"San Junipero" is the most thought-provoking episode yet. I should like it because of the 80s, the lesbians, etc., but it's the idea of living forever, uploading your consciousness, living out another life, that is the interesting part, and it wasn't up until the last 5-10 minutes that I thought it was as special as I think it is now. The final song is perfectly chosen too.

Series 1
"National Anthem" A
"Fifteen Million Merits" B-
"The Entire History of You" A-

Series 2
"Be Right Back" A
"White Bear" A
"The Waldo Moment" C+
"White Christmas" A

Series 3
"Nosedive" B+
"Playtest" B+
"Shut Up and Dance" A-
"San Junipero" A

Interesting idea, and how amazing would it be for the military to actually implement something like that. It's like a gamer vision. But not a terribly exciting or gripping episode. Just a B for this one.

Series 1
"National Anthem" A
"Fifteen Million Merits" B-
"The Entire History of You" A-

Series 2
"Be Right Back" A
"White Bear" A
"The Waldo Moment" C+
"White Christmas" A

Series 3
"Nosedive" B+
"Playtest" B+
"Shut Up and Dance" A-
"San Junipero" A
"Men Against Fire" B

This episode was good for some good nudity, though.



Loreece Harrison is hot.

Wow, "Hated in the Nation" is excellent. What an episode to finish on. Black Mirror is just amazing television, and I'm loving almost every episode. "Hated in the Nation" is the best episode since series 2. I mean, I wish we saw the manhunt in Spain play out and all, but I can forgive them for not wanting to make it a 2-hour episode, lol. It was already great.

Series 1
"National Anthem" A
"Fifteen Million Merits" B-
"The Entire History of You" A-

Series 2
"Be Right Back" A
"White Bear" A
"The Waldo Moment" C+
"White Christmas" A

Series 3
"Nosedive" B+
"Playtest" B+
"Shut Up and Dance" A-
"San Junipero" A-
"Men Against Fire" B
"Hated in the Nation" A

So I started series 4. "USS Callister" is very good, and if not for the ending I'd have given it a straight A. It would have been so much more meaningful to the way that virtual reality is going for the digital copies to have killed themselves but for Daly to have still been able to exit the game and just restart it with yet more copies. Much more sinister. The way it ended was a feel-good cop-out, and I kind of hated it. Such a shame too, because 95% of the episode is brilliant.

Series 1
"National Anthem" A
"Fifteen Million Merits" B-
"The Entire History of You" A-

Series 2
"Be Right Back" A
"White Bear" A
"The Waldo Moment" C+
"White Christmas" A

Series 3
"Nosedive" B+
"Playtest" B+
"Shut Up and Dance" A-
"San Junipero" A-
"Men Against Fire" B
"Hated in the Nation" A

Series 4
"USS Callister" A-

"Arkangel" was good. Standard Black Mirror stuff by now. I thought it was pretty funny at times, actually. Seeing the mother watching her daughter have underage sex and then snorting cocaine was funny. She'd never allowed her daughter to form her own boundaries and understanding of right and wrong, so as soon as the leash was loose she went to the dogs. Then when the mother storms into that department store and goes crazy at that kid. I think Jodie Foster did a good job directing this.

Series 1
"National Anthem" A
"Fifteen Million Merits" B-
"The Entire History of You" A-

Series 2
"Be Right Back" A
"White Bear" A
"The Waldo Moment" C+
"White Christmas" A

Series 3
"Nosedive" B+
"Playtest" B+
"Shut Up and Dance" A-
"San Junipero" A-
"Men Against Fire" B
"Hated in the Nation" A

Series 4
"USS Callister" A-
"Arkangel" B

I don't want to say it is easily the best episode of all four series, but "Crocodile" is sensational. The ending is incredibly moving. And I was surprised to see it was directed by John Hillcoat. He has really turned his career around with this and the brilliant Triple 9 in recent years. Andrea Riseborough is fantastically cold-hearted. Also loved the setting and loved the idea of memory mining for insurance purposes (and everybody still hates insurance people in the future!).

Series 1
"National Anthem" A*
"Fifteen Million Merits" B-
"The Entire History of You" A-

Series 2
"Be Right Back" A
"White Bear" A
"The Waldo Moment" C+
"White Christmas" A*

Series 3
"Nosedive" B+
"Playtest" B+
"Shut Up and Dance" A-
"San Junipero" A-
"Men Against Fire" B
"Hated in the Nation" A*

Series 4
"USS Callister" A-
"Arkangel" B
"Crocodile" A*

* = best episode of series

Which episode?

"San Junipero"

Oh Lol seen that episode. Thought it was another girl

No, sorry. My mistake...I meant "Men Against Fire". Lots of nudity.

Wow, "Hang the DJ" is another awesome one. I've never experienced these dating apps but love that this episode tackled that fad. I think the ending could have been so much better, really playing on the preceding 50 minutes, but I loved this episode. The relationship between them in the simulation is sweet and pure. She's hot as fuck. He's a nice chap.

Series 1
"National Anthem" A*
"Fifteen Million Merits" B-
"The Entire History of You" A-

Series 2
"Be Right Back" A
"White Bear" A
"The Waldo Moment" C+
"White Christmas" A*

Series 3
"Nosedive" B+
"Playtest" B+
"Shut Up and Dance" A-
"San Junipero" A-
"Men Against Fire" B
"Hated in the Nation" A*

Series 4
"USS Callister" A-
"Arkangel" B
"Crocodile" A*
"Hang the DJ" A-

* = best episode of series

Oooh!

Another great episode with "Metalhead". Basically a short film. A standard robopocalypse story, but really well shot and in black and white (oooh fancy!). I love the ending. So deflating. It wasn't some mission to end the robots. They just wanted a little hope for one of their gang -- to replace a toy that was lost/broke. There is no hope once the robots take over. I have to say, though, that the woman in this episode (she looked a lot like Kate Humble but couldn't be her) was a really bad actress. Everything was breaths and groans. BE FUCKING QUIET YOU STUPID BITCH. And she needn't touch that dead guy's hand to remove the shotgun, but she did anyway just so she could welp. Apart from that, it was a great suspense film, and some scenes were amazing. The bit in the Range Rover was awesome.

Series 1
"National Anthem" A*
"Fifteen Million Merits" B-
"The Entire History of You" A-

Series 2
"Be Right Back" A
"White Bear" A
"The Waldo Moment" C+
"White Christmas" A*

Series 3
"Nosedive" B+
"Playtest" B+
"Shut Up and Dance" A-
"San Junipero" A-
"Men Against Fire" B
"Hated in the Nation" A*

Series 4
"USS Callister" A-
"Arkangel" B
"Crocodile" A*
"Hang the DJ" A-
"Metalhead" A-

* = best episode of series

Excellent final episode. I wished that the pain addict doctor factored into the ending somehow, but it was still brilliant anyway. Douglas Hodge was fantastic.

Series 1
"National Anthem" A*
"Fifteen Million Merits" B-
"The Entire History of You" A-

Series 2
"Be Right Back" A
"White Bear" A
"The Waldo Moment" C+
"White Christmas" A*

Series 3
"Nosedive" B+
"Playtest" B+
"Shut Up and Dance" A-
"San Junipero" A-
"Men Against Fire" B
"Hated in the Nation" A*

Series 4
"USS Callister" A-
"Arkangel" B
"Crocodile" A*
"Hang the DJ" A-
"Metalhead" A-
"Black Museum" A

* = best episode of series

Came back to the series for San Junipero and USS Callister, which both delivered. The rest were hit and miss, but I don't regret finishing it, and will definitely watch season 6 when it comes out in 202?.


New rankings

Great-
1. USS Callister
2. San Junipero
3. The National Anthem

Good-
4. Hated In The Nation
5. The Waldo Moment
6. The Entire History of You
7. Black Museum
8. Men Against Fire
9. Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too
10. Hang The DJ
11. Striking Vipers

Borderline-
12. Be Right Back
13. White Christmas
14. Fifteen Million Merits

Meh-
15. Nosedive
16. Arkangel
17. Metalhead
18. Crocodile
19. Smithereens
20. Playtest

Bad-
21. Shut Up and Dance
22. White Bear

I don't really like "Choose Your Own Adventure" stuff so Bandersnatch may never happen.

I saw the first two episodes of this and really enjoyed them. Basically the new age Twilight Zone. The National Anthem was probably more entertaining, but intellectually Fifteen Million Merits was pretty compelling and had a great ending.

Be Right Back is a pretty interesting watch in light of recent AI. It captures that there will always be something missing. The ending is quite interesting, did she see a glimmer of something real on the cliffside and keep him in hopes he'll learn to become more human-like, or is it a sign she's moved on that she can now just treat him as a picture in the attic?

White Bear was my least favorite episode so far, most of the time I had a feeling of "oh so this is the bad episode" and while the twist and end credits was fantastic, I don't think it changes the execution of the first 2/3s of the episode not being there for me.

I heard people dislike The Waldo Moment, but personally I enjoyed it well enough as at least a mid episode. I found the Waldo animation compelling, stuff like how he's reacting when the conservative MP candidate is dressing him down was done well. The dystopian ending was interesting, with Waldo allowing people to think they're rebelling while they're really being controlled. Much like Fifteen Million Merits, I also found there was a hypocrisy in both lead characters that worked well. In that episode Kaluuya's character is doing the same thing everyone else is by valuing her looks more than all else thus choosing her over the asian girl, and then his sellout at the end also shows he's no better, and maybe he knew deep down that building his points back up and doing a dance routine/glass on the neck would lead them to make him a star. In this one, he blames the MP he slept with for choosing her campaign over him, but he did the exact same thing, he could have just quit his campaign so they can date, but he perhaps also thought he could win and gain power that he claims he doesn't care about.

White Christmas was another good episode, that was really elevated by Hamm being the perfect casting, without him it might have come off as more of a mid episode. The first two sequences with the dating coach and the miniature copy were great could have been their own full episodes, it had a feel like they had some episode ideas they didn't want to give a full one to and just threw them together as shorts in this. The 3rd part overlapped a little bit with some other episodes White Bear and the punishment in both cases felt severe, though maybe that's the point.

Favorite episodes so far

1. Be Right Back
2. The National Anthem
3. The Waldo Moment
4. White Christmas
5. Fifteen Million Merits
6. The Entire History of You
7. White Bear

Joan Is Awful was great. Probably top tier for me. Fantastic unpeeling of the story layers and I actually didn't see the twist coming even though it should have been obvious.

Loch Henry not so much. Like all the worst BM episodes, it didn't feel like there was any point to it. Just a dime a dozen horror film that happened to revolve around a streaming service.

Beyond The Sea was a neat concept, especially when you tie it to the overarching seasonal theme of our addiction to content. It would have been top tier if not for the ending which was terrible.

Mazey Daze was a nice little compact horror movie. Make us hate papparazzi then let us enjoy watching the consequences of their choices.

Demon 79 was good but didn't need to be movie length and I'm not sure what it all was supposed to mean or how it tied into the seasonal theme that guided the other four episodes.