "one phone ping" lends itself nicely to all these considerations.
So, why isn't this a 10/10 master stroke? Because the execution of those high-level themes is not up to par. Instead of more time with Chris, Billy, or musings on social-media-and-tech in general, viewers are left with long sequences of Chris & Jaden sitting in a vehicle while police mill around outside in a fairly generic hostage situation. I know the overall attempt from director James Hawes & writer Charlie Brooker was probably to build some tension, but I think the installment would have been better served overall with more philosophical discussion on the topics at hand and less hostage/police machinations.
That being said, Smithereens hits enough right beats to be a solid Black Mirror tale. But it lacks that "next gear" of character development and storytelling ethos to push it onto "Best Of" lists for the series.
For a very basic overview, Smithereens tells the story of Chris (Andrew Scott), a man who blames the titular social media tech company for keeping peoples' noses buried in phones all day. In an act of revenge, Chris takes Smithereens intern Jaden (Damson Idris) hostage and demands to speak to company found Billy Bauer (Topher Grace) to air his grievances.
The overall concept of Smithereens is wonderful--after years of showing folks grappling with tech-based conundrums, Black Mirror does the first real critique of the entire social media or smartphone medium here. This is a nice progression for the series and even a little ahead of its time (before the general public got smart to what social media apps are truly doing to grab our eyeballs). The overall story of Chris and how his life was affected by that "one phone ping" lends itself nicely to all these considerations.
So, why isn't this a 10/10 master stroke? Because the execution of those high-level themes is not up to par. Instead of more time with Chris, Billy, or musings on social-media-and-tech in general, viewers are left with long sequences of Chris & Jaden sitting in a vehicle while police mill around outside in a fairly generic hostage situation. I know the overall attempt from director James Hawes & writer Charlie Brooker was probably to build some tension, but I think the installment would have been better served overall with more philosophical discussion on the topics at hand and less hostage/police machinations.
That being said, Smithereens hits enough right beats to be a solid Black Mirror tale. But it lacks that "next gear" of character development and storytelling ethos to push it onto "Best Of" lists for the series.