I’ve only seen one episode, the San Junipero one. I can’t wait to watch the rest. I do love some cozy, optimistic sci-fi.
this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2026
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Oh honey.
That's only that episode. That episode is an outlier
The rest of the show is pessimistic dystopia at best.
There are a few that are not.
spoiler
- Hang the DJ
- Striking Vipers
Oh I hadn't seen those, good to know!
But you are right, those are definitely outliers. If an episode seems like it is a feel good romp, there is usually some dark existential twist just around the corner.
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I do love some cozy, optimistic sci-fi.
Well, as others have said, Black Mirror is definitely not cozy/optimistic. In my opinion, it's easy to miss the final point of San Junipero. You have to have watched the episode White Christmas. If you've seen that episode, you know what cookies are and you know that there is an implication in the last seconds of San Junipero that, in my opinion, is pretty dark.
Still the best fucking episode though.
What is so dark? I feel like I must be missing something. Their consciousnesses are being maintained by a server farm. But what is dark about that? It just seems optimistic and such how they get to pretend to live in their 20s forever. Nothing like living in a torturous snow globe or whatever.
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Cozy and optimistic is an interesting way to describe that show...
(Edit: I looked up which episode that was, and now your comment makes more sense. Its been a while since I watched black mirror and I kind of forgot any of them had happy endings.)
How do none of the replies notice your obvious joke?
That's one of the best episodes by far. Honestly, stop while you're ahead.
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I like the added level of hilarity in the meme of specifically using Peppa Pig while talking about watching the first episode of Black Mirror. 😂
IMO the best first episode of any series ever.
Honestly, the second episode "Fifteen Million Merits" was the most soul crushing thing I had ever watched, the first episode paled in comparison. Then again, I'm not a pig so clearly Peppa would be a little more traumatized.
I smoked my first blunt before turning on Fifteen Million Merits, my first episode of Black Mirror. Everyone online told me to watch it before Ep. 1.
My emotion was heightened by 10 fold from THC.
I hate this show so much I have watched every episode multiple times.
True joy does not exist to me anymore.
I can totally see that. The episode "White Bear" from the second season was one I should not have watched in such a state. I was quite shaken afterwards, that one might be worse than "Fifteen Million Merits".
I did "shut up and dance" and it scared the shit out of me. Like that could be happening right this minute. Im actually kind of surprised such a scenario hasn't turned up in the news.
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I always found black mirror to be like... very kid's first sci-fi. Like, "what if you were FORCED to watch ads?" "Bro, like... What if Facebook likes mattered! Like a lot!"
The ideas aren't impossible but... from the dystopian episodes I saw, there always seemed to be significant obstacles in getting there from where we are that are never explored or explained away.
I think it was writer Daniel M. Lavery who described Black Mirror as, "What if cell phone... but too much!"
That's kind of an accurate way to describe a lot of society these days though, from doomscrolling to phone addiction to social media disinformation to surveillance and tracking and advertising.
True, but these ideas were not quite in vogue in 2011 when Black Mirror first aired. The internet still felt like a wonder full of endless possibility. There was an app for everything. Personal data was not mined on planetary scales.
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To me that’s always been the point of the show.
Take some real world thing and push it to the point of being dystopian.
In the “Facebook likes” one, you can make a connection to social credit systems IRL.
The explanation is applying a “slippery slope” fallacy for pretty much every single concept.
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FWIW, showrunner Charlie Brooker says that the starting point for every episode is finding an idea he thinks is funny
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and what a fantastic first dystopian scifi those first seasons were (for me)
They are but since we don't get a lot of true scifi media ( I would describe most as space fantasy ) I'll take what I can get
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I feel like it fell off HARD after season 1. Stopped asking interesting questions in favor of "wouldn't this scifi bullshit be fucked up?". Like yes Black Mirror, you're so edgy and avant-garde, good for you. I, too, think that trapping your consciousness in a digital torture prison forever is messed up (happens like 10 times). Not really interesting though.
I have a suspicion that Netflix is messing with the episode order for some folks.
My partner and I were on the phone with their mom when she mentioned that she just started watching Black Mirror. I had a silent freakout moment and half-apologized for the early episodes being “pretty gnarly” but she mentioned the first one she saw was a USS Callister or something else.
Its probably because she was episode 1 of a different season not season 1
edit: actually you may be right others are saying similar stuff
Had it happen with love death and robots too. I think if there's a new season out it starts you on the 1st ep of the newest "complete" season, which is really annoying.
Oh, I remember the controversy about that show! For Love, Death, and Robots season 1, Netflix randomly put people in one of four buckets (probably a hash of your account ID mod 4 or something), and your bucket determined your episode order.
Apparently, they thought it would be a neat way to present an anthology series (since order doesn't matter). Conspiracy theories arose that Netflix had sussed out peoples' sexual orientation and were using that to determine the episode order.
Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Love,_Death_%26_Robots_episodes
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I love me good series. Heard tons of good reviews about The Black Mirror.
I have only managed to get to episode 3. Couldn't do it after. Way too disturbing. Would 1000% recommend to watch. I just couldn't 😭
It's like Requiem for a Dream. Great movie, would recommend it to anyone except my elderly mother, am not gonna fuckin ever watch it a second time.
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I much preferred it before Netflix got hold of it. It’s not bad now, just different.
It used to be dark scifi, now it's horror.
I always recommend to skip this particular episode. It just is really disgusting and does not convey any meaning whatsoever. It absolutely fails to be an example for the rest of the series. If you haven't seen it, just skip it. If you did see it and stopped watching the show because of it, please watch another episode. They are all good in their own way, except for this first one. I have no idea how anyone could have thought, it would be a good idea to open the show with this particular episode ...
It's called "The National Anthem", btw. Just skip it, seriously.
The author said in an interview that it was a filter to get the public he wants for the series. No idea if that's post-facto rationalization, though.
Anyway, Netflix changed their entire system so that they could order that one show differently. It's the last episode there.
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Doesn't convey any meaning whatsoever??
what did you watch it?
It's clearly "what could happen when someone abuses technology", just like the rest of the series.
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David Cameron enters the chat
And not just the chat.
OINK
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