No spoilers, but Black Mirror has returned!
Four long, COVID-riddled years after Season 5 first dropped on Netflix, Charlie Brooker’s mind-blowing dystopian sci-fi series is finally back on our screens.
And the opening episode, Joan Is Awful, is generating plenty of buzz online.
Without going into too much detail, it’s about a tech executive – played by Annie Murphy – who discovers her life is being adapted into a TV series in almost real time by a shadowy streaming provider named Strawberry.
When she realises the events of her daily life are being dramatised on the show, Joan Is Awful – hence the episode name – she sets out to halt production along with the actor who plays Joan on the show, who happens to be Salma Hayek.
Black Mirror is a Netflix favourite. Credit: charlesdeluvio on Unsplash.
Standard Black Mirror
Confused? Welcome to every instalment of Black Mirror ever!
But experts suggest the premise of the episode – which explores everything from deep fake technology to the algorithms that promote content on streaming platforms – is not so far-fetched.
They argue that much of the technology to create a show like Joan Is Awful already exists.
And while the rest of the episode unfolds into the usual Black Mirror meta-scape, it’s the idea that streaming services can take our everyday lives and use them as entertainment that has everybody talking.
So should we be worried about tech companies using our likenesses to one day create streaming content? Or is this just the fever dream of a writer whose own show keeps getting darker and darker?
One argument suggests much of the technology featured within the fictional episode actually exists. Credit: Markus Spiske on Unsplash.
The Real World
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