Black Mirror (2011)

basics...
A trio of morality plays about the state of Britain at the beginning of the 21st century, as told by the warped wind of Charlie Brooker and featuring an all star cast (well, episode 1 anyway). 

brilliant...
The best episodes were those (co-)written by Brooker; the first, The National Anthem was a blackly hilarious skewering of the media, politics and the public appetite for spectacle wherein the people's princess is kidnapped and the ransom demands that the PM must have sex with a pig live on TV. Played completely straight by the likes of Rory Kinnear and Lindsay Duncan, the drama feels like it is but a single breath from reality in the way that the media manipulates public opinion and how both fuel political actions. It all ends up rather bleak and distressing, and the title of the series is never more apt. 

15 Million Merits is very different, and very good. Directed by Doctor Who veteran Euros Lyn, the story is set in an unspecified future in which our hero (Daniel Kaluuya) is one drone among many. He sleeps in a room that is wall-to-wall TV screens, with an avatar able to wander around Second Life type worlds while he must cycle daily to power the constant stream of stimulation on the channels that feature game shows that poke fun at fatties, computer game shoot-em-ups featuring the world's cleaning staff, salacious pornography and an only-just exaggerated form of Britain's Got Talent/X-Factor. It's a chilling, dystopian vision, and the young cast captures the tedium of the world well. I've been saying for a while how much I dislike the way our lives are dictated by screens of every discription, and here is such a world. Part Big Brother, part game show, the story at the heart of the show, our hero gives the credits he has inherited from his brother to a girl he's sweet on so that she can go on Hot Shots and become a singer, is nicely subverted when she is forced into porn. Bleak, original and terrifying stuff.

Third programme, The Entire History of You, written by Jesse Armstrong was less compelling, with fewer ideas. The main idea was a good one though. In this world everyone has a 'grain' implanted behind their ear that records everything a person sees and does, which then allows a person to rewatch moments from their lives either on their own or synched up to a TV screen. Husband and wife Liam (Toby Kebbell) and Ffion (Jodie Whittaker) are at the centre of a small, more personal story than the two previous shows, that deals with the former's sexual jealousy, which is exacerbated by the grain's ability to exactly revisit old arguments and takes obsession to dangers levels. It's an interesting idea but I think it would have worked better on a grander scale, with a more compelling narrative - perhaps some humour too, something this installment lacked.

briefly...
Thought-provoking cautionary tales with lashings of originality and wit, Black Mirror's 'play of the week' style should be more common on British TV.