Black Mirror: Episode 1

               In watching the first twenty minutes of the first episode of the Netflix series Black Mirror, we see the Prime Minister Michael Callow (played by Rory Kinnear) awoken with an alarming phone call.  He is then shown a disturbing video of Princess Susannah, the Duchess of Beaumont who has been kidnapped reading a message from her captors demanding that Callow have sexual relations with a pig on live television, streamed across all major British networks that evening.  If he complies with this demand and all of the conditions that go along with it, they are promised the princess’ safe return, and if not the threaten to execute her that night.  The government desperately attempted to stop the public from finding out about the situation, it was too late.  The video had been uploaded to YouTube, so many people had already seen it.  A voluntary D-Notice was put in place to stop new channels from covering the story in the UK, but after international outlets were reporting on it, local channels had to in order to stay current.

            All of the different technology being used in this episode has a continuous impact on all of the characters, because of how endless the stream of people’s reactions and input on the situation is.  First off, the video was uploaded to YouTube, allowing virtually anybody to see it with just a few clicks.  It also made it very easily shareable.  So we then saw reactions to the video through the comments on YouTube and on Twitter, both of which allowed people to add their own twist to the story and to share their opinions.  This constant influx of other peoples opinions and comments made the already devastating situation even more difficult because it makes the crisis inescapable even for a moment.  We can especially see how all of the comments effect the Prime Ministers wife, when she confronts him about how humiliated she is, and how everybody throwing in their two cents is clearly making it worse on her, because he is grappling with how people will view her and her family no matter what the outcome of the situation is.  Since the news stations all wanted to have a unique piece to their coverage of this topic, there were polls and statistics gathered based on how the public was responding.  This offered a small (like very small) strange sense of comfort for Prime Minister Michael Callow, because the results showed that the majority of the population were sympathetic towards him, so he was able to be reassured that what was happening was in no way his fault.  The government was also able to use technology to attempt to trace the source of the video’s upload.

            I think that given the situation they were in, there isn’t a whole lot that the characters could have done differently that would have drastically changed the outcome, but I think there are little things that could have made it easier on the characters themselves. Given the opportunity, it would have been ideal if the government could have released only the parts of the story that they wanted to, but since the video was already on YouTube in its entirety, that would have been impossible.  The Prime Minister’s wife could have tried to avoid the Internet for the day so she wouldn’t know what people were saying which clearly amplified the stress of the situation.  The government employees needed to have access to the internet so they could keep up with the story, but ideally it would have been limited so their information and response to the situation could be kept confidential as long as necessary.  We saw one of the government employees conversing secretly over text message with one woman who worked for the new station.  I think having people preemptively leak information like that causes attention to be on areas of the story where it shouldn’t be, preventing the government to do what they need to in order to get the princess back.  
          This episode of Black Mirror was done in a very dystopian view, especially involving technology.  I think if it was made from a utopian perspective, this situation would have never occurred, but then there wouldn’t have been a show.  So I think given the situation, the characters would have been able to control the story more and defeat the kidnappers without any setbacks, like the princess potentially loosing a finger.  I think the main difference would be that the characters would have been in control, and not been being controlled.