Black Mirror: "Playtest" Review (Spoilers)

Hey you, welcome back to the channel. And guys, today we're going to review Black Mirror Season 3, uh, Episode 2, Playtest. And guys, uh, some are claiming that this might be the best Black Mirror episode or one of the best. And as I'm on my binge watching, uh, trying to catch up with this great show I've missed all these years? Hard for me to make a determination on that until I get back up to speed. But I can tell you I was quite impressed with this episode and that this episode surprised me a great deal. So for those of you who are gamers, you might find this episode quite interesting. You know, it's become quite the conversation of the next level of game interaction, of game interfaces. And what about a direct brain connection? And that's what we get basically in the episode of Playtest, where there is an experiment to test this game that uses your brain to create a totally immersive experience. And our main character here, Cooper, you know, we get from the onset that Cooper throughout the series is this type of adventurer and that he is experiencing life, he's living life. And he's traveling the world. He's been all over the world from India to Thailand to just— and then he makes it back to Europe as he's ending his destination to go back home. But we also find out that Cooper is running away from a lot of things that are happening with his family back home. He's just lost his father. To Alzheimer's, and his mom is desperately trying to get a hold of him, constantly calling him on his telephone to make sure he's all right. Cooper doesn't want to deal with the death of his, uh, his father. He doesn't want to deal with his family at the time. Uh, so in this type of escapism, he's trying to run away from all of that, and he seems to be doing that In a sense, both literally and figuratively. But he basically gets connected to this video game company that can basically through this device help him escape. But really what it's about is he is trying to go home, and I'm assuming he's trying to make it home and deal with you know, his family. His credit card is hacked, so he's unable to go home. You know, of course, we got to see where he met this young woman played by Sonya, who becomes a romantic interest, but also, you know, brings to his attention that he can make a lot of money if he can just get information from this video game company. And she is a journalist. And, uh, if she can get information about this technology that they're using, uh, that would be worth a great deal of money. We, you know, as we also got to see that there, uh, you know, were some dangerous things happening. People have been disappearing. And, you know, she comes, she's able to try to come there and warn him of these various things. But, you know, what this episode, you know, very much related to in my mind, what it really connected me with was the movie by Christopher Nolan, Inception. And that is where they would use devices, they would use technology to enter into people's minds in a type of virtual reality sense and be fully immersed in this world. And the way that this is done in this episode is through a type of serum and technology that puts the brain in a state where it can process at the synapses and create these very real experiences. 1:00:00 And the objective in this is to create the ultimate fear game, horror, for the participant to engage in. 1:00:10 Now, what also comes to mind in watching this episode and speaking of things like virtual reality and games is the book by Neal Stephenson called Snow Crash, which would later inspire one of the most successful virtual world games out right now, and that's Second Life. And Neal Stephenson in his book Snow Crash, this is achieved very similar to what we get here with Cooper in this Black Mirror episode where there is a type of serum. But in Snow Crash, there's actually a drug you take, a type of hallucinogen. And coupled with technology, they experience these various things. And so the irony of it is now Cooper, in his attempt to escape some of his greatest fears, not to have to deal with his family, not to have to deal with his father's death from Alzheimer's, and the very unfortunate symptoms and conditions that go along with Alzheimer's, of not remembering who he is, his mom not remembering who he was, as we got to see in the episode is, you know, he actually does make it to her to visit her, only to find out she too is suffering from Alzheimer's, which is another great fear of his. And he's experiencing all of this seemingly now outside of the game, like he's been woken up from it. But he's relived— he's basically experiencing all his various fears, uh, as which was the purpose of the game. So at this point in time, he's still in the game. And again, this is part of these dream within dreams type sequences, like what we got to see in Inception. And that I picked up on that, and all throughout this entire episode, when he's going into this game through this technology in this, in this type of serum or drug. What's coming to mind is, for me initially, is I can very easily see this becoming a situation where he cannot distinguish between reality and dream and the VR, in the virtual world. And that's exactly what's happening all the way to, it's kind of left open-ended in a sense that he, this may just be another fear that he's not really dead. But from the way that the episode is set up, I'm under the assumption that he does die, but he dies in a state of, once everything that happens happens as we got to see in this 4-second window of the game and with his mom's telephone is what basically causes the interference in the system, and that's what supposedly ultimately kills him, if we want to go with that. You know, he finally died. He finally did get back in touch with his mom, and he dies at the end of the, you know, the episode, unfortunately. But, you know, the The whole idea behind this episode for me, and again, you know, this is what I think makes people believe this is one of the best Black Mirror episodes because of the depth of the questioning of Cooper's reality. He did, you know, all through this episode, we think he's experiencing life outside of the game. But it's all happening within the game, within this 4-second window. But much like when we engage in video games or we lose track of time because we're having a lot of fun and, or the days seem to last forever or time picks up, what's happening in this situation is time has seemingly went longer than it really is. He's experiencing all this in this 4-second window where his brain has distorted time. And basically Cooper's death is a product of him trying to steal the information, basically smuggle information about this virtual game company outside by turning his phone on, uh, when he's not supposed to, in order to take photographs, in order to get this data so he can make a lot of money so he can get back home. And in doing that, it leaves the phone, uh, open for his mom to call in, which makes him go into the convulsions and seizures as the phone turns on and is ringing, which they thought was off. And, um, you know, this is a result of Cooper trying to avoid dealing with his, with his mom, uh, you know, only to try to call his mom. Now, another, another, uh, uh, you know, idea or, you know, possibility was that Cooper was never in the game, that this all happened in Cooper's mind, uh, because the game was never, uh, completely uploaded. So this This is a type of mind-bending type episode, and I may need you guys' help with this to try to— I've basically heard many ideas about what really happened and how it was interpreted. And that's what's so genius about the Black Mirror episodes, in that many of the episodes do this type of open-ended type thing where it's open to suggestion and where we're kind of, as the viewers, left up to interpret, you know, what goes on. But I, I think that it's pretty clear Cooper does die. He, he does call out to his mom and get back to her in a sense, but it's too late. So I think some of the message I, you— I can take from that as well is, you know, uh, basically the importance of, uh Communicating with our loved ones whilst they're alive, right? Cooper didn't get a chance to do that. He tried all his life to run away. And then at the time he does attempt to do that, when he does call out, it's at his death. It's, you know, basically at the brink of it being too late. So we can look at it, you know, in a sense that way. And running away, you know, from his fears, uh, only to have to face them no matter how much he tried to run away from. He ends up— this game ends up being yet another portal or yet another roadblock in him trying to run away from his fears. And so just a very twisting, interesting episode. Just good setup, good writing, you know, again. You know, this is just focusing on the technology for a sense, you know, as Black Mirror relies a great deal on technology as its set pieces. You know, this makes one question, you know, with using technology and interference with the brain, you know, could you know, we one day go too far with the brain and maybe bring the brain in a state like this where we cannot recognize reality because as humans we do depend so much on our sensory perception, on our senses. And, you know, that's why In this episode with Cooper, we got to see him struggle with what was real and what wasn't, even to the point at the end where Sonya, his girlfriend, wherever it's only supposed to be visual, they find that— he finds that he can touch her, that he can feel her, that she feels very real to him. So So this may mean that the technology itself has, or rather the brain itself has taken over, you know, with Cooper in this case, and, you know, is operating outside the technology, which, you know, by the interference and tampering with the brain, which I would also think would be a great fear in dealing with this type of technology, or just starting to, as we, use our technology to basically integrate it into the brain more and more, the dangers of that. So I think that's what scared me the most about the episode, just, you know, some of the types of technology that some futurists theorize we will experiment with as far as using the brain in the future to basically be able to connect to the internet and you basically being able to experience everything directly from your brain and various things like that. So I found all that very interesting. Guys, I'm interested in you guys' opinions about what you thought about this episode and, you know, what aspects of it were real, what wasn't. You know, also what, you know, what was also very interesting was that the company, the computer company itself, when Cooper died, they seem to, uh, have had several incidents with this before. And this is, uh, what had happened with the incident. But anyway, guys, tell me all what you think, uh, about this episode. Guys, you like content like this, don't forget to like and subscribe. And until next time, take care.