Black Mirror Season 5 Episode 1 Striking Vipers

Saul

I'd imagine it's all just modelled in the brain without any signals coming in from, or going out to, the rest of his body. So he just feels it without, you know, anything actually happening down there. Everything we feel, everything we experience, is just happening in the brain after all. In principle it doesn't need to be connected to a real world. Red Dwarf always used to make them act out in actual reality what they were doing in virtual reality, so you'd see Lister trying to take off an invisible bra while wearing his VR goggles, and that never made much sense. It makes much more sense for them to just be cut off from the physical world while everything is happening, like they're dreaming, or they have locked-in syndrome.

Saul

Some very Charlie Brooker choices of game in this episode. Tetris Effect is really good, as others have mentioned. A real arthouse game. I was imagining him playing Tetris after his shagging encounters and suddenly seeing it completely differently: as a game about dicks falling from the sky, filling holes, and then exploding in a shower of points and dropping the pile of dicks down a few lines... Long thin dicks that score you the most points when they fill a hole properly, dicks with a right-angled crook at the end, dicks with a knobbly lump in the middle, weird chode-y dicks shaped like squares, all falling from the sky faster and faster until the screen fills up with them. What a filthy game Tetris is.

Saul

Only just watched this but I thought this was a beautiful episode. Maybe it made some of the guys uncomfortable, but I thought it was beautiful. I can't remember who riffed about how great it'd be to fuck your best friend, some stand up or other, but this does a funny, sad job of showing that. I could imagine as a straight guy - maybe? - wanting to have sex with the female avatar, but I couldn't imagine as a straight guy wanting to have sex with a male avatar as a female avatar. But I guess they address that towards the end when they don't feel anything after the IRL kiss. So it's clearly just a game-specific phenomenon. IMO the ending would've been much better if it'd ended with them separated and swearing off meeting each other. The happy ending bit felt like a rug pull. It was a melancholy episode and deserved a melancholy ending for me.

Daryl

Josh you were fucking hilarious during this one. 🤣

Sean Riley

Ngl got a little awkward maintaining eye contact with Josh at times lol

Ryan Lynch

Im just catching onto this show now. On S2 E1 but where is S3 E1. It jumps from S2 E4 to S3 E2 Edit. Andy Luke says it was tagged under something else and put the link in his comment.

mrtheevilmage

I think thats why there was such a long break between season 5 and 6, for charlie to recharge his creative batteries

After Work Reactions

That is true! I could see them making something like this lol

After Work Reactions

That sounds cool I will have to check that out.

After Work Reactions

Thank you lol, this was a fantastic episode.

After Work Reactions

LOL

James Brown

The Tetris game is actually a real game called Tetris Effect! The soundtrack for it is incredible too and it’s so much fun with PSVR 😎

Austin Stratton

American writers??

Joe

I don't disagree with you but Charlie Brooker wrote all episodes of season 5 and 6 too.

Southeast

Kieran

Fun fact - The awesome skyline in this episode is Sao Paulo, my home city for the past 7 years!

mrtheevilmage

also its all in VR so is the husband just sitting on the sofa cumming in his pants? Cause they never show it but I imagine thats whats happening.

mrtheevilmage

this episode felt like a Key and Peele sketch of Black mirror, like if you legit asked them to make a black mirror parody they would have done something like this

David Lyons

Carl looking sad and saying "I fucked the polar bear!" is just too funny. Anthony Mackie wasn't the only Marvel actor there, Pom Klementieff (Mantis from Guardians of the Galaxy) played Roxy! Oh, and the Tetris game he was playing was Tetris Effect and it's a friggin' masterpiece, has so many more art styles and soundscapes than you see here. Made by the same creator as Rez, Space Channel 5 and Lumines! Plus it has a VR mode, if you ever get the chance to try it, it's incredible! :)

Georgia

Josh you had me cackling! That was such a fun reaction hahaaa

Liam

the thumbnail haha