Black Mirror and Museum – Did the Final Episode Jump the Shark?

As much as I have enjoyed Black Mirror, I didn’t like how Season 4 trended overall, and personally I feel the finale fell on its face. While there were many solid episodes in the Black Mirror tradition, which I’ve hoped would be best defined as a modern day “Twilight Zone”, I felt the trend towards the graphic nature of storytelling infiltrating many Netflix shows was a degrading trait of Season 4.

The Black Museum finale was a failure for me in several ways and I found it unwatchable after a certain point. Firstly it continued the sexual sensationalism from Hang the DJ. I’m disappointed that Netflix has become non-family for so many of its shows and it seems now that sexual titillation proximal to pornographic is a prerequisite for so many series now… disappointing. Secondly, I found it very pretentious the self-referential nature of the museum exhibits, as if Black Mirror was already some classic series that deserved a tribute to itself. Thirdly, the settings of Black Museum were very hokey and contrived. A museum about dark forces in the middle of the desert and a hospital with inept doctors yet a sophisticated biomedical tech lab on the top floor? The characters were very unbelievable as well; the mad med tech administrator turned nefarious museum curator; doctor turned emotional sadist, and innocent tourist Nish with a dark secret of revenge? The whole thing seemed very pasted together and maybe Brooker has let too much of his horror genre background seep through or his judgement compromised by his desire to include a derivative story by Penn Gillette in the finale.

This could be the end of Black Mirror, not clear if it will continue, and despite my disappointment with the finale and the other qualms noted above Season 4 was quite strong overall. I definitely enjoyed the cheesy opening to USS Callister and the story of an alternative computer reality to escape from. Arkangel was a good morality tale about the dangers and pitfalls of being overprotective and violating the implied risk of trusting another. Crocodile was very well executed and acted but I found the story too telegraphed overall and a bit too formulaic compared to a typical Black Mirror episode. Hang the DJ was probably the most classic installment of the season, which again I would have appreciated even more without the gratuitous sexual content. The story would have been that much more delightful and inventive for me if it could be shared with a generational audience. Finally, Metalhead was probably the best stylistically and technically executed episode of the season. Set in a forsaken black-and-white landscape with the heroine in a tense battle for survival versus an unrelenting, mechanical, dystopian hound. The stark and direct story line around the battle between a resilient and resourceful female and a methodically terrifying, animatronic canine, but which featured a tender ending, was a winner.

@ClumsySilverDad