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Comment by Jordrok | Hacker News Reader

Based on all the talk I've read about this show, I feel like I should love it, but watching the first episode "The National Anthem" so turned me off that I put it down and never gathered up the will to give it another shot.

From what I've read, there's somewhat of a split opinion on that specific episode, but to me it was just too unbelievable and silly, all while taking itself so seriously. And because I couldn't suspend my disbelief, it made the whole concept of the episode seem even more pointlessly lewd and uncomfortable. I don't consider myself a squeamish person, and I get that the uncomfortableness is kind of the point, but it just didn't leave me with the desire to watch any more.

I dunno, maybe I should give it another try.

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I liked all of Black Mirror, including The National Anthem, but that episode is uncharacteristic in that it has almost no traces of the "sci-fi"/"dystopian near future" flavor that characterizes almost all of the rest. It's completely a political satire without sci-fi elements.

Every other episode has a stronger component of bleak sci-fi dystopia.

"The National Anthem" has "sci", but the "fi" of it is less apparent because the tech is already here just not "evenly distributed" yet. And maybe I'm just baseline cynical enough that what you perceived as "political satire" just played to me as the simple mechanics of how things happen.

To put it mildly, I'm a believer in anonymity and decentralization. That episode really takes these (hopefully) advancing qualities and really forces you to confront what tearing down of our society's institutions can actually look like.

This episode makes me actually dislike anonymity and decentralization, but I agree with you on this one - I feel this was a pretty accurate portrayal of how things happen, how incentives of all involved parties interact.

Yeah, my point was that the episode did a very good job of showing the negative aspects of those things, challenging my views.

A large part of what made Black Mirror so compelling to me is that the stories were so well written I wasn't just reflexively thinking of reasons to write them off. I still don't have a straightforward answer to that episode. Perhaps those types of events are something society will just eventually move past - the shock value will be lost, an individual being forced to do something like that will cease becoming an event, and won't reflect poorly on the institution? I dunno.

Episodes definitely take a theme and take it an exaggerated extreme, but that extreme, while unrealistic, I do think shows a 'black mirror' on certain very real dark undercurrents in today's world. So I don't think you are wrong there.

That said, as a 'thematic' show where the episodes are not related, you may end up loving some and hating others. I'd recommend the Christmas special episode (with John Hamm), if you want to give it another shot.

> to me it was just too unbelievable and silly

Uuh... Have you seen our reality?

http://qz.com/506490/the-black-mirror-episode-that-imagined-...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3242550/Cameron-pig-...

Definitely do give it another try. The good thing about this show is each episode is entirely stand-alone. Some episodes are definitely better than others. So if you don't like one, it doesn't necessarily mean you won't like others.

Incidentally, The National Anthem was my least favorite episode too.

I watched the first episode when it aired. Then the second episode after a year or so. I watched the third episode just a couple of weeks ago.

I like it, but that's about how often I can stomach it. It's a tough watch.

I am curious if the same things are uncomfortable for everyone. Some of the episodes I disliked the most didn't even have the most gruesome things but seemed to be just a couple of logical leaps from real events.

I'm sure it differs, but for me it's mostly the dystopian outlooks that does it, even if the first episode mainly did it on a primal level.

I wholly agree on your second point. I watched 10 O'clock Tonight, Weekly Wipe as well as read his columns, and while he's really cynical, I think Charlie Brooker is brilliant and does have a real eye for seeing the world today and imagining what kind of horrors can spring from that.

I binge-watched the season3 as soon as it came out on Netflix.

I always start people with "The Entire History of You." "The National Anthem" is nothing like the other episodes.

>but watching the first episode "The National Anthem" so turned me off that I put it down and never gathered up the will to give it another shot.

>From what I've read, there's somewhat of a split opinion on that specific episode, but to me it was just too unbelievable and silly

ahem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piggate

I felt the same. I didn't even finish S01E01 because I just didn't want to see it.

But I eventually started back in S01E02 and absolutely loved the rest of the series. That first episode is the worst, I think perhaps its tone about consent is very wrong. But I had no major hangups about the rest of the series. Some other episodes were still deeply, deeply disturbing, but I felt they got the tone more right, so I didn't feel the need to walk away as I had with the first episode.

Tough to watch though, especially the Christmas Special.

I personally found "National Anthem" to be the most realistic and plausible episode so far - I mean, it's totally doable today, and I think the show gives an accurate portrayal of how such situation would develop with the modern Internet, and also of how helplessness even a most powerful person can feel when the whole system turns its back on them.

But each episode of Black Mirror is different anyways, so I'd give the rest a try anyway.

Definitely do. There are only a couple that are just wholly unbelievable but when you look around you can kind of see how certain people do act the way the show presents. Each episode being a stand alone story is also very nice since if you don't like one the next isn't the same thing (for the most part).

The first episode was absolutely abysmal. Completely unbelievable, and horribly written.

I stuck around to watch the second episode, which was at least tolerable, but I got bored and stopped after that.

> Completely unbelievable, and horribly written

I disagree; I think this was 100% accurate portrayal of how society works, how humans interact, and how such an event would play out.

Seeing so polarized opinions in this subthread, I wonder what this teaches us about the ways we view the world.

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