Black Mirror Episode 1 National Anthem Review (SPOILERS)

Hey you, welcome back to the channel. And guys, today we're gonna review the television series Black Mirror. This is episode 1 entitled National Anthem. And, uh, guys, just want to say that this show has been a hit TV show in Britain. It's— I just— well, I found out about the show maybe several months ago, was told by some friends it was a good show, and just getting around to it now. I understand now the full magnitude of the popularity of the show and got through my first episode last night, and I have a lot of interesting things to say about the show, and basically give my opinion, what I think about the show. So the idea I'm getting about Black Mirror is that Black Mirror seems to be kinda like this Twilight Zone-ish type show. Maybe it kinda takes place in some type of alternate reality of some sort. A bit adult-themed. So it's like The Twilight Zone, but wouldn't be the type Twilight Zone that would appear on regular primetime TV. So, you know, a lot of people from America like myself have been able to find this series from Netflix. And it's gotten several seasons now, so You know, some of you probably already know it, probably have already seen it, but those of you who have not want to review this with me, you're welcome to come aboard and listen. So, um, so the Black Mirror show, some people have described it as being this very artistic masterpiece. We've heard that before with several movies and TV shows that some of us have kind of left been kind of left scratching our heads. And this time around, what I'm going to say is I wasn't— the actual idea of what this episode was about, I wasn't that impressed with that. I was kind of hoping to see more like a— more something like a Twilight Zone-ish type twist to it, because my idea of Black Mirror was it was you know, this thing. And I kind of just saw this episode as something that could actually really happen in our world. You know, it wasn't— this wasn't like something that I found a little bit bizarre or odd out of anything that could have, you know, happened. And so I was a little bit, hmm, not that impressed with that because I didn't really see that much special about the episode. But here's what I do want to see about what I did see. The nature of this situation, this event, and we'll get into what that was in a little bit here. But how the show was shot, how it was acted, this is one of these weird reverse type situations for me where actually the acting and how it's shot is actually better than writing, you know, for me. So I actually did like how the actors made these this strange situation, I was invested in their performances. And also, I kind of played a little bias because even though the Black Mirror TV show was new to me, the actors involved are actually very well known to me from other series. Rome being such a series, the character who played Ripa, and the woman who played Sabinia, who I believe was a mistress of Julius Caesar. They were both in this series, as well as Master Luwin from the Game of Thrones series. So, and Rory Kinnear, I believe his name is pronounced, who's from Skyfall, who's from the James Bond series. He actually played the Prime Minister. Um, and so, uh, you know, these are good actors, and, uh, I've liked a lot of shows they've done, so I knew that they would deliver good on the acting, and which they did. Um, you know, but again, just the idea of this, uh, what it sums up to, guys, is, you know, we got to see that this was a type of domestic terrorist type situation where there was a very popular princess that was kidnapped and there were demands for her to be released. And they were just very strange demands about the prime minister, as we got to see, who was the only person who could get this popular People's Princess released. Seemed like it's taking place in what would be Britain or England. And they don't say that because this kind of feels like this alternate reality. But that's what comes to mind, this popular princess. Kind of think of somebody who would have the reputation and love of the people like the late Princess Diana had. And that's what I got from this episode. But she's kidnapped, and the demands from the kidnapper is that he wants the prime minister to commit bestiality with, you know, to have her released on national TV. You know, which of course, I was trying to figure that all out because I was like, okay, so something like that were to happen, just imagine, compare it to like the United States, that happens in the United States and they want someone like Donald Trump to do this because maybe his daughter has been kidnapped, or some important political figure. So this would have to air on national TV, so the FCC would have to okay this so anybody can watch this on television and see this actor Beastie Ali going down. And the way the show's done is, it's done with this kind of dark humor, but it's it's acted in a way that it's not, um, uh, you know, it's not delivered like punchline type humor. Obviously it's all taken serious. The event is taken so serious in the way it's done, it's almost so serious to the point it's a little bit funny and humorous. Um, and I still didn't find it that funny. I did find it quite disturbing. Now you can see that This is depicting the event taking place and people actually watching it. And I'm gonna get into some of what is believed to be the artistic reasoning behind why this was done this way. But there's supposed to be, if I remember correctly, an artistic award called the Turner Achievement Award for British people, I believe, under the age of 45 or 50 or something like that. I'm not very familiar with the award, but it's for artists. And so this particular kidnapper had won this award. And so although he had kidnapped this princess and all these events were taking place, the idea was he was creating this type of art. And if you've seen the episode, I'm not gonna recap it, but I'm just gonna jump into my understanding of it, what the idea behind it was that it's kind of left up in the air, I guess it's kind of interpretive in a way for us to come to our own conclusions with it. But this artist had some ideas is that he was attempting to create this statement, right, both kind of politically to the government and to us being consumed by the internet, consumed by the media, to the point where we've become very desensitized to events such as this. And just how it's depicted with many of the, how the people are just sitting there viewing this, it's kind of reminiscent to me. This just kept coming to mind to me of ancient Rome, and where ancient Rome would have a lot of, be very desensitized to what happened within the gladiatorial games, would actually being able to sit up there as the mob would sit there in the Colosseum and watch people being murdered for sport and for entertainment, human beings being killed. So the mentality of the viewers here is similar to that. It's to the point where you actually have people that want this event to happen. It's almost like they will be disappointed if it didn't happen. The Prime Minister didn't go through with it. They wanna see this. Some probably wanna see it because they hate politicians. Maybe some people wanna see it due to the voyeuristic attitudes and that we've become, come with us in this new age world of the internet and everything being viewable on the internet, whether it be murder, sex, all these various elements. That go with the internet. But, you know, and it kind of reminds me of when, I believe it was a trick performed by David Blaine where he's actually putting paper bags over these spikes and he doesn't know where the spikes are. And what he will do is he'll take his hand and he'll slam down on these paper bags. And he'll slam down on the paper bags and if he picks the wrong ones, one of them has this long spike under it. If he picks the wrong he's— the spike's gonna go through his hand. So he does this, he doesn't get the spike, but he lets the audience know that they are disappointed that he didn't hit the spike, because some people in a weird way really feel that there's no takeaway if David Blaine did not hit the spike. So he actually ends up— giving the people what they want, which is the spike through his hand. He physically takes the spike, shoves it through his hand. Now, and people watch that in anguish, even though they don't look away though while he's doing it. And this is very similar to what happens in this episode where this act is being done by this prime minister to save this princess. They don't look away, and they wanna see this to a degree. Society has become desensitized to this type of thing. There is people who actually want to see it. And the artistic point of this, and I'm assuming, because there are a lot of open-endedness to this, and some people believe that the artist didn't really want to see this, and this is why he commits suicide, because he's given up on humanity. Whereas others think that he just commits suicide to get out of, that he wanted this to happen, and he wants to get out of this, the prison sentence. Actually, obviously they're going to find him at some point, so he just kills his life so he doesn't have to face racist. But whatever viewpoint you take, to me I'm kind of going with he's disappointed in humanity, and that's why he takes his life. Because I believe the artist does believe people want to see this. And he actually releases the princess 30 minutes before the event takes place, which means that all the prime minister had to do was refrain from doing this. And the princess would have been released, and that would have been pretty much the But the artist is so convinced that society has fallen to this level that he knows it's going to take place even if he did release the princess. So that's kind of my take on it, what I kind of took from it. And again, it's open-ended, and I could be wrong. And there are certain elements of that kind of, these kind of open-ended artistic statements that I was very interested in. And I did like, but I thought that where it was interesting, the acting was good, it held my attention. I still don't think the storyline itself was anything special. I didn't think that it was anything masterpiece level about that. People disagree with that, that's fine, but I didn't feel that way. But I did feel that it was well acted, that it was shocking, and it was this type of artistic statement to the state of, our voyeurism with the internet, our being desensitized over time. For instance, I know that on YouTube, social media sites, there are deaths that have been broadcasted online. People can sit up there and watch them. I can't personally. I don't find them enjoyable. I can't watch that kind of stuff. It does something to my nature and my spirit. But the fact The fact that people can, and that they've become ever-present online and in social media, shows me that people have become desensitized to it and they can watch it. And so I think the Black Mirror is a kind of a statement towards that. But I am looking forward to the other episodes. I'm gonna keep reviewing this series. It's very interesting. I'm glad I found it. And I do believe it's good, and I do believe it's gonna get better. The other thing I wanna say too, that if you have watched this show, and if you're watching this going, you watched the first episode and you kinda were a little bit put off by it, kinda like I was at certain stages, I just wanna remind you or let you know if you don't know that these are self-contained episodes, just kinda like The Twilight Zone was. So if you didn't like this episode, watch another one, give a few more a chance because all of 'em are different. This is not a continual series and they're all self-contained. And so I will be watching them and I've heard good things about other episodes. My first introduction to even The hearing about the title of Black Mirror came about after I watched the film called Get Out, which I did a movie review on, on the channel, so be sure and watch that. I like that movie, and David Kaluuya, or Kaluuya, I believe his name is pronounced, who was the star of the movie Get Out, he was first mentioned and first recognized to me and to some friends. I haven't seen the episode yet. I think it will be the next episode I watch, but some friends told me they first encountered him and was made aware of him as an actor through the Black Mirror episode that he starred in. And so I'm looking forward to seeing that. And that was my first interest. That was about several months ago. And I'm just now still had time to come back around after doing other things and now finally get into this series. But guys, that's all I want to say about Black Mirror. The things I've already said, everything about it that I did enjoy and things like that. Guys, let me know what you thought about Black Mirror if you're a fan, if you thought this episode was the masterpiece many people think. Guys, if you like content like this, don't forget to like and subscribe. And until next time, take care.