Black Mirror (TV series)

Black Mirror is a trilogy of television dramas, loosely linked by the fact they're all dark comedies with themes of techno-paranoia and unease with the modern world. The name stems from the reflection that can be seen in the blackened screen of a switched-off glass screen (such as can be found on a smartphone, computer monitor, etc). Two of the episode are written by Charlie Brooker, who also produced the entire series. They are, in order of broadcast:

The National Anthem
Princess Susannah is kidnapped while the abductor taunts the police and press by releasing videos on the internet. The singular demand? That the Prime Minister have sexual intercourse with a pig on live television.

15 Million Merits
The only distraction in a life of endless physical toil is a TV talent show on every screen. The only chance to escape is to enter the show. This episode's premiere screening was deliberately scheduled to begin on Channel 4 immediately after the 2011 final of The X Factor ended over on ITV 1.

The Entire History Of You
Set in a world where every memory you've ever had is stored digitally to be watched and re-watched. Naturally, this is not necessarily a good thing.

Tropes related to The National Anthem:

 * An Aesop: A rare in-universe example.
 * Actor Allusion: one of the talking heads on TV is described as 'an actress from Downton Abbey who knows the princess.' Allen Leech (Branson in Downton Abbey) and Jessica Brown Findlay (Sybil from Downton Abbey) are both in Black Mirror, although Leech is in this episode while Findlay is in 15 Million Merits.
 * Black Comedy: Blacker than black. You will laugh after the ransom demand is first read out; from thereon in it gets a lot blacker and much less comedic as the full implications of the kidnapping and its ransom start to play out.
 * British Royal Family
 * Decoy Hiding Place: The abandoned college, complete with a decoy damsel.
 * Distressed Damsel
 * Dogme 95: Two characters discuss whether the list of demands about the filming of the video - meant to make it as hard as possible to fake - are references to the movement.
 * Finger in the Mail: The kidnapper mails the Princess' finger to the press after it is revealed that the PM is using a body double in a sex tape.
 * Fingore
 * Freeze-Frame Bonus: The kidnapper's list of demands at the end of the YouTube video.
 * Hey, It's That Guy!: Hamlet is the Prime Minister!
 * Maester Luwin is Julian.
 * Branson is a nurse.
 * Hostage Situation
 * Hostage Video
 * Hot Scoop / Intrepid Reporter: Malaika, a rare completely negative example of this combination.
 * Humans Are Bastards: In between a faceless and ill-informed mob loudly braying for the Prime Minister's actions on social networking sites, self-serving politicians and media cynically attempting to twist the issue to their advantage while putting on an air of 'above-it-all' self-righteousness and self-importance all throughout out and the kidnapper who put everything into motion in the first place  , humanity as a whole doesn't exactly come out of this one well.
 * New Media Are Evil: While shaping up to be an overarching theme in the series, it's presence here is overt nonetheless.
 * Old Media Are Evil: This said, however, from what we see of the traditional forms of media they don't exactly escape unburned either.
 * No Celebrities Were Harmed: Princess Susannah is basically a cross between Princess Diana - widely popular among the public and a campaigner for good causes - and Kate Middleton - a fashionable recent university graduate, only recently married.
 * Michael Callow is fairly clearly intended to be at least reminiscent of David Cameron (who, incidentally, episode writer Charlie Brooker has an intense hatred of).
 * Pass the Popcorn: During one of the news reports dicussing the reactions on YouTube and Twitter a message to this effect is briefly shown
 * Black Comedy Rape: Having sex with an animal is pretty much by definition raping it, and the Prime Minister being effectively forced to have sex against his will would in itself be rape, yet soon as the video of the demand is posted on YouTube, people are leaving comments mocking the Prime Minster for what he has to do. YMMV, though, but this could also be Rape as Drama as  Also used in-universe:.
 * Save the Princess
 * Sensory Abuse: In a last ditch attempt to stop people watching the broadcast, it's preceded with a minute-long tone that supposedly causes nausea.
 * Vomit Discretion Shot: Poor, poor Michael Callow.
 * Save the Princess
 * Sensory Abuse: In a last ditch attempt to stop people watching the broadcast, it's preceded with a minute-long tone that supposedly causes nausea.
 * Vomit Discretion Shot: Poor, poor Michael Callow.

Tropes related to 15 Million Merits
"Bing:"
 * Advert Overloaded Future: Adverts aren't just omnipresent - viewers are forced to look at them, and fined for skipping them.
 * An Aesop: Several. Chiefly that our current state of affairs is soul-destroying - of doing pointless work to buy pointless items and with the carrot of celebrity dangled as the only way out. That people will subject themselves to ever greater indignities to escape this prison, but that in reality find that it's just another prison. That real talent and real spirit is being filtered out in favour of homogenous slop, as helped along by the former. That Simon Cowell is a prick.
 * Animal Motifs: Abi's is a penguin - she makes origami ones out of packaging, one is seen waddling around on a screen in her cell and . There may also be a bit of subtext in Bing sitting and pulling apart one of the origami penguins after he.
 * Not to mention.
 * Apathetic Citizens: A whole society content to ride exercise bikes; the only available way to express themselves is to buy pre-approved items for their virtual avatar.
 * Biting the Hand Humor: The show is a satire of The X Factor... and it's written by Konnie Huq, former presenter of "The Xtra Factor" spinoff show.
 * And produced by a subsidiary of Endemol, the producers of Big Brother.
 * Bread and Circuses: Food provided, at a price. Shelter given, but with a catch. Entertainment and hope supplied, to keep you content. Seeing as we never see who is in charge though, we're not really sure what is really going on.
 * Break the Cutie: Abi, intending to be a singer, winds up
 * The compliance serum probably had something to do that too, to be fair.
 * Chekhov's Gun: The empty Compliance carton which Bing hangs onto after Abi's audition.
 * Cluster F-Bomb:


 * Conditioned to Accept Horror: Everybody apart from Bing (and perhaps Abi).
 * Curse Cut Short:
 * Dystopia: In a very thinly veiled metaphor, everyday people are made to cycle on exercise bikes all day (the bikes are connected to generators which supply all of the country's electrical power) to earn money (the "merits" of the title), with the only escape being through a nakedly manipulative and psychopathic talent show. Some are then demoted further to being cleaners ("lemons", due to their yellow uniforms), and thus subject to mockery from everyone else (including a video game where they get blown to pieces).
 * Empty Shell:
 * Fat Slob: How the media portray overweight people, and how the citizens are encouraged to see them, especially with the games Botherguts and Fattax, not to mention the one where they get to shoot overweight cleaners.
 * Freeze-Frame Bonus: Media gossip is very briefly visible scrolling along the top of Bing's mirror.
 * "People who liked [apple] also liked [banana]"
 * Future Slang: A few examples, such as the nickname for the avatars ("Doppels").
 * Gilded Cage:
 * Hey, It's That Guy!: Sybil is Abi.
 * Hopeless Auditionees: The silver-haired Scouse woman plays this role. The show keeps her waiting for what must be months before letting her on, just to tell her to go home.
 * Hypocrite: By the end,
 * Ironic Echo:
 * Jerk Jock: "Dustin liked Botherguts"... and when he's not busy laughing at fat people he can be found abusing the cleaners and leering at violent porn.
 * Manipulative Editing: Parodied with the Hot Shot producer who makes Abi record a pre-prepared soundbyte ahead of her audition.
 * Only Sane Man: Bing.
 * Pants-Positive Safety: Where Bing hides the makeshift glass dagger. Fortunately the Hot Shot judges don't ask him to take a seat.
 * Product Placement: Parodied by pushing it to its limits.
 * Screens Are Cameras: With a very similar technology to Microsoft's Xbox 360 in use.
 * Self-Deprecation: In the last few scenes, is a fairly obvious Charlie Brooker parallel. His speech sounds a lot like some of Charlie's angrier pieces...
 * Sensory Abuse: That high-pitched tone again... here it's used to ensure citizens RESUME VIEWING if they try to avoid watching the screens. The true horror of this reveals itself when
 * Show Within a Show: Hot Shot, among others.
 * Soundtrack Dissonance: Used to great effect with Anyone Who Knows What Love Is - Abi sings a cover on Hot Shot and Irma Thomas's original version plays over the credits. While the schmaltzy version of I Have A Dream is very fitting as we're introduced to this made-up world, a sweet song about experiencing love as something real sounds depressingly ironic as we leave it.
 * It also plays during.
 * Stepford Smiler: The female judge is hinted as being this. Despite playing along, some of her actions and expressions seem to indicate that she is physically uncomfortable with what happens on her show.
 * Token Minority:
 * Twenty Minutes Into the Future
 * "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
 * Truth Serum: Compliance is more of an obedience serum which is forced on all Hot Shot contestants.
 * Up to Eleven: The X Factor parody takes the judges' nasty comments in this direction: "You came across as unlikeable and fundamentally quite worthless".
 * We Will Spend Merits In The Future
 * Up to Eleven: The X Factor parody takes the judges' nasty comments in this direction: "You came across as unlikeable and fundamentally quite worthless".
 * We Will Spend Merits In The Future

Tropes related to The Entire History of You:

 * Amoral Attorney: At the very beginning of the drama the main character has a job review at a Law firm. The interviewing panel mention a new initiative to allow Adults to retroactively sue their parents for not paying enough attention to them as children/infants - using the drama's 'Grain' technology (lifetime memory recorder) to elicit evidence. The main character briefly questions the ethics and morality of this.
 * Drowning My Sorrows: Happens around half way through the episode.
 * Enhance Button: Regardless of the distance or clarity of an event, the "grain" can zoom close enough to read lips and examine facial expressions, even if the event was across the room. Taken to the extreme when
 * Freeze-Frame Bonus: In-universe. Memories can be paused, rewound and manipulated to zoom in and analyse faces or even read lips.
 * The Glomp: Much to Liam's surprise, he gets to do his own as a joke later too.
 * Little White Lie: A fib about the length of a relationship with an old boyfriend kicks off the drama.
 * Longing Look: Perceived by Liam, and with the beauty of replay you can search for every instance, and watch it; over and over again.
 * Love Makes You Crazy
 * Transferable Memory: The "grain" that almost everybody has implanted in their skulls. Used to play back memories on any TV complete with zoom, crop and reconstruction technology. Is also used in security checks when boarding planes. Oh and it's implied there is a black market for memories, as one character had hers forcibly removed.
 * : It's pretty heavily implied that  is Jodie's father.
 * : Given that the couple were trying for a baby at the time.
 * : It's pretty heavily implied that  is Jodie's father.
 * : Given that the couple were trying for a baby at the time.