My spirit animal

I will preface that it's taken me a while to come to the realisation that Charlie Brooker is my spirit animal. He is pensive, introspective, industrious and, for the liberal lavishing of icing on top of this steadfast foundation, he also has a good command of the language. It is nice to find someone else who skewers cultural devolutions and hypocrisies with such a driven consistency.

He first entered my consciousness at the point where I was first discovering Doug Stanhope - and much to my chagrin, some of his best bits came as a result of this unholy tryst (although I don't really mind - I just wanted more gold to be mined from Doug). Charlie was able to give me Doug and I was happy. Initially I wrote Charlie off as merely a TV host with nothing more to say than the words he read from the teleprompter. But I was wrong. Interestingly his views on film almost always aligned with mine. It was nice that he thought in a similar way to me and had similar views to me. But similarities do not mean you are the same entity.

His next notable foray was when he created Black Mirror which (I came to realise) is a series of disconnected episodes which almost always had a strong commentary on societal disconnects or the superficial, vapid desires which make up our culture today. But it all started with the first episode. I didn't like it, which was a problem. I was under the misconception that the next episode would follow on chronologically from this - and unfortunately I didn't enjoy the setting. But then, months later, I gave it another go and, lo and behold, the next episode was completely different ... and it was actually good (well, to my taste). This was my in - my gateway into bingeing everything else. I also realised that this Brooker fella couldn't be pigeon-holed (outside of having intelligence and high production values). Each episode was a present, waiting to be unwrapped - and then immediately tossed away. Watching on Netflix makes even great content disposable but the good shows still resonate in your subconscious even if they have seemingly been forgotten. Which brings me to my review of the latest season of Black Mirror.

Would you believe that a season could be as short as three? Nor did I but I don't mind. It had notable stars and very high production value (I would estimate at least 20 million per episode) but overall I was a little disappointed. The first episode was a bit bubble gum and a little too on the nose, with the evil music producer commoditizing a burned out pop star - and a cutesy CG robot doll. It was too meandering and not as subversive compared to the earlier seasons. The second episode was good, following the story of two old friends connecting through an innocent VR fighting game. It posed some pertinent questions which still resonate in my subconscious - even if I wish they wouldn't. Then we have the paint-drying hostage negotiation story with some bludgeoned-in cues around the evils of social media which is a little annoying. All in all I think Brooker is running out of cool ideas to pose. Perhaps it was just that he was contractually obligated to deliver a season and was forced to throw out a few B-roll ideas. I can't blame him, though - it's just that I'm a little disappointed that we didn't get more scathing social commentary. For those of you who haven't, check out Black Mirror - and stick through the episodes you don't like because I can guarantee that at least a few episodes (and, dare I say it, seasons) will stick with you - even if you don't enjoy them directly.