DoctorAtomic

That's a good a take as any. We've had discussions that Claire et al., don't really talk about time travel and implications nearly as much as you'd think they would. It's just not a time travel show. To be fair to the show, the 'big things' are going to happen regardless. We've seen that in the Scotland seasons. Jamie still fought and still went to prison. He still met Lord John. It's not like they're going to alter the fate of the Revolution either. Would the Christie's have met the same fate? Possibly. Allan was already abusing Malva; the whole family was a mess before they met the Frasers. Didn't the 1970s guy light the match though? He would have known when Clair said it was ether. Would they need to prove that they are married in 1974? You buy train tickets in Wilmington, "oh, going on vacation?" "Yes, I'm taking my family to visit a friend of the family in Boston." That's basically it.

Even just a sprained arm, and you can't go out on a walk to make repairs.

The only rule on the time travel has been the 200 year window, back or forth. That's been it. I don't think tugging on that thread is going to yield much more. One of the reasons I'm not particularly concerned with (or interested in) Bree and Roger riding a train is that I don't want whole swathes of plot on them versus the Revolution up in full swing now.

I would be all in on a New Coke movie. I lived it.

If they get to Wilmington, Bree and Roger could get some money from Joe via Western Union and take a train to Boston. There's no TSA or anything. No one is really going to bother a white family on a vacation.

For about 25 minutes or so, I kept wondering why the astronauts were going back in time. I didn't realize the present was 1969 or whatever.

They had her daydreaming/hallucinating at the beginning of killing the other shoe lady, so I thought that's where they might be going. They could have ended the show with just sirens playing, so you don't know, and then she's just comatose. I could have rolled with that too. Kind of a Dead Zone vibe. I mean, she's right and the world immediately ended. So we should listen to people who say demons are telling them to kill people then? I actually don't mind this episode being "Red Mirror"; like I said, they at least told us we're in a different universe. Like when I watched Fringe and they would let us know the episode was going to be set in the other universe. That's fine. However, the episode itself was kind of lacking a narrative. I like the time period; we know we're on the cusp of Thatcher and Reagan and all the xenophobia. Was it about who to kill? Not really. Was it about a Dead Zone figure? No, not that either. It fell flat for me not as much as the ending, but I think they wasted what could have been a better story. However, I do agree that when you hear a new season of Black Mirror is coming out, it's fair that viewers have expectations. I was fine with the other episodes except the werewolf. I 'bought in' to this premise here. I just don't think they executed it well. Seriously though, there's been a grand total of what? 25 episodes? You don't have more ideas about the dangers of technology? Everyone's going bonkers about AI right now. It's not like we're in episode 157 of the Mary Tyler Moore show, and they're struggling to find another dinner party fiasco plot. (Georgina gives birth). I do like the idea of Red Mirror/Black Mirror. It's fair to want to stretch. They could have done better here.

At least here, the title card said 'Red Mirror presents', so they were letting us know to expect something different. In the Red Mirror verse then, it's the supernatural that's the tech. The werewolf episode was trying to play it off that it was a typical Black Mirror episode. That put me off.

That's the first thing I noticed about him on the film.

I get the point of the episode, but they could have tied it to technology better than just going warewolf. I mean, Mazey herself could have gone all Death Wish and started picking them off. That would have been better. At least with Loch Henry, the technology of the videocamera in the late 80s/90s was what did Janet in, and the technology of being able to digitize tape to make a film led to the discovery. I take the point about the advent of the digital camera made it way easier to get pics of celebs, and they picked the right time period to explore that. But, and then she was a warewolf is basically "a wizard did it". Bo screaming and grabbing the cop's gun was ridiculous too.

I figure they could just go to the ER.

Claire would probably give the impression that she's well off. Not that she's arrogant, but I could see that impression. So he thinks she might have some gems. That's fair reasoning. But again, his hostility seems forced for the plot. He certainly should be ticked at Roger for not helping, but he legitimately felt bad about not being able to help Claire. Just apologize and ask for help. I get he's getting desperate and frustrated, but this show sometimes lacks nuance in their characters. I was mostly being glib. I know it's not a time travel show, but let's face it, the rules are dictated by the plot. It's fine. All that said, I'm legitimately having fun with the show. They wrapped up the Christies fast, and, really, they dragged down last season a lot. We got the fire out of the way, and the Revolution is in full swing. I really want them to move to Wilmington and get more active. I think I'm fine with leaving the ridge behind. I wonder if Jamie will tell Lord John about the future?

The question is why Dennis was 'Johnny to Mac in the first place. The entire plot was a butt plug transfer.

I'm pleased to see that they finally remembered about the fire in the previouslies. When Allan said 'flower bud' the closed captions had [uneasy music plays]. Looks like we were right about the baby. I think it's kind of a cop out that Allan killed her (not that the bairn was his because we all knew that) in the sense that Mr. Christie seems to have gotten a retcon this season. I'm not calling foul on the plot; I'm glad it's done, but I'm not sure it played out logically. It's done though. Lord John in his burgundy coat is most welcome on my television screen. This season is low key on wrapping up plot. They made a huge deal on the fire and it's just a gas explosion. I get his point of view, he asked Roger for help. The main characters are kind of condescending to everyone else. If he just walked up and asked for a gem and explained himself, Claire might have been ok. On the other hand, I get why Claire was wary. Mediation is not coming from Claire either though. So the house blew up. It's not like they didn't survive. I don't get why the 'future' thinks they're dead. This was a good episode until the last 10 minutes. I like how last season they couldn't go through the stones, but now they can. The show isn't even pretending at this point.

I'm all for streaming to not have to adhere to time constraints of broadcast and cable tv, but I'm not sure this needed 80 minutes either. Not that Aaron Paul didn't knock it out of the park. I also liked the overall solitude. I've said plenty of times that tv can be way overwritten. Just let the actors act. I'm not sure why making another replica was not on the table or the what technological reason was. I know they gave some lip service to it, but it seemed thin. Unhinged Paul (as Cliff) in the barn was strong. I felt bad for the wife. She's being pulled in two directions from the same person. Is there any reason she couldn't get a job in town to occupy her time? I don't even know where they were. It seems like putting the astronauts in a Junipero simulation would have been safer. They're interacting with real people (who were murdered) while they are effectively unkillable. It also seems highly unsecure that you only need to put the card in the slot to 'go back'. They don't have 2FA in the Black Mirror world? Well, they fooled me. I figured David was going to leave Cliff out to die and take his place. That's a long walk for 80 minutes. I think I would have preferred David and Cliff switching off to go all Death Wish on the cult instead. Don't remind me. We had quite the discussion back in the day.

I missed that then. The ending 'documentary' had a lot of jump cuts so it's easy to miss. That makes more sense when Janet called Iain 'stupid' then. In the video footage before the first reveal of Janet, Iain didn't look so into the whole scene.

The black mirror in this case was the black mirror of the video camera lens. I liked this one better than Joan is Awful, largely because of the suspense. I've been leaning more to that lately. When Pia saw the basement floor in the shot after the credits, I was like, 'uh oh, here we go'. One thing I may have missed. They said Iain killed his parents after he shot Kenneth? Is that right? Or did he shoot someone else? Were they also in on it then? Stuart was Podrick! I'm not an easter egg spotter because I only watch episodes once (there's so much else to watch), but one of the nominees was about Junipero! I remembered that because I like Mackenzie Davis. And in Joan is Awful, Loch Henry was shown on the Streamberry menu.

I just saw an ad on Facebook. I didn't even know!

There better be some fancy hats and old ladies saying "y'all need Jesus" too.

Upthread the comment was made that maybe the lawyer didn't want to get roped into the show.

Christie seems to have a host of issues. He probably thinks love is complaining about everything left and right. I suppose this was in the book, so maybe it was more foreshadowing. Would we be missing something if it was cut from the show? I don't think so. I don't recall it coming up in the discussions here. Christie being wracked with guilt because he killed Malva, and Claire is being dragged around by a bunch of vigilantes because of him seems consistent with his characterization from last season. They can just leave it at that. Claire and Jaime did try to change the past in seasons 1 and 2, to no avail. This time around, they aren't really trying to change much because we all want the rebels to win. Gellis is Roger's ancestor too, so she kind of changed some things. I wouldn't say Claire doesn't get into trouble though. The entire series is Claire mouthing off and being dragged all over the place.

What?! I'm going to South Carolina, and I expect to be drinking sweet tea on a front porch while we gaze nostalgically at The Old Peach Tree and listen to the sound of the riverboat in the distance. Southern Belles best be *glistening* in their sun dresses and speaking in coy tones.

I don't think he will. Is he going to be more than a 7th man at this point? I root for the Warriors, and he's certainly an important factor in their titles, but he's not the Rodman level of instigator, who was a cornerstone for the Bulls.

Streamberry wasn't actually programming the quam-puta from what I gathered. It was making the show based on the day's events. Streamberry may have given it initial conditions, like 'make Joan awful', but I think that was it. I don't know if I'm reading in too deep, but it points out the fundamental flaws in AI for me. Streamberry was biasing the show in a certain direction and the quam-puta was basically directing the show to that end. In the real world, it may have been that the lawyers were more sympathetic, or maybe tried a little harder before running into the dead end. The other thing I slightly dispute was that Source Joan was so shunned from people watching Annie-as-Joan. That first level, which was what we were watching, wasn't *that* bad. No one was sympathetic at all? For a show so much based (justifiably) on the social ills of living on the phone, I'm surprised she didn't galvanize some social movement. *Everyone* being cynical seemed a bit much. I suppose the assistant was sympathetic. I would have liked to see Source Joan filming literally everything, and just bringing tons and tons of more characters into the show. Then people would be taking notice.

I was asking what would happen if she just canceled her subscription to Streamberry. Wouldn't it make the terms void? Or just go hide like you all said. I was entertained, but I think the show was trying to be a touch too clever. It seemed like the entire pitch was "let's get Salma Hayek to play a Kill Bill version of herself". She was even wearing the outfit. I would have been more interested if in fact this was reality, but the plot was Joan being clever about getting one over on Streamberry with the help of Salma Hayek. Taking that the lawyers immediately threw in the towel with a lot of grains of salt. I think it would have been better if they were both saying "I don't want to pursue this because I don't want to be on the show".