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Recently I saw the [announcement post](https://www.cinetv.io/hive-121744/@notacinephile/cinetv-contest-significant-tv-shows) of a new CineTV contest, and since I always enjoy participating in these writing initiatives I decided to start writing my own entry. 

The last time the contest was about foreign cinema and now the topic is about significant TV shows. I have seen countless series in the past decade, some of them have been awesome and others not so much, but there is one series that has managed to surprise me time and time again. I am talking about Black Mirror. 

Before discovering this series many years ago, I didn't know much about anthologies. I think the only anthology I knew back then was American Horror Story and this series is an anthology per season, not per episode like Black Mirror. Right now, there are many new anthology shows and I believe Black Mirror has a lot to do with this. 

In case you don't know anything about Black Mirror, it is a scifi-drama series where each episode provides the viewer with a new plot where some futuristic technology is the cause of dramatic events. The majority of the episodes focus on negative events, but some of them are about positive ones, San Junipero and Be Right Back would be the best examples of episodes with positive events facilitated by futuristic tech. 

The main reason why I love the series so much is that I have always been very passionate about technology and how it is the main drive that's constantly changing the world. Technology is what allows regular people of today to live better lives than kings from centuries ago. It can liberate people by offering them new opportunities to improve their lives, and in the long term, technological innovations are the only way to keep us from going extinct. 

There are many technologies in current development with implications that many people aren't aware of. The rate of improvement in this area is exponential, not linear, which means things advance much faster as time goes on, and after a while, the rate of improvement might seem unreal due to how fast it is. 

If we show current technology that millions of people use to people from decades and centuries ago, they would be unable to understand how video calls work, how cryptocurrencies work, and they would believe current video games are cool-colored movies and not games. I am sure there are many other similar examples any reader can think of.

Since tech advances exponentially, it is to be expected that in the future, things we now believe are impossible to achieve, might turn out to be not only possible but even common among our descendants. There is a concept called the "technological singularity" and I invite you to research it if you are interested but basically, it is a point in our future where tech innovation becomes so fast-paced that our world is forever changed in unpredictable and irreversible ways. This is mostly related to AIs becoming the main cognitive force in our society. 

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There is also another intriguing topic that might seem crazy but is in fact not a crazy idea, and it is the possibility of us living inside a simulated reality and now in an original one. The arguments for this are varied and I invite you to check the numerous articles in [this website](https://www.simulation-argument.com/) if the topic interests you. 

In case you want just a brief mention of the reasons behind that argument, then remember what I mentioned before. Tech advances exponentially, the video game graphics of today are almost photorealistic, compared them to the graphics of 30 years ago and imagine how the graphics of 2200 are going to look like. Imagine also how advanced AIs are going to get. Just like we are interested in our past and we have games about simulating either modern or ancient civilization, it is possible that an advanced race also has an interest in simulating their past. Popular people like Elon Musk have talked about this, and even powerful institutions like [Bank of America have included this possibility in their reports.](https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/bank-america-matrix-50-cent-virtual-reality-elon-musk-nick-bostrom-a7287471.html)

So, to get back to the show, since I find these topics very interesting, it is natural for me to feel attracted to Black Mirror because this show explores all sorts of situation where futuristic tech play the main role. 

In the show, we will see now only simulated worlds but even simulated realities, we will see examples of minds being copied to a digital environment, which is the same as to say a digital clone, and the implications this can have in the life of both the original human and the clone living in the digital environment. We will also see how the possibility of cloning minds can be used both for good purposes and for evil ones. The show provides examples of horrible tortures only made possible by future tech but also of new paradises and pleasures. 

Not all of the episodes are mind-blowing though. Some of them just show slightly changed versions of things that already exist in our world. One example would be the episode Nosedive, which shows a more dynamic version of the social credit system that China already uses. There are even a couple of episodes that are just drama with little to no scifi, some examples of this are the first episode of the show, The National Anthem, and Smithereens, an episode from season 5 which is the worst one in my opinion. 

The show makes it easier for people to get familiar with how things could be if we had a more advanced tech in our daily lives. What is more important, is that it tries to normalize some significant possibilities such as the existence of digital minds, or just simply having complete lives in digital environments. 

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The stories I happen to find the most mind-blowing and intriguing are from the following episodes: Fifteen Million Merits, White Bear, Playtest, San Junipero, USS Callister, Hang the DJ, this one wasn't that great but I loved the ending, and finally Black Museum. If you decide to check these episodes have in mind only San Junipero and Hang the DJ show positive events, the other ones are dark dramas. All of these stories have extremely original scenes, that will be hard to forget for any viewer.

This show is not only very original, but they also show their stories using different formats. The majority of the stories are in regular episodes lasting between 40-50 minutes, but there is also one called White Christmas that can be considered a movie due to its length, and this episode has one of the best twists and plots of the entire show. The other special episode is Bandersnatch, this one is an interactive movie which means that during key moments of the story the viewer can choose which decisions the main character takes, and these decisions will naturally change the events and ultimately the ending of the story. It has different endings, and each plot path provides varied crazy explanations. It was a cool experiment and I hope they decide to create another interactive episode soon enough. 

The show has several good performances and it is difficult to just choose one actor as the best one, let's remember each episode has a different cast and can be seen as independent mini-movies. However, I think the most memorable performances are from Daniel Kaluuya in 15 Million Merits, from Will Poulter in Bandersnatch even though he played a secondary character, and from Jon Hamm in White Christmas. 

If you enjoy the scifi genre, and if you are even slightly interested in futuristic tech, you should give this show a chance. If you have never watched it and after watching 1 episode you aren't convinced, I would advise you to not skip the entire show. Some episodes can be completely different from one another, so even if 1 episode can be crappy that doesn't mean the rest are bad too. If you aren't sure which episode to watch, let me know your favorite genre so I can recommend you an episode with a strong focus on that genre. 

I hope this post can encourage some readers to give the show a watch, and if you already knew about it let me know your thoughts. 

Thanks for reading!

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<center><i><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/42009-black-mirror/images/backdrops?language=es"><sup>         Source</sup></a></i></center>