Category: Black Mirror

For Cooper, trying to escape from the stress of his home life with his mother means quietly leaving without a word to travel the world. From Australia to Spain to England, Cooper’s carefree voyage of self-discovery is almost over. His mother keeps calling, and Cooper keeps declining her call. He hooks up with a British video game journalist named Sonja, a fortuitous meeting since it appears that he’s maxed out his credit card and can’t buy a ticket back to the States. Sonja points him toward a paid playtesting opportunity that should provide Cooper with the money he needs to get home. The game in question is an augmented reality horror experience that draws upon the player’s own memory to conjure his worst fears. From spiders to childhood bullies to a decidedly more deadly version of Sonja, Cooper is scared out of his wits and wants the game to end. But the damage may already be done: the lines between reality and the game are blurred, and Cooper may never see the real world again.

written by Charlie Brooker
directed by Dan Trachtenberg
music by Bear McCreary

Cast: Wyatt Rssell (Cooper), Hannah John-Kamen (Sonja), Wummi Mosaku (Katie), Ken Yamamura (Shou Saito), Elisabeth Moynihan (Cooper’s Mum), Jamie Paul (Rick Peters), Jessica Neil (Scared Girl On Plane)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Kenny lives a very average teenage life, but within that lies a particularly disturbing vice – one which comes back to haunt him when an unidentified hacker e-mails Kenny video from his own computer’s webcam. The hacker, now communicating with Kenny via text message, informs him that he will be “activated” at some point in the future, and must follow instructions to avoid a leak of the webcam video that will ruin Kenny’s life. When Kenny does receive instructions, he finds himself encountering a succession of others who are being similarly blackmailed, each receiving their own instructions via text message. Kenny and Hector, a middle-aged man whose own indiscretions have left him vulnerable to blackmail, are instructed to rob a bank. As Hector follows instructions to dispose of their getaway car, Kenny’s next orders make him wonder how much worse things are going to get for him.

written by Will Bridges & Charlie Brooker
directed by James Watkins
music by Alex Heffes

Cast: Alex Lawther (Kenny), Jerome Flynn (Hector), Susannah Doyle (Blackmailed Woman), Frankie Wilson (Tom), Jimmy Roye-Dunne (Red), Hannah Steele (Melissa), Sarah Beck Mather (Restaurant Mother), Beatrice Robertson-Jones (Restaurant Daughter), Maya Gerber (Lindsay), Camilla Power (Sandra), Ivanno Jeremiah (Moped Man), Maiam Haque (Petrol Station Attendant), Natasha Little (Karen), Nicola Sloane (Bank Clerk), Paul Bazely (The Man in the Woods), Leanne Best (Penny)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

After her three-year-old daughter Sara causes a scare by wandering away from a public park looking for a stray cat, Marie has Sara implanted with a device called Arkangel, still in the trial phase, allowing Marie to look at a tablet and immediately see Sara’s location, vital signs, and even what Sara sees. She can even control what Sara sees with a filter system that can audiovisually censor any input causing the girl undue stress, though within a few years she drops the filter and lets Sara see the world as it really is. The Arkangel product line is eventually abandoned, and Marie puts away the tablet…until Sara’s rebellious adolescence arrives, and then Marie resumes surveillance of Sara’s every move and begins intervening in her daughter’s life, with disastrous consequences.

written by Charlie Brooker
directed by Jodie Foster
music by Mark Isham

Cast: Rosemarie Dewitt (Marie), Brenna Harding (Sara), Owen Teague (Trick), Angela Vint (Anaesthetist), Jason Weinberg (Surgeon), Nicholas Campbell (Russ), Aniya Hodge (Sara, age 3), Sabryn Rock (Pippa), Edward Charette (Young Man at Park), Carlos Pinder (Man who finds Sara), Jenny Raven (Jasmine), Paul Braunstein (Anthony), Sarah Abbott (Sara, age 9), Nicky Torchia (Trick, age 12), McKayla Twiggs (Meryl, age 9), Kaleb Young (Cal, age 10), Matt Baram (Dr. Usborne), Michelle Cornelius (Schoolyard Teacher), Kaden Stephen (Boy in Fight), Abby Quinn (Meryl), Tosh Robertson (Hiro), Dempsey Bryk (Cal), Ronica Sajnami (Store Employee), Michelle Groux (English Teacher), Edie Inksetter (School Nurse)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Incident 1: Driving home across Iceland from a concert, young couple Mia and Rob run over a bicyclist, killing him. They drag the body, his belongings, and his bike over to the edge of a lake, throwing him in to get rid of any evidence.

Incident 2: 15 years have passed, and Mia is now a successful businesswoman with her own family. But Rob shows up to tell her that he’s finally found the identity of the man they accidentally killed 15 years ago, and intends to write an anonymous letter to his still-grieving family. An argument becomes a struggle, and Mia kills Rob and disposes of his body, witnessing an accident involving a pedestrian outside shortly afterward.

Incident 3: Shazia, an insurance adjuster, carries around a portable device that can retrieve and record people’s memories, a normal part of her job in settling accident claims. Her investigation into a recent accident involving a pedestrian leads her to Mia, unaware that attempting to probe Mia’s memories could be the last thing she ever does. But at what point is Mia finished killing?

written by Charlie Brooker
directed by John Hillcoat
music by Atticus Ross, Leopold Ross and Claudia Sarne

Cast: Andrea Riseborough (Mia Nolan), Kiran Sonia Sawar (Shazia Akhand), Andrew Gower (Rob), Anthony Welch (Anan Akhand), Claire Rushbrook (Police Detective), Joshua James (Gordy), Noni Harper-Brown (Adelle Leonce), Brian Pettifer (William Grange, Dentist), Jamie Michie (Simon Nicholls), Armin Karina (Farshad, Hotel Receptionist), Stefan Orn Eggertsson (Finn Nicholls), James Eeles (DC Lydon), Olafia Hronn Jonsdottir (Felicity Carmichael), Diljia Imana (Ali Akhand), Sigurdur Sigurjons (Room Service Man)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

As arranged by an artificial intelligence called Coach, which handles dating and matchmaking, Frank and Amy are randomly paired together. As with all of Coach’s matches, an “expiry date” is set, giving Frank and Amy 12 hours in an isolated cabin to get to know each other, but regardless of how well it goes, in 12 hours each will be picked up by a self-driving car, and Coach will pick their next partner. Frank is then paired with a girl who seems to show irritation at everything he says, and is alarmed to finds that Coach has decided this relationship will last for a full year. Amy’s next relationship is predetermined to last nine months. But when Amy and Frank bump into one another at a party, it heightens their respective relief that their current relationships are only temporary. Some time after that, Coach puts Frank and Amy together again, and they mutually agree not to look at the expiry date of their relationship. But when Frank’s curiosity gets the best of him, it seems he and Amy have no future.

written by Charlie Brooker
directed by Tim Van Patten
music by Alex Somers and Sigur Ros

Cast: Georgina Campbell (Amy), Joe Cole (Frank), Gina Bramhill (voice of Coach), George Blagden (Lenny), Gwyneth Keyworth (Nicola), Jessie Cave (Edna), Luke Manning (Mike), Tim Pritchett (Norman), Alex Tamaro (Butch), Che Watson (Silverfox), Bruce Chong (David), Anna Dobrucki (Patty)

Notes: The episode’s title is a lyric from the Smiths’ 1986 single “Panic” which coincides neatly with how Frank and Amy feel about their other partners – “Burn down the disco / Hang the blessed DJ / Because the music that they constantly play / It says nothing to me about my life”. The song’s closing refrain plays over the end credits.

LogBook entry by Earl Green