Black Mirror
New season on Netflix now
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markg wrote:
Fleetwood is very beautiful. You just need to stand on the beach and look at the Lake District (but ignore the nuclear power station).

I tease! In fact, I flew over Fleetwood in Google Earth VR last night. There's some funky shaped buildings down the coastline towards Blackpool
I think you'all are overthinking Metalhead. It was an incredibly tense and well directed episode. I found the robo-dog much scarier than either the xenomorph or Arnie in T1. Yes, it didn't explore many more complex issues like some other episodes, but that wasn't what the episode was about. Being minimalistic helped a lot, i think.
markg wrote:
Fleetwood is very beautiful. You just need to stand on the beach and look at the Lake District (but ignore the nuclear power station).


Their Apple Store is top notch too.
DavPaz wrote:
I flew over Fleetwood in Google Earth VR last night.

I knew it wasn't a Blue Moon!
I've watched this all now.

Seemingly controversially, the Jodie Foster one (Arkangel) was my favourite of season 4.

White Bear is still my favourite of the entire series, though.
Arkangel was incredibly predictable.
Did you see the birth control bit or the ending coming?
I saw your mother coming.
I've been drinking.
Grim... wrote:
Did you see the birth control bit or the ending coming?


The ending
New episode at midnight!
I can't see anything new on Netflix.
Hearthly wrote:
I can't see anything new on Netflix.

You missed it. It was at midnight.
We tried, and given the topic and setting (I was 7 in July '84!) I was really enthusiastic, but gave up within about 20 minutes of linear story - the progress bar at the point we gave up was barely started - and from what we saw there's really no point selecting anything but the default option.

I might have a default-through after Helen's gone to bed one night but I doubt have much energy for it.
Wait, what?

Does it have cleverness?
You know it's a multi-path choose your own adventure, no?
Like that tv series with Tony Robinson?
I have just finished it and thought it was awesome, although I'd want it to be a daring one-off rather than a new model for Black Mirror or indeed telly/film in general.

It'll get another run off me (although the limitations are pretty clear even from just one), and I admire its audacity - even though I understood from the off that I was playing a digital version of the 'branching story books' from the 80s, the programme knows it's that as well so I was cool with it.

It worked 100% seamlessly on my XB1X, with no issues whatsoever (streaming/controls/ease of use).

All that said, let's just have it as a really cool 'one of'.
Yeah, I watched it and thought it was great. Just like a video game... In fact, exactly the same as a game called 'Late Shift' which I've recently played.

I watched it via the Xbox One and it was perfect. The controller rumbled every time you had to make a choice. Nice touch.
@hearthly it did a weird framing thing when we chose the wrong option too many times, but yeah, a good implementation.

However that seamlessness doesn't come without platform investment of the sort that is used once then left orphaned. I'm not suggesting more black mirror, but they must have one or two more for other demographics/markets before they bin it, I would've thought.

@thevision that tiny detail is the thing that really stood out for me. All the money in tech, CGI, scenery and props paid dividends, we just didn't like it.

ZOMG Spoiler! Click here to view!
the fluidity of the animation on the player sprite in nosedive wound me up though. And I saw it a few times because I was seeing how obnoxiously wrong it's prepared to let you be (not very, even that early on)
I've just been playing Nohzdyve on an emulator. You can get it from here.

https://www.tuckersoft.net/ealing20541/nohzdyve/

Very clever!
There's a few interactive shows on Netflix currently. I went through a Puss in boots one with the kids.

My point is: it was probably Netflix that suggested it, not Brooker
Trooper wrote:
You know it's a multi-path choose your own adventure, no?

I do now.
Grim... wrote:
Trooper wrote:
You know it's a multi-path choose your own adventure, no?

I do now.


Then my work here is done.

It's taken 42 years of life experiences, everything has been leading up to this single moment. Every choice has led us both here, and at any point either of us could have messed up and missed a key option, but yet we did it!

Well done dude, I'm proud of you, I'm proud of me, I'm proud of us.
I thought this was very smart and cleverly done, but not massively entertaining.

ZOMG Spoiler! Click here to view!
Then the show pre-empted me with the bit in the shrink's office about how if it was really a game it would be more entertaining! Smart.
Someone flowcharted it all, because, of course they did.

SPOILERS obvs if you haven't seen it.

Attachment:
banders.png
Dialup sound on bus. Now I feel old.
Joans wrote:
Dialup sound on bus. Now I feel old.

That wasn't dialup, that was a tape loading sound. I reckon you could load it.
Grim... wrote:
Joans wrote:
Dialup sound on bus. Now I feel old.

That wasn't dialup, that was a tape loading sound. I reckon you could load it.


You can indeed. I think it's a link to the website so you can download that Nozedyve game.
The author was played by Jeff Minter!
Grim... wrote:
Joans wrote:
Dialup sound on bus. Now I feel old.

That wasn't dialup, that was a tape loading sound. I reckon you could load it.

Sorry, that's what I meant. Every flow chart I saw described it as a dial up sound (because obviously you'd be listening to a dial up sound on your walkman in 1984). Presumably everyone writing the charts was barely old enough to remember what dial up sounded like, let alone recognise what it actually was.

And yeah, as the Vision said, you could load it into a spectrum/emulator and it gave you a QR code taking you to the Tuckersoft website.
I'm bumping this because:

a) New episodes

and

b) I've finally watched Season 1 episode 3, The Entire History of You. Damn thing got my heart racing with tension. Superbly acted. Left so many questions unanswered, which is a good thing. Going to squeeze a few more in this week.
I might be the only person here who thinks the majority of Black Mirror is just meh. A handful of brilliant episodes but the rest just retreads very similar things over and over in different settings.
I watched one episode
Tweren't verr gud.
I watched the first episode of the new season and thought it was a fine entry in the Black Mirror library, although not one of the best.

Deliberately only watched one episode, I'll do the other two new episodes over the next two evenings.
Well, I guess I'm blogging this now... (There are uncovered spoilers here)

Season 2 Episode 1: Be Right Back.

After the three gut-wrenching stories from Season 1, I imagine this one would've been a bit of a surprise for fans of the show. Gone is churned stomach of "The National Anthem", the bleak despair of "Fifteen Million Merits" and general creeping horror of "The Entire History of You" and in their place is a slow paced, deeply human story of sadness and loss.

The series' overall theme of TECHNOLOGY BAD is challenged when a lonely, grieving and newly pregnant woman is given the chance to speak to an AI simulation of her dead boyfriend (husband? I don't think they say either way). The BAD TECH here is an unnamed and unseen entity that can recreate a dead person from their online persona. At first Martha is horrified, then comforted and finally dependent on the virtual presence of her dead companion. Things only get weird when she stumps for the upgrade package.

Anyone who's lost a close friend or relative will be able to sympathise with the overwhelming blanket of grief that lays heavy on this episode, even before the actual death about a third of the way in. Ash (the boyfriend) has no family left and seems lost and morose when in his old home, taking refuge in his phone and his online life. Even Martha seems to be grieving for something. Perhaps a spark that used to be in the relationship has sputtered out, but something is definitely missing from their lives.

Overall, I enjoyed this episode. It lacked the horror and the ickyness of Season 1, but had a believable, relateable and not too far-fetched story. The acting was superb with Domhall Gleeson being particularly believable as an unthinking automaton. And of course, and hour spent with Haley Atwell is never an hour wasted. Not when she is in her pants and doing orgasms.

Dammit. I was doing well there. Boobies!
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