NP - Black Mirror Season 3

[Johnny Marr]

Nathan Barley is brilliant, but is as much the work of Chris Morris (who
belongs with Hogarth, Swift and Orwell as one of Britain's greatest most
scabrous satirists) as of Brooker.

I say that as a Brooker fan - you can see more clearly what each brings to
the table if you watch their other respective works (The Day Today, Brass
Eye, Jaaaaam - which is as dark as anything I've ever seen broadcast
despite featuring very little blood and gore - and Four Lions for Morris;
Black Mirror and the superb Screenwipe for Brooker)

I also say that in retrospect. I will confess I thought Nathan Barley was
slightly disappointing when it came out, as it seemed like they'd lost
sight of the more vital targets of their previous work and had instead
focussed on a small cabal of second rate fly by nights. The following ten
years have proven me wrong - I feel utterly foolish for having failed to
pick up on their warnings about the gentrification if London and the World
Wide Web as a Wild West of posturing, attention seeking and shallow
inflammatory gestures at the expense of more thoughtful journalism

Not that I was the only one left flat footed to begin with

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/feb/10/nathan-barley-charlie-brooker-east-london-comedy?client=safari

On Tuesday

, October 25, 2016, John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com> wrote:

> I still haven't watched any Black Mirror (hold up, flagellants!) but Mark
> T is right about Nathan Barley. I've never seen such a prescient piece of
> TV, to the point where it's not that interesting now that the world it
> depicted is ours. But for the few who caught its six crummily videoed
> episodes back in the day it has a permanent haunt in some corner of the
> mind.
>
> On 25 Oct 2016 2:20 pm, "Mark Thibodeau" <jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com');>> wrote:
> >
> > "Shut Up and Dance" is an absolutely devastating meditation on the use
> > and abuse of shame by agents of radical transparency in an era of
> > omnipresent technocratic surveillance. A jet black, synapse-scorching
> > satirical masterpiece.
> >
> > Jerky
> >
> > On Mon, Oct 24, 2016 at 10:31 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','fqmorris at gmail.com');>> wrote:
> > > Wow! Your take is WAY more than mine.  Yes. It is our Twylight Zone,
> which
> > > was always spotty. And TZ was usually best as a spoof, not as
> IMPORTANT.
> > > The universal plastic surgery episode was an exception.  The "Nose
> Dive"
> > > premier was a big riff on Facebook, Twitter, et al, ubiquity, extended
> to
> > > its rule of the world of commerce with a single ruler become law (a
> dubious
> > > premise, at best). Still, it worked, but was too long.
> > >
> > > David Morris
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On Monday, October 24, 2016, Mark Thibodeau <jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com');>> wrote:
> > >>
> > >> You have got to be fucking kidding me.
> > >>
> > >> This series has included some of the most vital, successful, and I
> > >> would (and will) argue IMPORTANT works of fiction produced so far in
> > >> the 21st century. They will be milestones and touchstones by which
> > >> future generations will mark, measure and compare all future works of
> > >> socially aware speculative fiction, not unlike the way Twilight Zone
> > >> informed so much that succeeded it.
> > >>
> > >> I mean, there's a reason why the contemporary Chinese intelligentsia
> > >> have taken to it like no other Western product before
> > >>
> > >> Anybody else here have an opinion on Brooker's incredible series? And
> > >> has anybody here other than myself seen his series Nathan Barley,
> > >> which was equally groundbreaking? Unlike Black Mirror, which is
> > >> heralded, Nathan Barley was ignored. I think mostly because it was a
> > >> slashing expose of the kind of people who review such things for a
> > >> living, but what do I know? I was only one of them at the time...
> > >>
> > >> yer old pal Jerky
> > >>
> > >> On Mon, Oct 24, 2016 at 7:32 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','fqmorris at gmail.com');>> wrote:
> > >> > No Black Mirror episodes wear well, except maybe the pig-fuck one.
> All
> > >> > are
> > >> > essentially morality scolds masquerading as insight.  But what
> really
> > >> > kills
> > >> > them for me is that they are all half-hour stories stretched to a
> full
> > >> > hour,
> > >> > making them extremely predictable and very boring.
> > >> >
> > >> > David Morris, constantly fighting fast forward urge.
> > -
> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>
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