Fifteen Million Merits

Let me be honest: This is my first episode of Black Mirror, which is a show I've always heard is good, but never got to confirm for myself until now. What made me want to watch this specific episode is not the main character's actor, who has since gone on to star in this year's mega-hit 'Get Out', but it's premise alone. A world where people help power their isolated world by exercising, while those not fit enough become janitors who are often mistreated and mocked or the butt of a joke. It's shocking in it's themes, but not in a way that makes me want to puke.

To put it lightly, this episode displays why I now like this series: it's gut wrenching, horrifying, and shocking, but not in the conventional way of displaying horrific visuals meant to make you cringe. Instead, Black Mirror manages to get all 3 of these across the board with it's honest, tight, and brilliantly told messages about the many ways society could connect with technology... and let me tell you, none of them are really 'good'. This specific episode I've chosen to review is something that starts out subtle, and only goes downhill as the episode progresses. I'm not going to say anything about this episode other than how much it got to me, because it really is one you're better left seeing without too much knowledge about it. Many of the characters I found interesting, even some minor ones. They're relatable in ways that everyone can agree with, and the dialog plus the overall story is sharply written to a point that made the 1 hour I spent watching it feel like nothing.

If you're looking into Black Mirror as a potential series to binge, know that it's not for everyone. It's shocking and emotional in many unconventional ways, and almost always has a statement to make, so if that sounds good, then shoot for it. Just thinking of this episode makes me want to watch the other episodes.

Firstly if you want to ingest something that validates your life, that confirms everything you already believe in or something that makes you feel comforted, loved or thrilled then you probably need to go away and look in the (black?) mirror.

It manages to be upsetting, tedious and poignant and necessarily so. Also add intriguing.

Unfortunately judging by outbursts on Tw*tter (its a love/hate relationship) it seems many people are reacting in a similar way to one of the more remedial characters in this work of genius.

Watch this then turn of your TV for a while and read. Society depends on it.

I only recently came to Black Mirror and find it fascinating viewing them through the prism of all that's happened in the five years since this first season was produced.

The structure of this episode feels more like a piece of theatre. The scenarios in which the characters are placed are implausible and don't bear analysis (yes, of course using humans to generate electricity is not efficient) and the supporting characters are deliberately one- dimensional. But that's what makes it so effective.

Look beyond the obvious and specific commentary it provides on reality TV and body image obsession, and you'll find that what it really exposes is the fundamental futility of our modern consumption-driven existence. Our visceral needs to obtain more drives us to greater debt. Our debt forces us to work, pedalling frantically at life just to keep our heads above water. Like the man relegated to wear yellow and serve as the butt of crass humour, failure to keep up just pushes us onto a downward spiral from which we cannot return. And ultimately the fear of failure, of the oblivion of death, allows us to swallow our moral objections to that life when a path to greater comfort is offered to us.

And of course, at the end of the day, those in power know how to manipulate our weaknesses. They are caught up in the cycle, trapped themselves. The judges know they have to keep pushing the boundaries to keep people viewing. So their moral compass spins as wildly as our own as they struggle to stay ahead of the pack. In a world bereft of genuine feeling or emotion, what little genuineness exists is itself commoditized. Expressions of individuality, of innovation, become the intellectual property of others, are franchised and end up as dully ubiquitous as what came before.

But what choice do we have? Can we escape the treadmill? We are not fulfilled, but can we see a viable path to a fulfilling life? Are we better off mindlessly keeping the wheels turning so that the material necessities of life are still provided? Or do we take the risk and break out? Is there even anything outside the treadmill? Can we live outside of the economy that imprisons us? Is death really our only escape?

Or should we just resign ourselves to it? Become like the crass, mindless idiot who laughs along with the spoon-fed televisual mush? Can we suppress thoughts of betterment and make our lives tolerable by giving in to conformity? Can we let "I really had no choice" become a valid defence for our inhuman actions?

Whatever it was, it nearly made me suffocate with holding my breath.

You know that feeling you get, that almost nausea, that exhilarating terror when you take the plunge over a roller-coaster loop, that feeling of stretching out a finger to barely touch something transcendental, that white blank feeling you get when you've hit ground zero and the truth is there, almost there...

No?

I've had that feeling before. I almost can't quite remember when, just that the enormity of feeling something like that couldn't possibly be contained in a memory.

This makes no sense, does it?

I don't know - but tell me you didn't feel something rare when you watched Bing nearly commit cultural, political and physical suicide on that stage. I've never seen anything that's managed to depress and stimulate me at once. I've never seen anything that raw and human. Not for a long time.

Watch it?

And transcribe the end speech. I would have that tattOOED.

This story is called "Fifteen Million Merits", it's an alternative world in which people ride cycles to gather credits, to buy items for their avatars, to buy sustenance, and basic needs. It's a world where each individual is forced to watch commercials or pay fees to mute or get rid of them. What might seem like a digital utopia to some, turns into a hell for others.

Bing is an innocent soul who falls in love, and wishes for his love to succeed. He spends 15 million credits to help his love to get a chance of a lifetime. Unbeknownst to him (and the rest of the world), contestants are drugged to do whatever the leaders tell them to do on a grimy sleazy talent show.

What happens next might shock, it might surprise, but it definitely will amaze you to see that this alternative universe isn't that far off from our world today... or what it could be tomorrow.