I don’t think “Black Mirror” is about how technology is good or bad, but like all decent or better sci-fi, it’s an exploration of HOW technology affects humanity in complex way both good and bad. It’s more exploring what technology does and how it transforms us. Like, what if video games got to the point where you…

I don’t know. I actually wonder if the flashback at the beginning couldn’t have been cut and they just talked about it at the party. It really seemed like some of it could’ve been cut

I agree that the buildup was super slow. They should’ve gotten to the game much sooner

I agree with what you’re saying to a point but if things really got to the point where we have fully immersive VR games where having sex feels as good or as better than in real life it seems like 99% of the people in games would be horny dudes and this would be a well known thing. If it’s really supposed to be a…

Playing as a female character in the video games of today is not remotely the same as being trans. If we had crazy sci-fi games like in “Black Mirror” I could see the video game trans thing as being more valid and more like actually being transgender I would think

I’m really rough on a lot of your writing in general Zack and especially your “Black Mirror” recaps but I finally watched this 11 days later and read your recap and I gotta say this was some of the best writing I’ve seen about this episode anywhere, very sensitive and nuanced and really captured the highs and lows of…

I had most of the same feelings you had watching it. This was a little off-model for a “Black Mirror” episode. There wasn’t a total mindfuck or a deep comment about how technology affects contemporary life or whatever but it was a really entertaining, fun hour long movie. Beyond that though, it really had a lot of…

The most dystopian aspect of our current reality is the fact that Wack Handlin’ still does the Black Mirror recaps for AV Club

I agree. This was the flat out funniest episode of “Archer” in years. It reminded me of what I think of as Archer at its best, when it was primarily about funny banter and wasn’t switching to a new genre every season.

I don’t understand why these “save” campaigns still exist in the age of “peak TV” streaming etc. If anything has any sort of audience it’ll get picked up by a streaming service or whatever. If it’s so bad it gets canceled by broadcast and no one picks it up there’s only about a zillion better things to watch out there…

Some of your critiques are valid and I agree in general that the pacing was weird but I think some of your criticisms are pretty off base. I get what you’re saying that we went right into the AIDS Crisis and ACT UP very quickly but I sort of saw it as making up for lost time since that sort of activism didn’t feature…

And “Big Little Lies” and on and on

If you view the series as any kind of serious comment on contemporary events of either 1990 or 2019 it’s a nearly total failure in my opinion, but that’s now how I viewed it at all. As you say, it was a fun show. That’s all

I think Gaiman committing to making sure it’s just a one off miniseries is great, for all the reasons you say but also more generally this thing of doing shows which are book adaptations and then keeping them going beyond the book a la Handmaid’s Tale and Game of Thrones is ridiculous and has got to stop. 

Yeah I thought he understand what Crowly meant as well and was just too stuffy to have a big reaction to it

A lot of the series in general reminds me of Doctor Who, not just the presence of Tennant. I guess it’s not surprising because Neil Gaiman has done some writing for Doctor Who I believe

Yeah like I say above it’s a silly, broad show that isn’t aiming for subtlety. The Queen soundtrack works perfectly.

I’ve never read the book but whatever was done with Adam’s change of heart in this miniseries was really bad, probably the worst part of the whole thing to date. It just seemed to come out of nowhere and it wasn’t really clear what triggered it. But Adam was also not really developed as a character to begin with…

I’m enjoying most of the Queen “needle drops”. Of course they’re “on the nose”. This is not a subtle show. It’s bizarre that the recapper keeps on expecting it to be subtle. It’s not trying to be subtle

As a fellow non-reader of the source material I agree that this feels like it was really skewed to please an audience of those who had read the books. From what commenters are saying it seems like this was largely a very faithful adaptation and that’s not surprising considering Gaiman was heavily involved. And I agree…