Black Mirror - Top Ten Episodes (10-6)

There are no spoilers for any of the episodes discussed!

If you've been living under a rock, you don't know the cultural phenomenon that is Black Mirror. Taking a lot of influence from Twilight Zone, Black Mirror is an anthology series focused on near future worlds in all different forms of scenarios. Through its 19 episode run up to this point, Black Mirror has had some very high highs and some extremely low lows. Instead of looking at every single episode of Black Mirror and ranking them as I did with the MCU, I wanted to simply focus on the ten best episodes. I did this because the terrible episodes, I really don't even want to talk about because they're just not worth discussing. Well, enough chatter, let's start with #10!

10. Black Museum

Sometimes a show is at it's best when it takes time to reflect on the moments that made it so great. Black Museum doesn't necessarily do this in the form of a recap show but tackles a similar concept in Black Museum. Focusing on Letitia Wright's Nish who is on a road trip to see her mother and ends up stumbling upon the museum known as the Black Museum. Inside she meets Rolo Haynes, a mysterious man who has artifacts he classifies as "authentic criminological artifacts."  Rolo begins to take her along on the journey of what brought him to make the Black Museum, and eventually show him the prize exhibit.

What makes this episode so unique is because it's essentially three different episodes encompassed in one larger story. Seeing how Rolo connects these stories and creates the backstory of the Black Museum is unique, and the superb creep that comes from Douglas Hodge makes all of this just so interesting. Nish also is a standout, starting out the episode as more of a MacGuffin to show us these past events, but her character is fleshed out as the story commences and reaches its climax. The only reason this episode isn't higher is that the futuristic concepts in this episode are strikingly similar to those introduced in the past and at times it felt like a retread.

9. White Bear

Discovering she doesn't recognize who she is or where she is, Lenora Crichlow's Vitoria Skillane awakens to a mysterious world. She has small memories that come from pictures around her but leaves her house to find answers. Here she finds people to be recording her and completely ignoring her, confusing her even more. Then, a masked man fires a shotgun at her causing her to run off. She meets two others who seem to be stuck in the same situation, Jem (Tuppence Middleton) and Damien (Ian Bonar). Their goal is to look for whatever is controlling those around them, and find out who is out to kill them.

In the beginning, White Bear seems to follow a specific formula in mind control and other elements that come with common science fiction. Lenora Crichlow's performance as the main character makes the episode so much better and results in us caring about this character on another level. But, as the story comes to a close everything is turned on its head with the story turning out to be taken in a completely different direction. The best part of this episode and what truly makes the episode as a whole is that final 15 minutes. It's that well done that it places it in this list purely due to that.

8. Be Right Back

Sometimes losing a loved one can be a challenge, but in Be Right Back, it's impossible for our main character Martha (Hayley Atwell). After losing her husband in an awful car accident, she goes to extremes to recreate her lost love. She finds a service that is available to recreate Ash (Domhnall Gleeson) through voice. Following down the rat hole of this shady service, he begins to rekindle her relationship with Ash through this strange communication. She eventually begins to obsess leading to worse and worse circumstances. There really isn't too much to explain after this as the story follows obvious points, but those obvious points are incredible in every way shape and form. Hayley Atwell is a stellar lead and gives one of the best performances of the series up to this point. The same goes for Gleeson, playing two versions of the same character. Sure the ending is questionable for some, but I truly love the overall arc and everything it brings to the table.

7. Nosedive

Lacie (Bryce Dallas Howard) is just a girl who wants to be seen well and accepted by those around her. Taking to the technology that conquers the days: a 1 to 5 rating system that factors into every part of life possible, she seeks to increase her standing. The thing though with this system is that it begins to envelop all of life, going as far as to essentially create the class system of the world around her. As the episode goes on, Lacie is in dire straits and realizes that the only way to keep up the life she has is to be as nice as possible to everyone around her.

For me, this episode tackles some deeper themes of society. With our technologically based world, Nosedive challenges those of us who want to have a higher place in the social landscape to reconsider the life they chose. Howard's performance as the main character is absolutely fantastic, resulting in a protagonist that captures fans from the very beginning. We see ourselves in this character who just wants to be acknowledged and viewed in a good light by those around her. This connection to the world of today makes Nosedive an incredible episode.

6. Fifteen Million Merits

What I consider to be the beginning of the Daniel Kaluuya revolution, Fifteen Million Merits tackles a world that lives in a box. Literally. Our main character Bing is a part of this world, living his daily life of riding a bike and generating credits for his virtual avatar. See inside this futuristic box, everything is built around our virtual characters. Along the way, he meets a new girl by the name of Abi (Jessica Brown Findlay). Her goal is to get onto this strange world's version of American Idol: a show known as Hot Shot. Things go awry when Bing gifts her the credits necessary and she gets her turn on the show.

Daniel Kaluuya is mesmerizing in our main character. This is a common point for Black Mirror: creating interesting and sympathetic protagonists. The relationship between him and Abi is pure and beautiful, and seeing the path that it takes is heartbreaking. For me, this is another take on current society and it's love of reality television and shaming of those different than us. At the start of Black Mirror's greatness, Fifteen Million Merits was already challenging the norm and criticizing the society it was in.

Part 2: Coming Thursday!

Thanks for checking out Part 1 of my ranking of Black Mirror's top ten episodes. It's my pleasure to do articles like this because it allows me to reflect on television I haven't seen in awhile and acknowledge it's greatness in a new light. So as you can see, Part 2 will come out on Thursday, something different for my usual rankings! I am used to doing opinion pieces once a week, but I really wanted to get these two pieces out in a close time frame, so any future ranked pieces will come out on my Tuesday and Thursday settings immediately after one another to not prevent a delay. Anyways, I'll see you all Thursday!