Old Nightmares and New Terrors
An homage to The Twilight Zone and a look at Season 6 of Black Mirror
If you’re new here, welcome to Binge, the section of Kindling where I talk all things dark fiction. Books, movies, shows, and what I thought about them. Please chime in with any and all thoughts in the comments!
My parents used to watch The Twilight Zone. I don’t think it was a regular show in our household, but if nothing else was on, they would give it a go. There are early experiences in life, media we are exposed to that just jives. For some, it was Disney princesses or Marvel superhero’s. For me, it was The X-files, Tales From the Crypt, and The Twilight Zone.
I can recall the episodes, the music, the feelings I had about the stories. Some of those images still come wandering into my daydream thoughts from time to time. There are only two episodes from The Twilight Zone that I remember distinctly: “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” and “The Masks”.
Masks terrify me. I know they’re supposed to be art, the center of tradition and belief, but I hate to look at them, much less wear them. I am 99% sure that all these years later, this episode has something to do with it.
And of course the fear of flying personified. Recently, on a trip home after visiting a friend, I experienced the worst turbulence of my flying life. Fortunately I had shows and books to distract me, but all along in the back of my mind was the thought that I was probably going to die.
When I snag a window seat and watch the wing of the plane, this image pops into my mind without fail. Every. Time. I know I’m not alone. This is one of, if not the most popular episodes of The Twilight Zone, enduring to modern times because the fear still applies. A good portion of us don’t like to be 20,000 feet in the air.
Good horror does that. The monsters we read about in stories are real when we’re children. We don’t know enough to be able to see the truth behind the lie. Vampires that suck your blood and turn you into an undead slave don’t exist (hopefully), but people like Charles Manson do. Supernatural creatures haunting city streets and dark woods might not be real (note the might), but we know that most violent crimes are committed at night.
There’s a lesson in there, behind the masks and makeup. Don’t go out after dark.
The Twilight Zone of my childhood is long gone, but thankfully, I have Black Mirror.
Black Mirror, in all its dark goodness, brings our modern nightmares to life. I like to think of it in the terms that Ray Bradbury talked about science fiction. He was writing what he didn’t want the future to look like. Dystopia takes a look at the darker possibilities that could be waiting on the other side of what today, looks like progress.
People ask me to predict the future, when all I want to do is prevent it. Better yet, build it. Predicting the future is much too easy, anyway.
—Ray Bradbury, Beyond 1984: The People Machines, 1979
This season took a turn from a lot of the sci-fi elements, and ended solidly in supernatural horror. Of course I’m a fan. I’m sorry. I know a lot of you probably didn’t anticipate it, and for those looking for straight science fiction, it probably was a disappointment.
But all I could see were the easter eggs people! Little nods to old horror with a new take. It was wonderful! There may be spoilers in here, so please don’t read any further if you don’t want the surprises ruined (I really will try my best).
Without further ado, and in response to no one’s request, here is my ranked list of the new season of Black Mirror.
No. 5, Joan Is Awful
After a rough day at work, tech exec Joan Tait heads to her weekly therapy session, then secretly meets her ex for dinner. When she arrives home to watch her nightly show on the streaming service, Streamberry, she finds a brand new release. Joan Is Awful. The actress, Selma Hayak, has hair colored just like Joan’s.
As it starts playing, she realizes to her horror that her day is being played on the screen. Her private conversations, her decisions at work, all being played for millions of watchers. What follows is the all too possible scenario of trying to claim back her identity and life from big tech’s watchful eyes. She signed away her own life for material in the Terms of Service. They get to use any and everything she says and does.
A strange path that social media and the monetization of everyday life could take. We all want to be the main character in life…or do we?
While falling solidly in the sci-fi lane, it was my least favorite this season. Listen, I appreciate the episode. I love the actors, but it just didn’t quite do it for me. Data ethics, company corruption, monetizing real lives—I love the questions, and the dark portrayal of where this could all go. But the repetition necessitated by the storyline bores me. It’s the same problem I had by the end of Recursion by Blake Crouch, and even a bit with 11/22/63 by Stephen King. Time travel, parallel universes and nested simulations have that effect on me.
No. 4, Loch Henry
Davis brings Pia to his sleepy, Scottish home to meet his mother and work on a film for school. While they are there, Pia learns of the crime that destroyed tourism in the little town, and resulted in the death of Davis’ father, leaving his quiet mother a lonely widow.
Pivoting from their original plan to make a nature documentary, they decide to document the horrific tortures and murders that took place in a farm house nearby. Davis’ father, a police officer, was shot by the perpetrator, a quiet man who lived with his mother and father, and frequented the local pub.
In a strange turn of events, Pia learns that some secrets are better left dead.
This was a great watch, one I would throw entirely into crime thriller. It seemed the most out of place in a Black Mirror episode to me, but it was very well done, and for whatever reason, the gotcha factor worked. Definitely fulfilled the genre standards while providing a nice, while in hindsight predictable, twist at the end.
No. 3, Mazey Day
When photographer Bo catches an actor with his secret gay lover, he commits suicide, and she decides to end her career. Until she is approached with an offer too good to refuse: get a photograph of Mazey Day, an actress who walked off her set and hasn’t been seen since.
That’s because Mazey has a secret. She was the driver in a hit and run, an accident where she may have killed a man and gotten away with it. Seemingly eaten up by guilt and on the verge of a complete mental breakdown, Mazey goes to a rehab. When Bo finds out about it, she sets out to take one final picture that will give her all the money she needs to change her life.
Love, love, loved this episode! When it started, the story didn’t catch me. A tragic actress getting away with murder and being eaten alive by the guilt was almost too sad and real. The commentary on media and the dehumanization of famous people, while posing a really interesting moral dilemma for the main character was also so depressing. I hate the idea of people having to work jobs that go against everything they believe in to survive. And then, and then, the story takes a completely insane turn, ending with a message that I eat for breakfast: who is the real monster?
No. 2, Demon 79
Nida is an Indian-British sales clerk in a little English town. Her co-workers don’t like the smell of her food, her neighbors want their communities to be white, and more people around her are joining a far-right nationalist party that wants immigrants out.
Her only outlet for the daily rejection she suffers are violent fantasies. Until one day, when she is eating her lunch in the basement of the department store she works at. A harmless search through some drawers leads her to a strange artifact. Meet Gaap, a demon with a mission: get Nida to kill three people in three days, or the world ends.
Imaginative, political without being obnoxious, funny, and horrific. I loved the solid meeting of horror and humor. Set in 1979 in a fictional English town, an Indian-British woman tries to earn respect as the country turns against immigrants. I always love a good cursed artifact story, and this one does not fail to deliver. Is she crazy, or is she a hero? I won’t give it away, but it’s a strangely sweet ending.
No. 1, Beyond the Sea
In an alternate version of 1969, astronauts Cliff and David are two years into a six year mission when the unimaginable occurs. Linked to a machine replica of their bodies, the two live most of their conscious existence back on earth, waking only to do maintenance on the ship, eat, and work out.
They are something of a celebrity on the earth, with people in awe of their dedication to space exploration, but not everyone sees it that way. When David’s life is forever altered by a cult who insists that the replica technology is not only unnatural, but must be eradicated, the mission takes a turn for the dark side.
A look at the consequences of splitting consciousness and the mental burden of being alone in deep space.
If I had a crown for the darkest of the dark, this episode would take it. A solid meeting of science-fiction and horror, this story tugs at some of the darkest imaginings for the future. What should be an incredible advance in technology, the ability to tether your consciousness to a replica of yourself on earth while exploring deep space, turns into a nightmare.
I was blown away by the obvious reference to the Manson family (the killings occurred in that same year, 1969), a cult whose core beliefs ride on the insistence of natural living. Their mode of purification through violence was so disturbing. The mental toll of living in space alone with no connection to the earth, and the reality that it would drive you insane. This felt like a violent take on a Ray Bradbury story, whose book, The Illustrated Man, is featured in the space capsule where the two astronauts live.
The ending was so shattering, but it was a scenario that I could imagine happening. It reinforced my already deeply engrained aversion to space travel, and all things involving downloading my consciousness into another life form. No Mars for me. No neurolink. Thanks, but no thanks. I like trees too much. And my thoughts are too weird for prime time.
Over to you dear readers. Did you watch the new season of Black Mirror? What did you think?
I don't own a television or subscribe to Netflix, so haven't experienced Black Mirror. You make me speculate if I have been missing something nearing essential. Fortunately, I live in a village of a few hundred eccentric and occasionally bizarre souls surrounded close by dark mountains and sentient trees, so meet the mysterious and inexplicable daily. There's lots to ponder here in our little fold between the ridges. Reading your stuff kindles broader curiosities.
Yes, the Twilight Zone was a regular part of my TV fare growing up. Definitely remember "20,000 feet". And one other for which the title escapes me, but involves a post apocalypse world with the common character device of a lone survivor wandering the land desperately looking for companionship. His salvation seems to come from finding a library which will help him keep his sanity. Only he's wearing glasses without which he can't read. In the last scene he accidentally drops and steps on his glasses, destroying his last hope! Unforgettable. I have been totally unaware of Dark Mirror somehow, need to check it out for sure. Thanks