Black Mirror: Fifteen Million Merits

The entertainment world is awash with dystopias these days, probably because the real world is as well. Crack open a book or sit down for a movie and there’s a non-zero chance you’ll be treated to a gray, sad main character inhabiting a gray, sad world meant to reflect some potentially harmful aspect of our gray, sad lives exaggerated to enhance danger but not so much that the similarities to present day life are unrecognizable. Entering such a saturated market means you’re bound to get at least a little splash of someone else’s work on your own, and while some try to keep overlap as limited as possible, others sink in and treat the word “derivative” like a gold star pinned to their chest. Hence Black Mirror, an ongoing British science-fiction anthology show with Cyberpunk aesthetics chronicling different characters as they move through the Twilight Zone of a Brave New World that’s at least 1984 times more dystopian than our own. Also, Blade Runner. Despite (or perhaps because of) the pride the show takes in its influences Black Mirror is a much-vaunted program by a great many viewers, and today, by listener request, Magellans at the Movies have selected Fifteen Million Merits, one of the most acclaimed episodes, to review from this cynical series of tech-based sorrow. Hop on the bike and power up your computer, let’s go!