I wrote a story once in which a vampire astronaut landed on a planet of alien ghosts. The vampire astronaut or vampstronaut for short, found himself in double danger seeing as he couldn't fight the ghost with lasers or drink their blood to stay alive. He was ultimately forced to leave the planet of alien ghosts defeated. This concept to me broke all realms of normalcy, was an idea so genuine that I knew I surely had struck upon some unknown grounds of expression. Of course, in retrospect, this is absolutely absurd and I believe contains some good lessons.
Those being that creating good science fiction can be tough. To go further, creating good science fiction which serves as a device which doesn't just make the fantastic, but instead examines, criticizes is all the more challenging. Now, a younger me may not have been able to accurately capture some telling aspect of the human condition with the riveting tale of an intrepid space-faring vampstronaut, but thankfully for everyone, we don't rely on the stories I wrote when I was a younger man. No, there are others a little better suited for more the adult and nuanced approach to science fiction, people like the fine folks who have made for us all to enjoy the latest series of Black Mirror.
Having come out on Netflix just recently, October 21, I can attest that the show continues to have the same bleak essence and imaginative power which had made the seasons before so memorable. Releasing with double the amount of episodes of previous seasons there is a lot of futurist content to absorb. All of it worthwhile as well. The comparison has been made before of Black Mirror being a kind of modern day Twilight Zone. I find this to be an apt comparison. Each episode works to create and develop its own world which at times seems so far removed from our own it's obvious elements of fantasy made very clear. Except even when the show is playing far away in future things its content remains so very adjacent to current events.
Filling the kind of space that a show like the Twilight Zone once did Black Mirror provides room in which hopes or fears of the future can be made manifest through television. With the show's earnest nature, how it works so strongly to jab its ideas and thoughts to the forefront of each episode a viewer is forced to confront modern-day aspects of their life. Now, Black Mirror does not necessarily perform this act each time with grace and poise. The show can at times feel a little too in your face with some of the more blatant aspects, but even so, I believe it is important to have a show so closely working around forms of speculative science fiction. With a glut of comic book and superheroes filling the TV screens having a show like Black Mirror, one which performs its job with a high degree of seriousness is refreshing. Although if that ever gets a little tiring I do know of the tales of a certain vampstronaut out there riding the space waves...
