Black Mirror, the anthology series that has been enthralling viewers since 2011, offers a chance to again indulge in that happy party game thanks to its sixth season. Which of the five episodes is your favourite? Is it the meta ‘Joan is Awful’, the true crime ‘Loch Henry’, the terrible and tragic ‘Beyond the Sea’, the morality tale ‘Mazey Day’ or the darkly comic ‘Demon 79’? My answer would be all of them, even though if anyone were to put a gun to my head (which sounds like a Black Mirror scenario), I would choose ‘Beyond the Sea’ with ‘Demon 79’ running a close second.
Black Mirror (Season 6)
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A lot has been made of ‘Joan is Awful’, featuring an ordinary woman, middle management in a tech company, Joan (Annie Murphy) suddenly finds her life playing out on the streaming service, Streamberry (the logo looks suspiciously like Netflix) in real-time. Joan in the show is played by Salma Hayek, which is kind of flattering no? There is a hall-of-mirrors effect with Cate Blanchett playing Hayek’s Joan in the show within-the- show and so it goes with the “infinite content creator capable of willing entire multiverses into existence” while the viewers watch in a “state of mesmerised horror.”
Streamberry gets a passing mention in ‘Loch Henry’. A young couple, Pia (Myha’la Herrold) and Davis (Samuel Blenkin) come to Davis’ hometown in Scotland to film a nature documentary on a man who protects birds’ eggs. They stay at the house Davis grew up in where his mum, Janet (Monica Dolan), busies herself cooking elaborate meals for the couple. Davis and Pia are quickly diverted from their lofty ambitions when they hear of the serial killer, Iain Adair (Tom Crowhurst), who tortured tourists to death, rendering the place a ghost town. Davis’ friend, Stuart, (Daniel Portman) feels a true crime documentary on Adair’s grisly crimes will bring the ghoulish tourists back.
When Stuart talks of a show about the guy that killed women, Pia’s wry comment to “Maybe narrow it down” is telling. The story is an effectively chilling take on the horrors that lie under a seemingly beautiful rural landscape.
‘Beyond the Sea’, is set in an alternative 1969 where two astronauts, Cliff (Aaron Paul) and David (Josh Hartnett) are on a six-year deep space mission. There are horribly lifelike mechanical copies of the two men back on earth who spend time with their wives and children. When tragedy strikes, an invitation out of kindness results in disastrous consequences.
Aaron Paul in a still from ‘Black Mirror Season 6’ | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
‘Beyond the Sea’ is a tale of love, grief and rage evoking ancient stories of King David and Bathsheba, King Uther’s desire for Igraine, and also one of the stories Betaal tells King Vikram. The question Betaal asks the king is when a man’s head is switched with another body, who is the true husband, the body or the head? ‘Beyond the Sea’ is a story that stays with you long after the credits roll as you wonder who was wrong and who was right and whether evil was already in the heart even before the cataclysmic event. It is truly a shudder- inducing thought problem.
‘Mazey Day’ tells of a paparazzi, Bo (Zazie Beetz) who stops stalking celebrities when one of her photos causes an actor to commit suicide. She is however lured back into the game when agencies are offering sacks of money for one shot of actor Mazey Day (Clara Rugaard) who has dropped out of sight during a shoot in Czechoslovakia. Morality tale/straight-out horror story, with a shoot-out at the old faithful, the diner, serving awesome pecan pie, loads of blood, guts and gore, ‘Mazey Day’ has lots going for it.
‘Demon 79’ is set in 1979 when there are all sorts of disquieting rumbles, set to the awesome soundtrack of the time. Starting and ending with Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘Bright Eyes’, there is also Boney M’s ‘Rasputin’ and ‘Ma Baker’. Incidentally, the German-Caribbean pop group has an important part in the story as the demon Gaap (Paapa Essiedu) takes on the appearance of Boney M singer Bobby Farrell when he learns that the mousy shoe salesgirl, Nida, (Anjana Vasan) finds Farrell attractive.
Gaap is a considerate demon and tells Nida to do terrible things in the most reasonable way. If she does not do dreadful things, apart from the world going down the toilet, Gaap is doomed to “spend eternity in a vacuum of infinite nothingness” enduring “a profound palpable and ever-present lack of existence alone in perpetuity.” Nida saying that describes her life finds a modern-day echo in all our lives.
The acting is all-around excellent with Dolan, Hayek, Paul, and Hartnett, keeping us riveted with their stellar performances. So beautifully shot, with just enough visual cues to keep us perpetually off-kilter, Black Mirror is a subtle and savage encapsulation of this age of anxiety.
Black Mirror currently streams on Netflix
