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“Black Mirror” Playtest Analysis

On this past Wednesday in class, I got to watch a British science fiction television anthology series show called “Black Mirror.” To be honest, I have never heard about this show. Well I don’t really watch shows that often in the first place. After having watched series 3 episode 2 Playtest, my first reaction was “man this is such a scary show!” But as I think back and rewatched it, I can’t help but have a deeper thought about the messages behind the series.

Episode 2 in series 3 talks about Cooper’s playtest experience at gaming genius Shou Saito’s gaming company. While his first intention going there was to snap secretive photos of Saito’s latest gaming developments so that he would have enough money to go back home, he eventually trapped himself in Saito’s playtest tryout. 

Katie, an assistant to Saito, planted a “mushroom” into the back of Cooper’s neck, which allows the player to experience the interactive augmented effect. During his first level experience, Cooper experienced a whack-a-mole game, of which the CD disks  transform themselves into 3D animated graphics that only Cooper can see. Round two gets a lot tougher. After having physically met Saito and have secured himself in the mode, Katie drives Cooper to an old gamekeeper’s lodge. Before leaving, she give an earpiece to Cooper while telling him that everything he sees here soon are not real and won’t harm him. 

As Cooper is all chilling by himself drinking a bottle of non-alcoholic red wine, he starts experiencing a series of spooky events. From a little spider that gets on his nerves to a painting of a house at night with sudden lights coming out from the house with a man’s silhouette showing; from a pale-faced man wearing an eighteenth/ nineteenth century dress staring into his soul, who Cooper identifies as Josh Peters, his high school bully, to “Josh Peters” being eaten by a spider and became a “spider-man.” 

Lastly, he hears rapid and heavy knocking on the door. By then he was scared and relieved, he thought it must be Katie and Saito coming get him back. But as he opens the door, his “girlfriend” Sonja appears in front of him. Unlike the other experiences in the lodge, he can actually touch and feel Sonja’s presence. Sonja tells Cooper that he is in danger because Saito is working on this computer-brain interface and five playtest participants have been missing. But Cooper got suspicious when Sonja says that she tracked his phone down to get to him, because Cooper’s phone is turned off and not in the house. 

Eventually Sonja grabs a butcher knife from the kitchen and stabs Cooper in the chest. He felt it real. He responded by ripping Sonja’s face apart. After all these he hears Katie’s voice back again. He is beyond frightened and stressed at that point, telling her that he wants to get out. She points him an access point upstairs but when Cooper gets there Katie says there is no access point. She starts reminding Cooper of his past, especially his father, who suffered from Alzheimer’s, and his poor mom. But Cooper can’t remember all these, because the mushroom is taking over his memory slowly. 

And just then, Katie and Saito appears and brought him back. But that isn’t the reality yet. When Cooper leaves Saito’s office and gets home, he sees his mom trying to call him. Cooper was confused, as he is in front of his mom. But then he hears his phone ringing constantly and it brought him back to the room where he played whack-a-mole in. His brain goes to shock and died. Reason was “mom called.”

This is an interesting episode. This episode deals with physical, augmented, and hyper reality. Augmented reality, according to Google, refers to “a technology that superimposes a computer-generated image on a user’s view of the real world, providing a composite view.” The best example of this is the “Josh Peters,” especially Cooper’s first interaction with Peters, in which he can pass through Peters body no problem.  Josh Peters was Cooper’s high school bully. So when Cooper sees someone who look exactly like him, he was full of surprises and was in awe. Cooper encounters hyper reality when he first sees a spider crawling towards him because he is afraid of spiders. And physical reality happens when he sees Sonja, when he can actually feel her and touch her presence. Over all, these layers of reality brings a sense of confusion to a person. Not being able to tell what is fake from what is real is a scary thing. Although technology and virtual reality are becoming our daily necessity, letting it go beyond our imagination and control sometimes will ruin us as human who are supposed to be independent and not rely on others too much.

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