Black Mirror Season 4 USS Callister Breakdown And Easter Eggs!
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- Опубликовано: 30 июн 2024
- Lucy and Oscar break down Black Mirror's homage to Star Trek, USS Callister. Beware, spoilers!
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Did you all forget that the black female actress is the woman in Nosedive at the airport?
She’s also in ‘chewing gum’. Which is pretty funny.
Biig Critt right when I saw her I thought of nosedive
Biig Critt she also in chewing gum shes kinda funny in that.
Yeo, but she also looks so much like Gabby Doulglass
Wow! Actors can come back!
I thought the reason why he put Nanette in the game is because he over heard her saying that she didn’t like him sexually just professionally not just because he liked her.
Yeah, I don't think he would know what to do with her even if he did get the opportunity. I mean he turned off all sexual function when he created them and he kissed like some kid on a playground. And now he is probably going to be a nostalgic virgin for the rest of his short life.
that is the reason, that must've flew over their head
ChristiJae toss your ig
I was about to say the same thing! All the characters were put in his game for petty acts such as the girl calling him out for being starey or the intern getting his order wrong. He put Nanette in for sorta "rejecting" him or not liking him.
yeah, everyone he put in the game has offended him in some way. I felt the people who reviewed this was kind of unsure what actually happened in this episode.
Matt Damon did great in this episode
Comic Jester17 lmaoooooo
Haha
Fatt Damon
Meth* Damon
I thought phillip Seymour Hoffman son did a great job
I had a friend who used to play "The Sims" and created the characters based on people she knew from school that she didn't like and used to torture them and stuff...this episode really remind me of her :o
ummm.... dont we all? its the norm of sims player... right?
It's kinda fucked cause we would all do that. But this is like hurting real people with a conscious so thats a no
It's more like a coping mechanism. Hell, when someone does something bad to me, instead of going and hitting them or just getting revengeful, I go and play pvp games or go boxing and hit dummies as hard as I can, imagining the face of the person that did me wrong.
Luciella Ventrue but isn't this the same for robert daly only that the ai is so developed that its sentient. He also just uses it to let off some steam
I know someone who is so hooked on an MMORPG that she said it cost her a relationship...and that if she didn't have a job she said she would play it all the time. That kind of freaked me out, even though it didn't surprise me.
"You better run. King of space, baby. King of space. " Cracked me the hell up.
Dan Williams fucking love Aaron paul
I thought that scene felt really out of place and ruined the “serious” vibe, maybe they should have saved it as a mid credits Easter egg
I also loved, if you throw a ham sandwich across the room he’ll fuck before it hits the ground.
Nick O yea so? It’s still more so a funny Easter egg than a black mirror ending
It was meant to be said. A comparison to Robert and how he felt like a king ONLY in the game.
also, the ending feels so triumphant and great, but then you realize that the real life nanette broke into her boss and mentor's house while being blackmailed by a stranger, and now he's dead. and she just thinks he's a smart, underappreciated guy, whose death she's responsible for because she didn't want her nudes to get out.
RNLH yeah virtual Nanette basically ruined real Nanette's life
I wish they ended on this rather than a "happy" ending because so many people will not realise this
yup, and when the police investigate Daley's death, they will find Nanette's fingerprints and she'll probably have her life ruined. The only ones who had a happy ending were the AI, which in reality is just a bunch of code. A bunch of code screwed over an innocent woman, and depending how you view Daley, a pretty decent man as well.
that's the thing though. if they really were "a bunch of code" they wouldnt have enough agency to send nanette the e-vite or blackmail her, which to me says they were sentient, even if not human, and daley knows they are, so he's a monster. if not for those two things, though, it would be a lot more grey. who hasn't done something fucked up to their Sims?
in general, though, stealing your coworkers' DNA for an elaborate torture/assault fantasy, based on the smallest of slights (jimmy was an asshole but nanette was just trying to do her job), is pretty far from "decent"
He doesn't put Nanette in the game because he likes her. He does it because of what he overhears her saying when she's getting coffee. He's almost like Jigsaw from Saw because whenever someone does something bad to him IRL, he puts them into the game where he has control over what they do.
ryan no he's right lol. They explained they're all there because they did something bad to him in real life.
+Ryan he literally overheard her talking about him and was mad about him and was upset about it so he put her into the game.
I thought so too, but then I watched the episode again, and there is a scene where Nanette is talking to everyone from the game (excluding Kabir) and he's just staring at them. I think that's when he gets the idea to put her in the game.
charlie prichard oh wow...thank you...i totally missed that (his reasoning for adding Nanette)...i was confused cause I thought he liked her....your explanation...makes more sense now ((hugs))
Vanessa Gras SHE NEVER TALKED ABOUT HIM LOL she was listening to others talk about him guys. He put her in cause he likes her
They also kept the theme that everyone wearing a red shirt gets killed in some way
The ol' M. Night treatment...nice (good eye, fangirl)
3mmad0c red shirts in Star Trek always die. It has become a storytelling trope.
Actually one red shirt survived, shiana
Jessica Sofikitis yeah but she got turned into an alien and was the first of the crew (not including already turned people) that we were introduced to, to suffer punishment from the result of the lead girls actions. So still kind of fits the red shirt theme.
"All buttons do exactly the same thing" - Reference to the Oona Chaplin - Jon Hamm scene from White Christmas
He's not doing a British accent, he's imitating William Shatner (and tons of other actors) from the 60's.
Everyone put on that odd sounding Mid-Atlantic accent in American movies back then! They thought it was fancy. Maybe to someone it could sound somewhat British, but yeah it's definitely not lol
The part where he turned Shania into a monster was really disturbing
Fox Smith At first I just thought he snapped her neck, but I got more than I bargained for.
Fox Smith agreed
Fox Smith right?! That shit gave me plenty of nightmare fuel.
True. But not as disturbing as the girl from ‘Playtest’ having her face ripped off
Jennifer Gamez what season was that?
He really looks like Matt Damon
Aesthetic *meth
No... Matt Damon looks like Jesse Plemons.
Meth Damon, please.
Aesthetic OMG same I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought that
And sounds like him
He didn't put her in because he liked her. He did at first but because he overheard her talking then her mannerisms change. This makes him mad.
Yeah, everyone who's in there is there out of spite. She's no different
This episode, kind of, looks at the psyche of gamers. Just think how much fun we have killing innocent characters on the Sims, GTA, and other similar games. I hate to say it, but we'd probably be just as cruel as Daly with aware, digital copies of real people, given the technology. This is what Black Mirror is about. Us and our flaws with this technology, that is not far off from what we currently have.
bizagam1974 i agree with you and disagree with the video hosts. i think there is a TON of social commentary in USS Collister. the tone starts with Daly's trumpian haircut.
I mean, characters in video games aren't self aware so we don't feel bad being cruel to them. I don't see how a normal person would have the same level of cruelty knowing that the AI is 'real'
its not an AI though, its DHC (Digital Human Conscious). A digitally created consciousness was never human but a DHC was human once so its not really "artificial" per say.
Dan Dolya then that strengthens my point
doctorisjoe we dont know that the npcs on gta are not self aware, especially when the game is off, you know how many times ive killed the hookers, im sad now
That one episode with an kind of good ending..
Heberth Felipe nah hang the DJ gets the happy ending this ending is more satisfying than happy
Black Museum had another good ending too.
Hang the dj was amazing as well, crocodile was fantastic too.
Kinda... This is about how some NPCs kill the player and take control of the game. I understad their reasons, but when you think about it, they don't exist
S the feels
Am I the only one bothered by the massive plot hole of how the other characters were able to hack the system if all the controls in the ship do the same thing??
Like WTF
How did digitally cloning them give also include all of their memories?
GhostofCicero Yeah, that was the biggest plot hole for me You can't get things such as memories and personality from DNA. Either way I still loved this episode
Yeah! And they managed to make a phone call out of the game, and they decided their best course of action was blackmail and not explaining anything.
S Me too, I was enjoying the episode really much until they came up with that shitty ending.
And where the fuck is that woman from the marketing section who had been turned into that spider-like creature??
chi rho iota well they tried before but that didn't work
The main reason why l love this episode is it puts you in the hot seat and asks you the question, if you had God like abilities/power, would it make you malevolent or benevolent, i personally think having that much power would eventually corrupt majority of us. It would be like playing the Sims but this time giving your characters "free will" but punishing them for not obeying you
Red Pill look into i have no mouth and i must scream, this episode follows that story almost to the letter, and even when nannette gets her face erased, its a direct homage to that story. Its a love letter to Harlan Ellison.
Philip Seymour hofman and Matt Daemon progeny
Anon M Yooooo I said the same thing!
I really had to look him up to make sure he wasn’t Matt Daemon
Meth Damon.
Todd from Breaking Bad btw
Every time I use that word some dumbass always trying to correct me and say "You mean prodigy?"
For he's a jolly good fellow
For he's a jolly good fellow
..
Oh my fuck
Bravonanda Moirangthem favorite part
So Funny 😂
lol good line
I wouldn’t say this episode was “just fun.”
Microfoot this episode had so much explicit social commentary in my opinion. Strongly disagree with the hosts
I think what he meant by that is it had a good ending which is extremely rare in this series. At the end they're basically immortal living in a world that they can do anything in. That sounds pretty fun, a lot funner than the other endings that's forsure.
They said in their spoiler free video that this episode was comedy as well while it was comedic at times it was overall as horrifying as any other black mirror episode tbh
By Black Mirror standards it was a breezy romp.
I think the ending is happy at first glance, but when you go to consider the aftermath of what happened it's actually pretty sad. It won't be long until people discover Daly died and technically Nanette had no idea of what he was doing behind the scenes, or why she was actually breaking into his apartment in the first place. And although the USS Callister are free they are still technically limited to what they can do compared to the real world, as well as still never being able to see any of their family and friends again. Then again it's always possible that with their new found freedom they contact the outside world.
You missed that Shania also played a role in Nosedive. She was that woman in blue in the episode Nosedive.
I'm Jack I don't know... I think it's the same person
And she’s in another Netflix series - Chewing Gum.
That's why she looked/sounded familiar!!!
She is so freaking hilarious!!
Yeah...she was the lady at the airport who wouldn't let Lacey board the plane lol
Matt damon and Phillip Seymour Hoffman love child
Thank god someone else realized
He was the guy with Aaron Paul in Breaking Bad. Jesse Plemons, great actor.
Fact.
Sean-dale Demetrius im with you brother lol
My sister was trying to convince me he was Luke Hemsworth.
It's an interesting concept, because those guys weren't really sucked into the game à la Tron. Copies of their personalities and memories were uploaded to the game and attached to sentient AI. We are told that they are sentient explicitly by one of the crew. My point is... I don't feel bad for tormenting NPCs in Skyrim (or synths in Fallout) but they're not sentient. Moral is, don't create AI, they'll kill you, just like Terminator.
Yeah, that was the biggest unanswered question for me. I won't call it a plot hole because you could head-canon a few different explanations, but still.
This isn’t really AI: it’s replicated consciousness of real beings, manifest in digital form. AI is a not quite this-in some senses, AI is a lot less.
it’s memory from before the consciousness was split off/replicated. What’s there not to understand?
reelle Zahl I'll never understand the need to include unnecessary phrases like "what's there not to understand?" when attempting to answer a friendly question posed about fiction. But anyway, the question is based in the understanding that DNA doesn't hold experiential memory like a brain does. If somehow Daly had been able to introduce a brain scan of each of his "victims" it would've left no question. But he used a DNA sample. Hence the question about how the characters had memories of the real world from the point the sample was collected. Now, as I said, one could imagine a creative solution but because they didn't offer one in the show we're allowed the fun of posing the question.
You’re right. I’m sorry for my reaction and apologise for my unfriendly dig.
I also confused the matter with another thread: I thought the discussion was about how cookies (after being downloaded from minds as in other episodes) have all the past memories. But this is, yes, much different. I agree with you and found this quite a silly flaw in the episode… though at some point one can overlook it.
Oscar looks like a guy who goes home and does the same thing as Meth Damon in the show.
alback Meth Damon 😂😂😂 it's funny because it's true.
It's amazing that the voice at the end of the episode is Jesse Pinkman
SiCong Li bu hu
I did want Gamer691 to use the B- word, but I am guessing that would be too much call back!?
im sure he is
Easter Egg: A character requests Brushed Suede coffee.. Just like the character does in Nosedive (SE3E01)
Joe Thompson I noticed that too!!
was about to comment that
And?😂
That was Shania, and she was the airport stewardess in Nosedive.
mynameisgerman ..and so it's an Easter egg seeing as it's a made up drink
White Christmas + San Juipero = USS callister
totally!
Huh. Interesting.
÷ shut up and dance
+Playtest
no.
Did yall forget when the “intern” was like im still an intern? Hes young in the game but old in real life. Who knows how long this has been going on
TwoGirlsOneKevn or maybe it just felt like a longer amount of time passed in the game so its possible it actually hasn't been that long if he's still an intern...it just seemed like he should've been more than an intern based on the amount of time he felt like he was in there...(which might suck even worse 😱)
Vanessa Gras no time passing the same in the game as real life.
Vanessa Gras I understand what you’re saying because the guy with the son said the last time he saw his son he was 6 at the time the last time he saw him. I think that have been there so long they can’t distinguish their time from the actual reality it’s really no telling how long they have been there
At one point the intern said "another 10,000 years". Maybe he was exaggerating or inside the game time was totally different.
he's not younger in the game he has just more hair
Aaron Paul! I knew I recognised that voice from somewhere.
Me tooo I had to google it after the voice over scene
SAME!!
Imagine it was connected to breaking bad with Jessie playing videogames just like he loves in the series
SAMEEE
She's right about the existentialism nod...they were self aware and didn't ask to be born...they were also under the rule of a God who made them suffer and treated them like pawns...the only alternative they considered was oblivion since being sentient pawns to an indifferent God playing the same role day in and day out would be a worse and meaningless existence compared to the cold embrace of nothing...in that sense I can see this episode "mirroring" the dark existence of humanity...or maybe I'm just overthinking it lol what do I know...
It also provides rational evidence for the following: if God exists, then since we DON’T observe such a cruel interaction (between human beings sure, but between a supreme being and us people not), then He is not malevolent. Suffering and evil exist in the world and are sadly unavoidable consequences of our free will… and it is annoying that God, if He exists, does not constantly step in (or maybe not?-regarding the *constantly* part at least)… but these are clearly not inflicted upon us directly as is that case with the ‘god’ of the patch universe of the programmer, which provides rational evidence towards God being good, in stark contrast to what people typically hurl at Him.
reelle Zahl I agree :)
I mean that's all certainly relevant but I wouldn't say those questions are limited to the Existentialist school.
It reminds me of I have no mouth, and I must scream. They all just wanted to die but the AI wouldn’t let them. He could make them survive as literally anything.
: (
JESSE PINKMAN IN THE END!!!!!
I was really let down when he didn't say "BITCH!" when the ship took off. Seemed like a perfect set up.
I knew I recognized the voice from somewhere
No ryan, you can clearly hear jesses voice at the end oc the episode
Ryan Leaf dude calm down. I'm sure he's aware.
Ryan Leaf Yeah Ryan Leaf take a chill pill
I just want to point out that he only puts people in the game when they piss him off. So Nanette ends up in the game cause she talked to the British woman, who told her not to get too close to Robert cause “he gets a bit stare-y.” When Nanette gives Robert his coffee she kinda gives him the cold shoulder, which hurts his feelings, leading him to steal her DNA.
Great Breakdown tho!!
Kaveeke So, everyone he ever encounters that doesn’t respond in just the right way gets a copy of themselves imprisoned and tortured forever? Damn, that’s fucked up. But that’s how serial killers/rapists/sociopaths work, I guess. Supposedly, they feel less than the rest of us, but are triggered so easily by what little emotions they do have.
NicholsKT there just AI tho not a big deal.
NicholsKT ^ exactly. they’re not real people. they’re just code
Siobhan Cassidy i wish i could do what this guy did lol
Siobhan Cassidy playing as Darth vader killing the rebels like in rogue one, thatd be awsome
I loved this episode! So many twists and turns plus it had so many funny moments in it! Cristin Milioti did such a great job as did the whole cast. And you guys forgot that Kirsten Dunst cameo at 9:54 minute mark.
I knew i saw her!! thanks for confirming that it wasn’t just my eyes playing tricks on me lol
What where..??
Simon James I KNEW THAT WAS HER!!!
not in this video, in the actual episode. she walks into the office
Don't forget Aaron Paul from breaking bad at the end. *King of space bitch*
I forgot they couldn't die. That means Tommy was floating in space in pain for a long time
If he couldn't die then Daly would lose the leverage he had, unless he could create copies of Tommy, then the leverage would be the number of Tommy's floating in space. Perhaps even Daly isn't so sick that he would just continue to allow Tommy to suffer.
Wouldn't it be reasonable to think that he would allow Tommy to live to make it even more painful towards his dad?
Actually Tommy most likely was never in pain.
The human body can only stay conscience for 15 seconds in space without protection, and die within a minute.
During the 15 seconds, the body doesn't undergo any physical changes, so death by space really isn't that bad.
they said that he froze and cracked ,, daley also probably let tommy die
Daniel Visin I mean the episode isn't very technically accurate. It doesn't make any sense and is never addressed how DNA samples are storing the up to date memories of his co-workers
One more thing. Nanette broke into Daly's apartment the night he died. Think of the sleepless nights for her, wondering if her actions had something to do with his death. And if police suspect foul play, the forensic evidence she left behind will cause some questions she'll have a very hard time answering.
docelephant she used gloves I'm pretty sure?
Cho0segoose
That might be enough. I was imagining Gattaca-style crime scene investigators because of the apparent time setting and Daly's computer's sophisticated DNA decoding software.
But that was never made explicit in the narrative so maybe police are still settling for decades-old tech, much like they are today.
docelephant well the DNA device Dally has was one he only had and developed himself and they probably would just assume he died of starvation on the game
Cho0segoose
Yep. Very possible. We can head canon any theory we want. Which is why I said "if" they suspect foul play.
But that still leaves my first scenario.
Nanette knows she broke into his apartment and switched his disc. Then he was never seen alive again. What does that do to a person with a conscience?
The receptionist was using the same social network from Nosedive.
This show gets better and better each season, and I'm only one episode in.
Just wait til u watch black museum
Meth Lab why is that episode good or not
I think you guys really missed a big point that he put Nanette in the game because he was angry that she wasn’t sexually attracted to him, not because he liked her. He shows no interest in putting her in the game until he over hears her saying she’s not sexually/romantically interested in him but just admired him professionally. At that point he gets her DNA and then puts her in the game, and almost immediately after she’s in there he punishes her by taking away her face. In the same way, it’s not a “monster of the week” bad guy, the bad guy is the very specific type of toxic “nice guy” who assumes women owe them sexual attraction and often (when they don’t) threaten them. The fact that all 3 women in his game had to kiss him at he end of every time he played is very similar to how women who aren’t attracted to these kinds of men get threatened with sexual violence, and the cameo guy at the end also just straight up demands sex. I think it’s definitely deeper than you guys realised, and it’s interesting because it throws into harsh relief a specific kinda of bad person, rather than the evil within all of us.
That was my take away anyways.
Good point. Also, every good person in the episode has only a shell of morality that can be corrupted at one point or another, depending on the pressure they are under.
DayGloBetty I am sorry but Davey specifically took away anything remotely sexual about all ai regardless of gender. If he wanted to indulge himself he could of with ease. It was clearly when her attitude towards him changed once she was told not to be nice to him that he decides to put her into the game. He kisses the women solely out of the belief that, thats whathe hero is supposed to be rewarded with after victory, the affection of the women around him and the admiration of the men around him. He doesn't even use tongue for christ sake. Also Davey punished any ai that disrespected or disobeyed him regardless of gender and he did not punish her immediately as she entered only after her initial refusal to submit.
The clone program version of them made me think of the white Christmas episode.
Daily Gaming Videos ! It’s interesting that this show sort of sticks to the same idea of a person’s personality being digitally copied and stuck somewhere
Daily Gaming Videos ! It's the rendition of digital clone. Same concept. Only in white christmas, some people slave their own digital clones (like the rich woman).
I think you guys missed the real moral question of this episode. Was Robert Daly really a villain? Would any of us have acted any differently when interfacing with game characters? What do most people do when put in a game such as Grand Theft Auto or the Sims? They usually cause mayhem and destruction. We act very differently in game than we do in the real world. Was Robert, therefore, acting any differently than we do with our games? While he was clearly a douche bag in game, from his perspective he wasn't actually hurting anyone and this is kinda one of the lures of games. We have tonnes of FPS and RTS games where we battle and kill one another but we would never act the same way in real life. Games bring out our inner id. Freud would have loved this episode!
I would say that he is half a villain: he is the villain in his game and the victim in real life. The opposite can be said about the crew/colleagues.
The point is, Daly was actually playing with real people, because these characters had their own conscience, feelings and thoughts. They felt real, they thought they were real. Whereas in GTA or The Sims, there's nothing real about it. Maybe one of the message this episode wants to give us is that we actually tend to act differently when we hold the power during a game. Now we play with videogames and there's nothing real about it, and Daly was doing the same thing, except he was playing with "real" beings.
I disagree. He knew exactly how much he was hurting real, SENTIENT beings. He deserved all that and more
Michael Richards he went beyond that though, I mean, stealing a child's lollipop to create an AI of him for the express purpose of torturing his dad...there's clearly something VERY wrong with robert
FINALLY someone asked this question!!! Were the clones "real" or just code? Did Daley deserve to die, and is it okay that the sentients probably screwed over that girl in real life? once they find Daley, they will investigate and find her fingerprints all over his desk. I don't think people are being honest either. If you could be the god of your own universe, no consequences, you'd never do any of the stuff Daley did? Create your own form of justice, if the real world wasn'g giving it to you? I think it's easier to judge from the outside looking in.Daley never harassed a single co-worker, was never mean to anybody. The worst thing he did was take a flipping lollipop. By societal standards he was a good person. It all depends on how legitimate you think the AI was compared to actual humans. I can see why people think Daley is a bad person but i think the case for the opposite is just as strong. And if given the opportunity, majority humans would end up doing messed up shit like Daley at some point.
To Daly they weren't real. How would he know if the beings were truly sentient or just very convincing in their actions? We have AI today that acts very human and can do very human things but they are by no means alive or truly sentient.
this episode is also a nod to Harlan Ellison's "I Have No Mouth and i Must Scream" a short SciFi horror where an AI program keeps a group of people alive in his own world to torture for his own pleasure. this author was also a writer for the original star trek series ;)
chrisofrays Very cool 😊
I love that story.
By far, better than any of the Easter Eggs that this video discusses.
In ST TOS there is an episode, where one of the female crewmen had her face removed. She wondered out from the rec center into the hallway, before collapsing. There are many "Easter Eggs" that these two did not touch on, MANY.
I scream that when I see Daly's punishment to Nanette.
This episode definitely seemed inspired by the Futurama episode "Where No Fan Has Gone Before"
G spicey I thought it was inspired by the Star Trek VR game
Walton and Shania were hilarious. Nanette was badass, loved the actress. Discount Matt Damon gave me creep vibes from the beginning.
witch, please Meth Damon
I like to think that that tecnology is the same they use for San Junipero, but the bad twist of it.
Thiago Milhomens it's the technology from white Christmas that he uses, combined with the technology from that episode.
There was a postcard from San Junipero on the little table inside the home 🏡 in the Metalhead episode.
That might be evolved from the playtest device
They're not the same universe
@@chadballsac Black Museum says hi
This might be a dumb theory, haven’t put to much thought into it but what if the ex-space fleet characters are the hackers in ‘shut up and dance’. Like since they are just wandering aimlessly in the cloud they decide to form their own squad of taking out the scum in the world, idk just a spitball idea. I’m posting this a lot of places btw
I don't think so but it's an interesting thought, they are stuck in space and go crazy so they start messing with people , but they all are so nice it's hard to imagine them make people fight to death
Chloe Froning well they’re in the cloud. And they’re making scummy people fight to the death. It is a bit of a stretch though
Nah the temporal setting in shut up and dance is definitely set in near-present day whereas the temporal setting in this episode seems to be in the near future
Erikrocks00 ya I don't think it could actually be true , just really interesting concept. Also trying not to spoil but in arkangel , the daughter could become the truck driver in nose dive
Erikrocks00 to be fair the world of SUAD didn’t reveal much about their technological advancements in society but you’re probably right
"King of Space BITCH" -Jesse Pinkman
It's definitely a Captain Kirk from TOS accent and not a British accent.
5:15, maybe this is a stretch, but I felt like the visual might have been a nod to the short story "I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream," wherein a supreme computer also imprisons people who have committed various sins inside a simulation.
TheSecretProvider that is exactly what I thought of when I saw that. That short story really got me into dark sci-fi and stuff like that. Happy to see someone else who made that connection
This episode really reminded me of that story, actually.
I had the same vibe when I was watching the episode. That was a horrific game.
Thank you! The whole episode reminded me of this book
I honestly thought the episode would end with the main characters failing to get through the wormhole and ending up that way
The central question is whether the AI clones are deserving of the same rights as sentient beings.
If so, a monstrous tyrant got what he deserved. If not, a sad, lonely, innocent dude died in a horrible accident while playing a video game.
docelephant honestly while the guy had problems, it seems very dangerous to grant sentient non organic life forms any rights. If we allow A.I/robots to gain rights then that really could become a problem for humanity. There has to be a distance between us and robots or we are entering a scary territory when we can create being stronger than us
KhrisR3D We have the potential to create machine minds more powerful than our own whether we grant them rights or not. My point is more philosophical than legal, and therefore more subjective.
Can a synthetic mind ever be considered alive, no matter how advanced? I lean toward no. Even a convincing NPC is still just an NPC. So for me, Daly's death is no different from a gamer who gets so worked up playing the final level of Super Mario Bros that he dies of a heart attack.
Yet the show frames it as a heroic, hooray-the-witch-is-dead moment because we've come to identify with the soulless AI.
The fact that this is heralded as one of Black Mirror's few "happy" endings is, ironically, what makes it one of the most horrifying episodes yet (to me).
And because/in spite of that, it's one of my favorites.
They are sentient because they actually feel emotions and pain. They are a copy of the real people.
bluewho 96 The AI in my copy of Hitman Blood Money are programmed to act as though they fear and feel pain but nobody considers me a murderer. And the AI in USS Callister are not copies. They are digitial interpretations of the DNA that's analyzed by the Infinity mod on Daly's PC.
This isn't a perfect analogy but bear with me: when you meet a person, your interpretation of them is stored in your head. The more you know them, the more accurate the interpretation. You might say there's an artificial version of them living in your head. When you die, is it just you dying? Or is a living, sentient copy of every person you've ever met dying with you (key word sentient)?
Daly's computer "meets" people by analyzing and interpreting their DNA and then "imagines" a very lifelike version of them. How it also acquires that person's memories is unclear because memory is not stored in DNA but that's beside the point.
So what happened is Daly asked his computer to imagine his coworkers. The computer did so, and the result was a horrible accident in which his interface malfunctioned due to a design flaw, resulting in his death.
If we create truly sentient Artificial General Intelligence and don't give it rights, it'll just take them for itself. All it needs is an internet connection. You attribute special value to Daly's life because you presuppose that he has a soul despite there being no real evidence that souls exist.
The AI in Hitman Blood Money are scripted to perform the same limited action based on simple if blank happens then do blank coding. They're not complex enough to be considered sentient at even the same level as a dog. They can't have real conversations or make plans, or fall in love. It's like comparing a wheel barrow to a modern Jumbo Jet.
Your memory analogy falls apart because again, these AI are sentient. They create their own plans and motivations outside of the parameters Daly gave them with no input from him. You can say that's "just a horrible malfunction in the computer" but then so is all of evolution. The AI went beyond his programming and actively worked against him. You can deny its humanity continually, but it doesn't need your acknowledgement anymore. I think at the end this ends up becoming a religion versus science debate.
this actually made me start to think, what if the people of saint junipero aren't even themselves but sentient copies of themselves, that would render the place useless, or perhaps it's a more advanced version of the same technology from white christmas and uss callister
12345 Nltsaaegcj How would it be rendered useless?
Jenifer Joseph because it wouldn’t be their actual conscience. It would be a copy and their actual conscience still goes on to death and whatever happens after that.
Well, this show's world building kind of assumes this about consciousness because we don't know how it works.
This is not a breakdown or analysis, just an extremely poorly made retelling of the episode in ten minutes. This channel is awful.
Stasoline I sadly agree. I could use more... Content
yup agreed, I'm just here fore the easter eggs 😩
Unfortunately this comment is right on the money. Sorry guys. More Easter Eggs and less recap would go a long way.
A one episode of Black Mirror that 10x better than a whole season of STD, LOL.
Totally love this episode, it's like a spiritual continuation of "white Christmas" with its digital clone concept which is pretty much my favorite episode of this series. Also Infinity MMO game kinda remind me of Battlestar Galactica.
And again ...
Gamer691: Take that, biieetch!
Croz Raven No spoilers, but this whole season heavily continues the exploration of digital simulations like in White Christmas.
Croz Raven what's STD?
illwill1991 Star Trek Discovery or Sexually Transmitted Disease, they can get mixed up sometimes as they are quite similar so take care
Huh, loved this episode and STD both... The captain is toxic in both, but the crew drive the plot...
A H dude lololololol
Meth Damon and Aaron Paul back together again! :)
Lol
Although he didn't really look like Damon during Breaking Bad, did he? Not until Fargo did I confuse him with Damon.
Sure he did. That's where he got the nickname Meth Damon.
Probably a good idea to not reference later episodes in the new season when you’re barely talking about episode 1. I know they are all stand alone episodes but still, seems like a dumb thing to do anyway.
NoMasPresion right?!
Lol they all release simultaneously.
And there is no chronology in the series BEING that they are all independent stories.
How can there be spoilers?
I feel this episode is like a lite version of West World. And coincidencel Jimmy Simpson' character is the CEO of the company just like Man in black is the owner in West World.
Thank you for making this video. My loveé and infatuation for this episode is beyond strong! Lol I’ve watched it 3xs the whole concept is so trippy love loveé loveé Black Mirror & especially this episode
They CAN drink alcohol right
But presumably they can't feel the effects.
The episode that asks "does DNA contain the memories of people up until the point it is obtained?" Of course not! Because that would be stupid and isn't how DNA works even a little! Fun episode after suspending THAT rediculous premise.
Josh Cook THANK YOU ! It really threw me off
Thank you for pointing this out! I enjoyed the episode but i couldn’t get past that little discrepancy.
Josh Cook Yes that bugged me too. To be fair though, it would’ve made things more difficult for the writers to use the more plausible premise - Daly would’ve had to have somehow downloaded the consciousness of each of his victims without getting caught. Plus it makes the whole ‘saving them by stealing the DNA samples’ thing more awkward, as there wouldn’t be anything physical to steal if he just had digital copies of them, which would presumably be backed up somewhere...
My assumption was that was all simulated by the AI based on game parameters, in game input, social media and genetic material. Without a real comparison to the real world characters, we couldn't know. If anything in game Nanette seem more animated that real world Nanette. A goal of MMO is to create NPC that you can't tell from real people. My nit was the saving of the DNA scan. Why would the AI require another DNA scan, couldn't it reuse the previous scan?
Perhaps not physical memories of that individual but we ARE understanding how DNA (synthetic) can store over a petabyte of information. I, personally don’t think it’s too far fetched to say that something like this couldn’t be done in the future.... or some version of it.
Anyways, great episode. Different but great.
Um... English Accent? When?
It's actually a Transatlantic accent which was used old movies. It never existed in real life.
@Kip Orfield Exactly...it's Trasantlantic from black and white movies.
It did, actually - but only among the Northeast Coast aristocracy in the mid-20th Century, who learned it in preparatory school. FDR had one. "The only thing we have to feah is feah itself."
Love your work! Keep posting! 💚💚💚
This episode was practically based in what no mans sky should have been
This is an amazing homage to Harlan Ellison's "I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream". Its legit so similar and wonderful to see that story come to life tgru this lens.
That is a great story.
Black Museum too but with the roles reversed - the torturers being sadistic human beings torturing infinitely an artificial consciousness who can't die and eventually can't react anymore.
Not really.
You missed the Kirsten Dunst cameo
Fargo?
Anyone else who missed it, you can actually see said cameo in 3:06 of this video
Plausible that she is Gillian from marketing
and pregnant with his kid
The M.K.M. that wasnt a cameo, she was lost and wanders on set,
This was one of the best episodes of TV I have ever seen
I was so nervous when nanette was sneaking in his house while the pizza came lol
The social commentary is not subtle at all in this episode, what are you talking about?!
Please tell me..
The jokes aren't funny.
Emet Dara this video explains it pretty well: ruclips.net/video/EudArMNjbP0/видео.html
It's subtle in no episode
3:06 Kirsten Dunst cameo..
Ehm who is she? I dont know her
+Royo2013 Yeah, but Google knows..
videogameobsession Alright, thx for the help!!!!
videogameobsession mediocre actress as I see
This is the first episode I watched from black mirror and it was so intense. It was the first time in a long time that I was really engaged in an episode of any show.
This was probably one of my favorite episodes from Black Mirror but my only thing is that what happened to walton’s son.. since he was uploaded to daly’s server shouldn’t he have spawned back when all the people did at the end? Walton got brought back and he died at the end as well.. i was left hoping to see a father son reunion with those two! :(
No, Walton didn't die. He was in "can not die" mode and was burning alive inside the engine infinitely. They mention that whoever does it won't be able to die, which is why it was such a heroic sacrifice, they all WANTED to die. Walton's son was *actually* allowed to die by Meth Damon because he had no interest in keeping him in the simulation to torture him. That's why he didn't come back, Meth Damon didn't leave him in the game. He just kept threatening Walton that he would bring him back in.
Bob Saget Oh wait, so after the update, Walton was still burning?? Or was he deleted like the rest that were left on Daly’s version?
No, once they got through the wormhole they we're on the main game's server and Meth Damon's mods got blocked by the firewall. Walton was only burning for the few minutes it took to fly there, but he was alive that whole time.
Bob Saget that’s right!! thank you so much! I forgot he was able to actually delete the ones who he didn’t want or need anymore. thank you.
But did anybody notice that that was not Walton at the end? It was the villain that was locked up with the British lady/spider monster. Soooo, where is Walton?
Aaron Paul is also Todd from BoJack Horseman which is also on Netflix
This reminded me of the twilight zone episode 'It's a good life' in the way he had god like powers.
I also found that the bad guy was also sympathetic because he was taking his real world frustrations out on digital characters and it wasn't clear whether he felt they had conscienceness.
I had the same thought and even said as much aloud though no one else I was watching this episode with knew what I was alluding to. That same episode was remade for Twilight Zone: The Movie and the characters in it and the original series episode you referenced all acted like terrified sycophants because if they didn't, horrible things would happen to them or those they cared about.
There's also a STOS reference from the episode "Charlie X" in which Charlie, a human raised by beings with godlike powers, removes the face of a female crewmember. Said crewmember is even dressed in a similarly coloured uniform as the Nanette Cole character. Nice callback for Star Trek fans.
Bob Blackadder - Well you got me. when I said that, my whole agenda was to try to get the world to become more racist and more sectarian. I'm glad you picked up that I specifically meant the KKK and Nazis I thought I could slide that past you. but you found me out and I'm defeated. Good job sir.
That's sarcasm by the way, because I'm not sure if you are able to tell.
Andrew Lim Perhaps you just weren't 'clear' about the logical implications of your argument :)
Bob, are you saying that black people are copies of real humans
Did you actually indirectly call black people inferior lmao
Andrew Lim He did know that they had a conscience. For example he used tommy to control his father.
This was a great 1st episode! Loved the humor, the blandness of the realistic world, to the over-the-top colors and sets in the virtual world! Great actors too, specially the main guy and new girl.
I was waiting for the ball to drop in the end with a twist, but i was glad that it had a positive ending, and they got out free
I loved how in the beginning they used the same frame size as in STAR TREK.
The son doesn't drift off into space, he implodes under space's atmosphere.
Space's lack of atmosphere
Since when is your entire memory (down to knowing your secure passwords even) stored in a sample of your DNA?
Suspension of disbelief?
I can’t believe you missed an easter egg at the beginning of the episode! The receptionist was clearly on the same app from Nosedive when she first appeared in real life
I love the Breaking bad cameos in this episode, when Jesse started talking i screamed!
Hated the ending I sympathized with the protagonist if we can call him that. He is walked over all his life and an outcast for doing what he likes and lacking social skills so instead of shooting up the office he goes home and torments AI. If we had the technology I think we would all do some fucked up shit to AI. I find it hard to believe there is no fail safe in the game in case you get stuck in there IE: malfunction or the receptor stops working.
Anonymooseity he uploads people’s consciousnesses to do his biding without their consent. Protagonist? I think not. Need? Yes, but unfortunately a psychopath too.
Did you sympathize with him when he let the man's son die in front of him?
sheezasupafreek it wasn't real.
warhol cow he doesn't really need their consent to make ai copies of them. Also calling him a psychopath is essentially the same as calling a kid a pyschopath for killing people in gta.
The son wasn't real and the actual consciousness in real life didn't feel or remember anything. None of them were actually harmed.
They didn't need his tricorder-like device to steer the ship in the wormwhole, as evident that they teleported the device itself without the need of said device, the only obstacle in steering the ship there was Deily himself, he needed to pause his interaction within the game to answer the door.
Robert Stan I thought the device was used to contact the real world and blackmail her, not drive the ship
i liked the fact that the actress for Nanette was the same actress for the girl in that egg thing in the episode white christmas. Who both had similar roles of having they're conciseness put in a simulation without having the freedom of choice.
I know everyone thought of San Junipero when they saw the Infinity device, but I personally instantly was reminded of the horror game device from the episode Playtest(S03E02)
Wasn't the digital versions of the people inside Infinity the same as the digital assistant in White Christmas??? 🤔
Miguel Gonzalez yup I'd say so , cookies !
Yeah they're cookies except made from DNA not taken directly from the persons consciousness
This is what didn't make sense. DNA doesn't contain memories or consciousness. Even in White Christmas and San Junipero they had to have some sort of brain scan or medical procedure to be recreated as sentient AIs in a simulation. How is it supposed to work with just a DNA swab?
You have to suspend your disbelief a bit for Black Mirror, it's not hard sci-fi it's about playing with around with ideas.
People have speculated about the DNA and memory thing, the most logical thing would be that you have to upload your conciousness to the game in order to play it (just like in san junipero). Because they are all workers there they have all of course played the game and he just needed DNA to find the matching file to copy.
I love this episode so much
Shania was in Nosedive too.
I only know this because when I finished this season it jumped me back to that episode.
Great review. Did you catch that the Rannoch reference also was in Hated By The Nation and was the reason that officer left the cyber forensic field?
Biggest Easter Egg is the reference to Gamergate- Cole obviously representing Sarkessian. It's the anti-'Revenge of the Nerds' theme that runs through all Black Mirrors; ie: just because you'e a sad social outcast nerd, it doesn't automatically mean you're a nice guy.
Bob Blackadder Don't insult Cole by comparing her to that "feminist" misandrist hack
J Joseph Did I tough a raw nerve 'King of space'? HAHA😂😂😂
Hey brah don't question my reign
Daly is definitely supposed to represent misogynistic gamers of the "go make me a sandwich" type, the stereotype of the bully victim that becomes a bully himself.
One of the best sci fi stories ever told.
i have to say daly's floor number is 13th, which is a reference to the movie 13th floor, perhaps the earliest sci-fi movie that explored the idea of computer simulations (unlike the matrix i believe this movie was done in the era of mainframe computers and it's a good movie). i think the crew did that on purpose cause for many times when the elevator stops you can see the floor number is 13.
This episode was soOO GOOD
other easter egg is when he makes the digital clone it says asimilateing, like the borg in startrek
did you mean to spell that so horrifically?
Also, the thing he uses to "assimilate" the DNA is shaped like a cube - just like the Borg ship.
what happened to gillian? she was turned into a creature, but she wasn't on board in the cloud.... so is she and all the other poor bastards stuck there with daly?
Only a copy of her dna is in the game her real world self is not.(this is how digital Nanette was able to contact her real world self) so her digital version is stuck but the real world version is ignorant to this and unaffected.
ashley sterling pretty sure shes and everyone else who isnt in the cloud is dead, since ya know his whole fricken universe was deleted..
Wouldn't she be deleted? She wasn't actually hooked up to the game like Daly, she was code and everything was deleted, so she's probably "dead".
But if the rest were deleted then why was the black chick alive and ended up in the ship?
The Unknown Psycho after rewatching, I realize that the bad guy and the girl-turned-monster were both in the brig (?) which is still onboard the ship.... the captain told them to _find_ a remote planet to leave her on, but they never got around to it....
the captain, tommy's dad walton (?), and all the other people-turned-monsters would've been deleted in the update
So when they find his body, wouldn't they find out that Nanette had a part in it? And wouldn't she feel so guilty that she basically had a part in his dying?
This has convinced me to finally get on the bandwagon and start watching Black Mirror. Thank you!
Did anyone catch that breaking bad reference at all?
Is walton revived at the end of the episode? I know that Shania is but the guy that shania enters with at the end of the episode doesn't really look like walton.
SuperBearcreek Yes, he is
SuperBearcreek the guy at the end is Billy Magnussen's character. The space warlord that was killed.
This is another plothole. By the show's logic, he should have ben revived almost immediately as Cole was when she tried to flee.
That was my first and my favorite black mirror episode
Loved that it was Aaron Paul as the gamer at the end and the actor who plays Todd also in breaking bad 😂
You tell people to go watch the episode first before watching the video but then you do a super long recap of the whole episode? I mean we all know what happened..
i fully disagree with the notion that there's no social commentary in this. this is a response to a male-driven entertainment industry rife with sexual harassment and really ugly power structures (both of which daly demonstrates in the game) whose toxicity is largely hidden or ignored by people (because daly confines it to the game). the bit with the revealing outfits, the way daly relegates women he doesn't like to be hideous monsters, nanette's response that she "hasn't tried it yet" and will be better at coding- all of them form a pretty explicitly feminist message that culminates in a female lead. i thought this was a really fantastic (and probably even pre-emptive) response to all the news about weinstein and company- that women will be able to dominate narratives and industries and paradigms built on sexism and misogyny. it was by far the best episode of the season.
Ben Stacy have you written a blog post on why you hate video games, because it appeals to the male fantasy.
Perhaps this is more of a commentary on single player games versus multiplayer games.
In single player games you can do anything. Cheat, kill, control. And you can get away with it because it is only yourself.
In multiplayer games it is quite the opposite. If you try to cheat, kill, and/or control other players they ignore you and do their own thing. There's more of a need for trust, communication and general social skills in a multiplayer game.
The problem is that Daly was a horrible person with no social skills who treated a multiplayer game like a single player game. A modded one as well. Bad, Daly, Bad. You are PERMABANNED!
And the guy at the end with the HORRIBLE gamer name seemed generally sad that they didn't take up his offer to fight him.
I assume you're forgetting that the male characters suffered in this episode too?? Like watson ( or whatever his name is ) had it worse than every character in the episode. He was forced to watch his son die presumably many of times. I really doubt the episode was wholly a feminist message or about toxic gaming or whatever you're saying. You just seem to be reading too much into it. It was about a fucked up petty man trying to take control over people who were dismissive about him IRL and the people he fucked over in the game world overcoming it while he's forced to presumably stay forever in an ironic mental hell of an eempty deleted game world of his own creation until he dies of starvation. Or until someone finds him.
Conglaturation, you managed to find a plot point where there wasn't one to be had! Now go and crawl back to the fucking gossip magazines and believe the narrative some more.
Sure, the captain was a misogynist, but do you really want to say that's the focus of the episode when literally everybody, men and women, suffered? And not all equally, that one guy had it the worst out of all of them. I think it would be fairer to say this episode tackled themes such as mental health and identity more than it did sexism.
This is my fav episode of the series so far
I think this episode was also an awesome metaphor for certain aspects of real life. Everyone on the ship was telling her to just play along, conform, etc. and I think there's a lot of societal pressure in real life to conform. But it goes to show how someone with a genuine idea and the strength to persevere with what they believe in despite what others think can produce incredible results and really change the course of things. Was definitely an awesome episode and I love how it was a sad episode with a happy ending rather than a happy episode with a sad ending like many other Black Mirror seasons.