Black Mirror S 5 and 6, A Bucket of Blood

- Black Mirror S5 [2019] - 75

The second shortest of the series, season 5 of Black Mirror is slightly misrepresented by my average rating of 75 due to a lower pool of episodes. Ep1, “Striking Vipers” is generally pretty interesting and covers a difficult topic in a unique way, but ultimately fails to say anything meaningful on the subject by not better exploring the technology offered and, at 61-minutes, simply being too long. Ep2, “Smithereens”, however, is one of my favorite episodes of the entire series and improves greatly on the mystery/ thriller formula set by a few previous ones. Though longer than ep1, it utilizes its runtime much better to say something powerful, interesting, and pertinant. Nothing good can last, however, and ep 3, “Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too” is one of the most transparent, pointless, and boring episodes of the entire show. It’s a weird one because, it’s subject-matter isn’t any of those things… but this episode’s approach to childhood stardom is so reductive and poorly explored that it almost seems to be a mockery of its own purpose. Overall, S5 is more of the same, uneven, overly long, and almost moving stuff one has come to expect from the long-running Black Mirror.

- Black Mirror S6 [2023] - 50

Final season, we made it… for now. And, with this final season, we get some of the strangest episodes yet… but not in the way the show intended. Double-and, hence, and thus, my very low rating of “50” for 2023’s installment of episodes. Apart from ep3, “Beyond the Sea” I wouldn’t actually call any of the episodes this season “bad”, and even ep3 has some truly excellent concepts… it just does nothing with them and ends up being a colossal 80-minute waste of time. That said, what gives S6 the lowest rating by far for me, is that it has almost nothing to do with what Black Mirror is — a series showcasing sociopolitical anxieties through technophobic twists on reality — and, instead, turns the show into a simple anthology series, more akin to Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities and less like The Twilight Zone. Most frustrating… the episodes themselves are really pretty good… they just don’t belong in this show. Ep2, “Loch Henry” is a little transparent, but fun anyway, ep4, “Mazey Day” is an excellent time despite being a little misleading at first, and ep5, “Demon 79” is entirely fun and engaging… it’s just that none of these have any place — or even attempt to have any place — within the universe and themes that Black Mirror has set out for itself. Guess we’ll see where this all takes us in 2025…

Overall, like most anthology series I’ve watched over the last few years, I’d give Black Mirror a “C+”: it’s got some great concepts, some terrible concepts, mostly good execution with a few real standouts, but ultimately suffers from uneven stories, and loses its way more and more the longer it goes on.

- A Bucket of Blood [1959] - 76

Getting back into the wide world of film again, A Bucket of Blood features some truly insufferable characters in the various beatniks around the film’s main location and is a touch too long for what it is, but really is a good time. Most “horror” from this period and before [especially literature] is generally extremely camp and very silly — featuring obvious twists, comically transparent conflicts, and monsters that represent things we all deal with nearly every waking moment in the modern world. This makes them walk a thin line between “I’m very bored” and “this is incredibly fun”. Happily, A Bucket of Blood seems to be pretty aware of its goofy premise and rides the wave it creates very well, showing its hand only a little too early and forcing the audience to paddle the last few yards back to shore on their own because of it.