TV: Black Mirror / S4: Ep.9 - Metalhead

Black Mirror might as well be known as Twilight Zone of the modern era. Mix plot-twists with fear of near future-tech taking over our lives and you have the perfect combination that we can all relate to. And while the newer episodes backed by the online giant have been enjoyable, at the same time they've overall been less dark and tamer than when they were solely on BBC. I've heard good things about Metalhead, the ninth episode of the show's 4th season, and so here are my overall thoughts...

Right from the get go we're introduced to a world showered in black and white which clues us in to how dire things are. A three person group, who appear to be survivors, drive across an empty road through what we can only suspect used to be vibrant and grassy plains, but due to the decision to go without color it feels like everything has been drained of its life. Our trio make their way to an abandoned warehouse where upon they argue whether it's worth it to potentially lose their lives for whatever's inside. Bella, played by Maxine Peak, sternly says that if it makes it easier for someone back home to die easier then it's worth it to her. This basically is the entire motivation that drives the episode, and most importantly, Bella. We aren't yet given a reason for their fear and yet as the same time we know it's such a menacing threat that they're willing to sacrifice themselves for the sheer thought of brining someone comfort.

The park at a warehouse, they split up and find a box on a top shelf with the matching serial number they have written down, however, upon moving the box we're finally introduced to the terror that lurks in the tech of this world, a "Dog". Based undoubtedly off the unsettling robots created by Boston Dynamics, the Dog attacks them and shows off a wide array of weaponized abilities. Chaos ensues, a car chase follows, and Bella is the last remaining member of the group to survive the Dog's attack. The Dog is hard to describe but the gifs prepared for this post should give enough of a visual representation of how utterly non-scary they are and yet when we see the characters react to them they are overcome by fear as if death were guaranteed. We can only assume that these were designed as military weapons that somehow began to operate independently, maybe even used to wipe out small villages and insurgents without the need for infantry to get their hands dirty.

The fascinating thing that I loved about this episode was that unlike most Black Mirror episodes that spend most of their time world building, here we're just thrown into the thick of it. I mean, there's barely any plot to speak of: survivors try desperately to run away from hi-tech pooches. With this serious we're used to viewing how horrible humans are to each other and how the world they've built for each other has been dominated by new social rules regularly reinforced by connected services or new hardware. Here, we can only conceive in our heads that a military experiment had gone haywire and still even then we aren't given any clues that that's what happened. It's quite bare, reduced to living or dying, which drives home the black and white aesthetic and proves that less is sometimes more.