Charlie Brooker's BLACK MIRROR

definitely didn't peg there being a werewolf episode

lots of my friends are into pegging werewolves

Fuck. This is why I don't watch things like Black Mirror, I think.

If y'all are gonna be watching this show, I feel like it's probably OK to talk about... why I can't watch these shows, or any shows, really.

I was watching _Boyhood_, some years back, because it seemed like an interesting concept, and it was. I'm drawn to the past but I haven't always known why. And then I get to the point where the boy and his mom have to flee an abusive relationship, and I had to stop watching. I didn't know why at the time.

Years later I thought about it again and this time I understood. I was one of the kids left behind. My dad left my mom because she was horribly abusive, tremendously abusive, to him and to us. But he couldn't take us. Because he couldn't take care of us. He knew it. We knew it. My mom knew it, because every time we objected to one of her abuses she'd acidly say that if we didn't like it, maybe we could go live with our _father_.

But I'm curious about things, I read about them, because it's easier than experiencing them firsthand.

Brooker wrote the episode as a reaction to COVID-19 lockdowns in the U.K. during that period. He saw it as an episode about working from home. Hartnett said that a person's soul will "atrophy" if "love and connection" are taken from them, as in David's case. Mara saw that David, Cliff and Lana all experienced isolation.

I know about cabin fever. I know what it does to people. I know what it did to me. Everybody complained about people who didn't comply with "social isolation" as if it was trivial, as if it was a petty thing, and I'm sitting here for years watching the woman I love slowly turn into a monster, become isolated and paranoid and cruel.

I'm supposed to be the crazy one. That's my job. That's always been my job. All my life, though, all my life, the people around me have been trying to steal my job, they do it better and more thoroughly than I ever could. How am I supposed to have low self esteem when all the people I trust turn out to be worse than me? My mom, my childhood best friend, my ex-wife, the other server mods. They all wanted me to be The Crazy One but they can't do that and then do shit that's worse than anything I would ever dream of. It's not _fair_.

And then what she did to me when I tried to leave was...

I don't watch psychological horror because it's too much like my fucking life.

mk2 really really hated the werewolf one.
which is unlike him as he is quite mild mannered.
i thought it was ok until the reveal at which point its 'ooh, right, got it now',
but mk2 was genuinely 'worst episode ever'.
spotted the whole loch henry twist way too early, so expected the video footage.
guess i have watched too many b-movie/psycho horror films.

that said, we both loved the 'beyond the sea', 'demon 79', and 'joan is awful' episodes.
the whole look of the dept store in 'demon 79' was a massive throwback for me.
used to go to a shop in the 70s/early 80s in Skipton calle Rackhams, that looked exactly like that.

initially when they found a video cassette and said "let's see what's on it", that's when I expected some kind of big reveal. when it didn't come, I suspected there was someone else involved besides Iain but figured it might be bartender son.

I did spend half the episode thinking of gibberish words to throw off my own brain from trying to figure it out though because these days I figure out almost every twist early even if I'm not trying and I don't wanna spoil my own fun.

also, re 'beyond the sea' : re the earlier comment about no comms between NASA and the ship.
i took this as a case of they had figured out how to make the necessary link between the ship and their replicas,
but there was no option for audio/visual communication given the early days tech.

also took it to be reflective of some form of neglect on NASA's end. feel like Cliff made some comment suggesting they felt abandoned up there at one point.

I’ve never watched a Black Mirror should I watch this ‘Loch Henry’? Is there any reason to start from the beginning or whatever?

xxp that's got to be wrong because at one point there's a black and white screen showing live footage of the funeral

I'm only a few in, but much of this recent batch seem like commentary, and in the case of the first episode direct commentary, on the content prevalent on streaming services.

Loch Henry is "what if streaming services, but you sickos keep watching true crime stuff and maybe you're bad"

Most episodes of the show are commentary on something. I really despise true crime content creators and audiences so I definitely appreciated it.

Two of may favs not already listed by gyac:
- White Bear
- Hated in the Nation

Oh I actually love Hated in the Nation as well, good shout, I’d watch Kelly Macdonald in anything so I can overlook the MESSAGE aspect of this. White Bear is good but it’s not a favourite because it’s too on the nose.

I suspect most of us have "The National Anthem" as one of our least favorites.

I liked White Christmas a lot, even though it's probably one of the bleakest in the franchise.

Metalhead was a fantastic SF action horror episode imo

I don't think starting with San Junipero is a good idea, it will give you a false reassurance compared to how bleak/brutal some of the rest is!

Demon 79 was fun - and I thought the set design was fantastic. Decent music cues, colouring, furniture/TVs were all drably on point.

Yeah I didn’t recommend that.

Yeah I missed yr "in no order" ha sorry.

I have to say the use of Bright Eyes was triggering!

Took an edible, getting ready for Demon 79

Demon 79 is a banger

Aw man that's the last one?

Boo

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I was chatting on my android smartphone and mentioned in conversation that my lawnmower was knackered and within days I was getting lawnmower ad spam. I'm almost sure I didn't browse any lawnmowers before this occurred, but lol maybe I did and forgot about it. But I still wouldn't be surprised if this is already happening to some extent. Like a corporate AI program snooping through millions of hours of private convos at 1000 times speed, fishing for key words.

People talked about Facebook doing shit like that maybe 10 years and I wouldn’t put ANYTHING past them

even with microphone access denied THEY KNOW

I looked up using an expired passport to get back into the UK, and same day got a text from HM Passport about passport renewal. I have never before had a text from them and haven't since, and generally try to keep cookies etc locked down so I was/am a bit freaked out

a Polish/UK expat currently living in Germany I know who is a friend of my brother was convinced lots of hassle he was getting from HMRC coincided with him opening a FB account with his government name. But this was in the early days of FB and was a big influence on me never getting a FB account.

lol, apart from being an asocial fuckup!

I’m not saying our phones are definitely listening in on us, but I get a lot of ads for ways to stop snoring

My Alexa barely responds even when I say the "Alexa" prompt, so I doubt mine is paying any attention to my every day mutterings.