S03.E04: San Junipero

[NutMeg]

On 10/24/2016 at 4:31 AM, Zima said:

Worst episode of the season, for me.  I hated the happy ending. 

I loved this episode, it worked for me like a much needed palate cleanser after Shut up and dance. And the two main actresses were so great. Plus the mix of the 50s decor and 80s, 90s and beyond music was just so good. The music alone brought me back to my teens/early 20s, and for that alone I am thankful. 

I think the idea of a potential do-over is absolutely lovely, because even though I'm nowhere near the age of the main characters, I do know that I made choices that won't be reversed even if I take my life on a different path. But overall, I'd say after the downer that was the previous episode, I needed a break from bleak. Or, as Exmathmajor said, 

 

On 11/2/2016 at 10:12 AM, ExMathMajor said:

Agree with all of this. I was 22 in 1987, fresh out of college, and even though there was a stock market crash I was like, whatever, I don't have any stocks, I'm just going to party. (And yes, that was me jamming to "C'est La Vie" in my living room...)

One thing I liked about Kelly's senior facility is that everybody had their own personal caretaker. I want to believe their society takes good care of old people without thought to the cost, unlike today. Also, I would have followed young Kelly anywhere.

Logically, sure, some of it didn't make sense, but considering that it took me at least a week to recover from episode 3, this episode was like a balm to my troubled soul.

Also, yeah:  The Handmaid's Tale came out in 1985 and damn if we're not heading straight in that direction today.

and The Handmaid's Tale seems not such an impossible fiction these day, after all the crazy unexpected happenings, does it?

[Tara Ariano]

In case you missed it, here's the Previously.TV post on the episode!

When's The Best Time To Party In Black Mirror's San Junipero?

If you could spend the rest of eternity reliving one year over and over again, which one would you choose? That's probably not the takeaway message Black Mirror was aiming for with S03.E04, but dammit, it's what we're going with.

[MissScarlett]

On 10/23/2016 at 0:38 PM, snowwhyte said:

Yeah, i was pretty bored by this. I was trying to figure out what the deal was but it did take a while to get going and just didn't grab me like other episodes. There really is a real tonal difference to the American based episodes. They seem colourful while the British episodes are both literally and figuratively darker.

Snow, those were my thoughts too. I actually enjoy the British-based episodes more.

Probably because of my love of history and different eras in time but I really enjoyed this one! They made it easy to depict the different decades. I kind of felt like both girls were doing a little exploration and finding who they were. Kelly had 49+ years with her husband but her life with Yorkie had only just begun. When the older version of Kelly said "Well alright then" at the end, I knew she had made her decision.

The idea that you can choose your afterlife is interesting to say the least! Not the first time this show has dealt with the concept of consciousness. I can honestly say that I don't know if I would have picked San Junipero if my deceased family and friends weren't there to greet me.

[Constantinople]

I could understand Yorkie's attraction to Kelly.

I couldn't understand Kelly's attraction to Yorkie, who I thought was kind of a drip.

But the mysteries of the human heart and all that.

[LadyArcadia]

On 12/15/2016 at 8:24 PM, Constantinople said:

I could understand Yorkie's attraction to Kelly.

I couldn't understand Kelly's attraction to Yorkie, who I thought was kind of a drip.

But the mysteries of the human heart and all that.

Kelly lived her virtual reality in the fast lane. In the beginning, she commented on the people trying too hard. I think she was attracted to the "normal" and sweetness that Yorkie represented.

[jade.black]

On 10/24/2016 at 1:08 AM, natyxg said:

I was fine with the idea of meeting in VR and all of that, I can believe that it was really them in VR when they met there before they died. But the idea of dying so you could pass on and become a permanent resident of the VR world bothered me. I don't buy it. Simply because this is not a magic show where someone literally took their souls and put them elsewhere. The VR versions of Yorkie and Kelly were just avatars of the originals. You kill the originals and... the originals are just dead.

This. I have felt creeped out by a lot of Black Mirror episodes, but this is the first one that made me feel SAD (seemingly an opposite reaction of a lot of people). The people who choose to go to SJ still died. I've never understood this "eternal life" theory of uploading your consciousness and never dying. That isn't you. You're still gone. Why would I care if there's a virtual copy of me somewhere? I won't experience any of that. I'll be dead. It would only benefit the living who could meet/talk to a "copy" of me... but even then, you're getting into some grey area like in the "Be Right Back" episode. When does the computerized version of you start making mistakes? It may have no basis of reference for a new situation and react in a way that wouldn't be authentic to how you would actually have reacted.

SJ seems like a great idea for the tourists, but it has no benefit for a so-called permanent resident. I'd love to visit a VR world when I'm old, or hell, even now, and be able to meet other people in real time in some beautiful nostalgic location. It would be like an MMORPG just on another level- way cooler and more realistic. That seems like tech that could exist. However, as the one guy said early in the episode when he pointed at all the people and said he didn't want a relationship with them, "They're all dead." They're just NPCs, fake characters that are copied from someone who used to exist in real life. If I were visiting the town, I'd only want to talk to the other tourists as well. What's the point of striking up a relationship with a fake person?

Also, what's this escape clause? Get out any time? How exactly do these character copies let the VR designers know that they want out?

I guess some of this comes down to your own spiritual beliefs which I'm not trying to argue about on a board. But, I do believe we all have souls that are the essence of us, and without that we aren't people anymore. So, I would say the souls pass on to heaven or an afterlife (or, if you don't believe in that, then they're just gone), and someone is just paying for a company to turn them into computer game characters before they go.

On a superficial note, I adored the costumes (wanted that green jacket, purple jacket, 2000s gold halter outfit...) and music in this episode, and the actress who played young Kelly was absolutely beautiful.

[Il Cucchiaio]

Okay, nice episode, but what's the deal with the bartender?  Is he a "full-timer"?  Was it his dream to spend the afterlife serving drinks in a 1980s nightclub?

[natyxg]

On 12/21/2016 at 3:21 PM, jade.black said:

This. I have felt creeped out by a lot of Black Mirror episodes, but this is the first one that made me feel SAD (seemingly an opposite reaction of a lot of people). The people who choose to go to SJ still died. I've never understood this "eternal life" theory of uploading your consciousness and never dying. That isn't you. You're still gone. Why would I care if there's a virtual copy of me somewhere? I won't experience any of that. I'll be dead. It would only benefit the living who could meet/talk to a "copy" of me... but even then, you're getting into some grey area like in the "Be Right Back" episode. When does the computerized version of you start making mistakes? It may have no basis of reference for a new situation and react in a way that wouldn't be authentic to how you would actually have reacted.

THIS. THANK YOU. My thoughts exactly.

[DarkRaichu]

1. I agree with @jade.black above.  These are just virtual copies of the memory of the real persons

2. Even if the premise of the episode is taken at face value, San Junipero is still not the best place to spend forever.  If it was, then the permanent residents would not need a place like the Quagmire to explore the extreme.  Once the residents are bored with the Quagmire then what?  They are just trapped in an endless boredom since they have unlimited time to use/experience/explore a limited space

[DangerousMinds]

I don't know that I would be endlessly bored to stay forever young, enjoy the beach and good food, and read lots of books. But YMMV.

[DarkRaichu]

6 hours ago, DangerousMinds said:

I don't know that I would be endlessly bored to stay forever young, enjoy the beach and good food, and read lots of books. But YMMV.

Per Kelly, the regulars packed the Quagmire just so they could feel something despite the above.  We did not know how long before they started to go there though

[Amarsir]

The interesting thing about the question "Is that me in the box?" is that whatever you think is right.

If you do think it's the same you:
"Organic you" believes it's not dying. "Digital you" retains the memories and believes you didn't die.  There's a continuity of personhood and as long as you hold that belief, even if "digital you" acted subtly different than "organic you" the intrinsic quality of self is still there. (Just changed, as external influences can change us now.)

If you don't think it's the same you:

"Organic you" accepts death, and that collection of thoughts winds up in a "digital you" that believes itself a copy. There isn't a continuity because the break was accepted on both sides. And even "digital you" acts exactly the same way "organic you" did, as long as it believes it isn't the same person that alone is enough to mean that it isn't.

In this way it's very nice fulfillment of cogito ergo sum. 

Where it becomes complicated is if you're unsure or change your mind. (Possibly because you were transfered without knowing.) That wasn't an issue for this episode but certainly could be for another author (or in reality).

[Amarsir]

On 10/26/2016 at 4:35 AM, Demian said:

P.S.:  Isn't there something from Saint Augustine about everyone in Heaven being around 25?  Or am I totally misremembering some random and minor tenet of Catholicism?

Thomas Acquinas said "early 30s" based on his conclusion that it's "perfect adulthood". I don't know how much work he put into supporting that number and I don't think any specific age is official doctrine now.

Edited January 20, 2017 by Amarsir

[methodwriter85]

Per the Wikipedia page, "real-time" is somewhere in the 2040's. That would mesh with Kelly being in her early 70's and having had her "time" be the 1980's, as she would have been in her late teens circa '87. But according to the timeline for Yorkie, her accident happened some 40-year ago when she was 21...meaning that 2002 is actually about her time period. (If we go with what Greg said.) I wonder what drew her to 1987? I did kind of laugh at the 2002 setting- a lot of it was pretty dead-on. Kelly's '02 outfit looked like something J.Lo would've worn.

[Dobian]

It took me a while to get it, why they were apparently tourists but kept showing up at the same 80s nightclub for one night week after week, and what was so significant about midnight.  I thought they did a nice job with the period touches, from the clothes to the video game machines.  Reminded me of clubs I went to *cough* thirty years ago.  

I really liked the episode.  The whole idea of uploading your consciousness into a big cloud is an idea I have thought about for awhile, and like other Black Mirror themes, something I can see one day being technologically possible.  Of course, if you can upload someone's consciousness to a computer, why couldn't you then download it into a new body, like an artificial one?  That's the other side of it that isn't explored in this story, but it doesn't need to be.  I can understand Kelly's anger toward Yorkie near the end.  They may look like a couple of twenty-something chicks, but Kelly lived to be an old woman, was married nearly fifty years, had a daughter who grew into a woman and then died before her time, which had to be devastating to Kelly.  But Yorkie never experienced any of that.  In San Junipero she really *is* a young twenty-something woman, having been in a coma since she was twenty-one and never experiencing a full life.  Kelly, on the other hand, is an old woman in a virtual twenty-something body.  Kelly's comment that she married Yorkie out of pity was the truth.  She felt pity that Yorkie never got to experience life, and Kelly doesn't believe there is an afterlife.  So giving Yorkie the gift of San Junipero, as hollow as this world is to Kelly, is the best option for Yorkie.

As to why Kelly chose to be uploaded to San Junipero herself, I think she simply did it to be with Kelly and nothing else.  She knows the world itself is just a phony facade, but Yorkie is real, and having a relationship with her is real to Kelly.  But what the episode doesn't explore is what happens after, as virtual year after year goes by and nothing ever changes.  It must get awfully dull going to that same 80's nightclub after awhile (even if you switch it up and visit the 2000s version of the club, it's still the same club with the same people).  Maybe the company behind San Junipero lets you buy expansions.

Side note: Thumbs up to Ricardo Montalban and rich Corinthian leather!

Edited April 5, 2017 by Dobian

[Blue Plastic]

An interesting one.  Overall I liked it.  Of course as a Gen X-er I'm a sucker for the 80s setting in the first part of the show - loved it!  Loved the Robert Palmer girl getup.

It took a while to get going and understand what was going on but kept my interest throughout.

On 10/23/2016 at 10:04 AM, weightyghost said:

I also felt the ending a bit "we need a happy ending". Kelly and Yorkie knew each other for 6 weeks? Meeting once a week? And Kelly changes her mind over the chance of meeting up with her husband of 40+ years?

Kelly said she didn't think her husband and daughter were anywhere.  She didn't believe that she'd be reunited with them when she died, so she didn't see uploading herself to the cloud as losing her chance to see her family again.  I got the feeling that her daughter died before this "cloud afterlife" technology was available - they didn't spell that out specifically but that's my fanwank - and so Kelly and her husband didn't intend to go to the cloud since their daughter wouldn't be there.  Plus it would be a long afterlife of knowing your child was dead after already having lived a good part of her life on earth after her child died.  So she wasn't hot on the idea.  She changed her mind to be with Yorkie.

On 10/23/2016 at 5:08 PM, Charlesman said:

I took it that Yorkie's accident happened when she was 21 in about 1980, so before the Uber tech future and widespread acceptance of LBGTQIA rights, and she chose that time period as one she remembered. It seemed obviously more accepted in the future. I think that's why Kelly was confused that Yorkie was so sensitive about being watched, Yorkies reference point was in the gay-hate, AIDS crisis early 80s and she was in a coma when acceptance started to occur, didn't know things had changed so much. Kind of a Rip Van Winkle. 

That threw me off before I realized they weren't actually living in the 1980s!  Kelly said something like "oh people are more accepting of being gay now" and me, thinking it was supposed to be the real 1980s, thought, "They are?"  I guess she meant "now" as in 2070-ish?

I did think the end was a little creepy with the robot and all the little consciousness chips.  Any malfunction or attack and your fun afterlife in San Junipero is over!  But yeah, I guess that is like real life, which could be over in an instant too.  This show!  Not sure if they were saying the people's actual consciousness was somehow being placed onto a chip or what.  But it wouldn't be the real you unless it was not just a copy but uploading your actual mind to the chip, which I guess is not what was supposed to be happening.

[methodwriter85]

On 4/4/2017 at 10:02 PM, Dobian said:

They may look like a couple of twenty-something chicks, but Kelly lived to be an old woman, was married nearly fifty years, had a daughter who grew into a woman and then died before her time, which had to be devastating to Kelly.  But Yorkie never experienced any of that.  In San Junipero she really *is* a young twenty-something woman, having been in a coma since she was twenty-one and never experiencing a full life.  Kelly, on the other hand, is an old woman in a virtual twenty-something body.  Kelly's comment that she married Yorkie out of pity was the truth.  She felt pity that Yorkie never got to experience life, and Kelly doesn't believe there is an afterlife.  So giving Yorkie the gift of San Junipero, as hollow as this world is to Kelly, is the best option for Yorkie.

As to why Kelly chose to be uploaded to San Junipero herself, I think she simply did it to be with Kelly and nothing else.  She knows the world itself is just a phony facade, but Yorkie is real, and having a relationship with her is real to Kelly.  But what the episode doesn't explore is what happens after, as virtual year after year goes by and nothing ever changes.  It must get awfully dull going to that same 80's nightclub after awhile (even if you switch it up and visit the 2000s version of the club, it's still the same club with the same people).  Maybe the company behind San Junipero lets you buy expansions.

Gugu Mbatha-Raw did a fantastic job of showing the elderly Kelly who had lived 50 years with her husband and only got 39 years with her daughter. Her grief was raw and felt real with the gravity of a 73-year old woman.

You do kind of wonder if people eventually get sick out of it. Yorkie did mention there's an "opt-out" option. I also wonder if you have options to go to other places, like say a virtual Los Angeles or a virtual Paris.

As for why they don't have uploads into artificial bodies, I figured it's because things would get way crowded if every single person who died was allowed to come back into a synthetic body. It did lot like there were A LOT of "people" in San Junipero.

[PamelaMaeSnap]

I can't believe I never posted in this thread ... I loved the crap out of this episode. It made me cry like a baby and really stayed with me. Thrilled and shocked by the Emmy nom!

[methodwriter85]

I feel like this episode might get optioned for a full-length movie like "The Entire History of You" did because it really is getting so much attention. Although I feel like an adaption would just screw it up.

[Anela]

I've just watched this, and loved it. Although I briefly regretted putting it on, when we got to the hospital scenes - too close to home, even a year after losing a parent. I loved the happy ending. I haven't watched all of the episodes, because it's usually so bleak. The only other episode I've loved, was Nosedive.

I kind of wish we had the option to do this now. I'd love to see my mum again, although I wouldn't be able to get dad off the machine, if he could see her that way. 

Edited July 28, 2017 by Anela

[shrewd.buddha]

We looked this one up because of the Emmy nomination/win. It was worth it because of the fun, nostalgic music and the non-typical, not depressing ending. 
The most fun was figuring out what was actually going on. There were a lot of clever hints. All the songs were clues and "one week later" was written in a different font each time. 

But there was potential for the story to end on a depressing note at any point. The writers opted for the romantic fantasy by not having the characters ask any deeper questions about San Junipero.  

On 12/21/2016 at 2:21 PM, jade.black said:

However, as the one guy said early in the episode when he pointed at all the people and said he didn't want a relationship with them, "They're all dead." They're just NPCs, fake characters that are copied from someone who used to exist in real life. 

Unfortunately, the jilted lover's comment to Kelly was a clue that it was possible to tell the 'living' tourists from the 'dead' residents. 
 

On 12/21/2016 at 10:32 PM, Il Cucchiaio said:

what's the deal with the bartender?  Is he a "full-timer"?  Was it his dream to spend the afterlife serving drinks in a 1980s nightclub?

The bartender was another clue that things were not heavenly for everyone. Was the bartender just an imaginary character created for the virtual reality? This made me wonder if it was even necessary to die in order to have your avatar live on in S.J. It was not as if they needed to remove anyone's brain to make the transfer. 

Who makes the rules for this reality? Who gets to have a  cool jeep or great beach house? Who picks the time periods and decides what songs are playing in the bars? There didn't appear to be anything new in S.J. - - no one painting new things, singing new songs - - no babies or puppies - - just pre-recorded nostalgia.  It could be that life in S.J. isn't so great if you have to live there full time.
Even the guy who was going to marry Yorkie said that it was nostalgia therapy. 

The strongest scenes, for me, were the ones that dealt with reality : a) Kelly visiting Yorkie in the hospital. b) Kelly's confrontation with Yorkie where she told her about having already lived a full life, and that Yorkie had not cared enough to ask about Kelly's  'real' life.  
It was nice that Yorkie got to have a taste of life and love after decades in a coma. ...but generally love seems to be more courageous when the two people involved are not the perfect versions of themselves. 

But - again - it was nice to have an episode of Black Mirror that didn't leave me with a dark mood. 

Edited September 22, 2017 by shrewd.buddha

[SWLinPHX]

On 10/22/2016 at 6:11 PM, Lord Donia said:

The montage of Yorkie trying on different clothes and personalities was pretty fun. She looked great as a Robert Palmer girl!

I totally agree.  That scene was a memorable high point for me.  I thought she looked good in all the different get-ups, but the Robert Palmer girl was best.  Too bad she didn't go with that.

My one issue with the scene was how quickly she could transform so professionally into so many looks so well, but then that was later explained when we learned it was a virtual reality and you could be whatever you wanted.

[SWLinPHX]

On 10/29/2016 at 5:34 PM, Slovenly Muse said:

I sought to bring a bit of clarity to this point, and I'm not sure I succeeded. This is a VERY difficult subject to wrap a complex but limited human brain around. I suppose what I am trying to say is that I don't believe that "passing over" to San Junipero really means living forever. I think it's just a comforting lie. But what lives on is not you. It might pick up where you left off, but it will never really be "you."

I understand all the objections and issues and I feel the same.  So let me propose this:  What if the body gets old or sickly and dies but they actually harvest your brain and hook it up to the digital world so that your actual brain (the same one you had inside of you when you were alive on Earth) is made to keep living on and regenerating cells and neurons, so that you really don't die, but just enter a virtual (permanently younger) body?  At the end it would be more of a medical laboratory with living brains hooked to computers, rather than just a series of servers and hard drives only.  How would you all feel about that?

Edited November 13, 2017 by SWLinPHX

[markx]

The discussion on whether it would really be you is interesting - it seems that some people seem certain that this wouldn't be possible, to me it's an open question.

There's two things - is it possible for a computer/software to be conscious, and would a conscious entity with all your memories still be the same you?

It's unclear whether a perfect simulation of a human brain would itself be conscious, or whether it would they be unconscious beings indistinguishable from people ("philosophical zomibes"). But the thing is, even if a computer couldn't be conscious, that doesn't mean it wouldn't be possible for us to create some kind of machine with consciousness - unless you think that consciousness is some supernatural property that can't be replicated in any other way than natural means. Even if it requires being organic (what does that mean - that it includes carbon atoms?), there's no reason why we couldn't build artifial organic brains.

With everything from memories to chemicals and hormones, and memory depending on those chemicals, it's not clear to me why that can't be replicated whether by computer or another kind of artificial machine.

Whether it would still be you is a harder problem. Miles already pointed out that our argument can't be based on having the same physical atoms in our brains (admittedly, it's not clear to me how often or to what extent atoms in our brains are replaced, but there's no evidence that one atom is different to another of the same kind).

This question is independent of being organic or not, the same problem occurs with teleporters that make an exact copy of you, the result is still an organic body, but is it still you?

It may be that the question is meaningless. Suppose every night we "died", and the new consciousness each day was a different one with all your memories? How would you know? What about if this happened every hour, second, millisecond? Our sense of continuity comes from our memories.

Everyone in SJ would tell you that it definitely worked, it was really was them, and there'd be no dead person to say actually they died, and it wasn't them. What if you could copy, without the original dying? At first this seems a good counter example - the person would tell them that it clearly didn't work, they're still there and didn't jump into the digital afterlife. Except, we still have the digital copy also insisting that they did work. Which one is right? Perhaps they both are.
 

On 05/04/2017 at 3:02 AM, Dobian said:

But what the episode doesn't explore is what happens after, as virtual year after year goes by and nothing ever changes.  It must get awfully dull going to that same 80's nightclub after awhile (even if you switch it up and visit the 2000s version of the club, it's still the same club with the same people).  Maybe the company behind San Junipero lets you buy expansions.

 

I've thought it'd be interesting to see a TV series explore the idea of an afterlife - it's often viewed as being a paradise, but how would the reality work out? A life where there is no need to eat, no need to feel pain or get disease would be a huge improvement - but people today would soon get bored and miss TV, the Internet, technology in general. Sure, that could be created in the afterlife too, but suddenly it's no longer a world of leisure, people will need to work to create those things.

At least in SJ, it seems that a lot of things are provided for them - presumably the nightclubs and so on are maintained automatically or by non-conscious software in this world, but this also means being limited by what the company allows or provides. I'm nostalgic for the music of my childhood - but nostalgia for going back to that technology (tapes!) would run out pretty quick!

Would they be allowed to communicate with or receive news (or new music) from the outside world that continues, other than the elderly people who can visit up to 5 hours a week? Were there versions of SJ right up to the present day, or was it limited to the childhood periods of those there? (Although some people do die young, so surely they' have to cater for that?)
 

[Miles]

On 21.12.2016 at 8:21 PM, jade.black said:

The people who choose to go to SJ still died. I've never understood this "eternal life" theory of uploading your consciousness and never dying. That isn't you. You're still gone. Why would I care if there's a virtual copy of me somewhere?

What is the actual difference of a perfect copy of you being made the moment you die and you blacking out for a few seconds? In both cases your conciousness stopped and then starts running again. The only difference is that in the first case your conciousness is now running on new hardware.

On 26.7.2017 at 6:27 AM, methodwriter85 said:

I feel like this episode might get optioned for a full-length movie like "The Entire History of You" did because it really is getting so much attention. Although I feel like an adaption would just screw it up.

"The Entire History of you" is going to be a movie? Man that seems like one of the worst black mirror stories for that kind of treatment. It was kinda interesting for the length of an episode, but even that dragged.

Shut up and dance would be awesome. Especially if they kept the same twist at the end. Although I doubt that would get the funding a major movie needs.

[Lady Calypso]

I think the happy ending was weird because, for Black Mirror, happy endings haven't really happened. I mean, this wasn't even a full happy ending, as they were still dead, but more of a bittersweet ending. And after the last couple of episodes, it was a nice change. I did have some overall issues, but I liked the ending. I did expect Kelly to have not chosen San Junipero, which honestly would have made sense, but it's not out of the realm for her to have chosen to stay there, after her speech to Yorkie. 

As for the whole San Junipero experience, I'm guessing it was their consciousness that was being uploaded into the San Junipero simulation. Their bodies are still dead, they're still technically gone, but a part of them is forever uploaded into technology that they can choose to shut down. Now, how they can do that, who knows. Maybe there's an escape hatch that they have knowledge of when they enter San Junipero permanently as a resident. But the idea that they can choose to leave any time is an interesting and vague ending in itself. Who's to say that Kelly won't choose to leave at any time? 

I did like both women. I thought they represented their points of view about the afterlife very well. Yorkie is someone who never got to live her life and never got the experiences that would allow her to choose differently. Kelly was lucky to have lived a decent life. So, for Kelly, she didn't necessarily need to stay, though it was a fun getaway experiment for herself. 

I do think the idea of San Junipero could have been more fleshed out. They seemed to keep it vague for the purposes of the reveal later on, and then the last 15 minutes felt a little rushed for me. They should have developed the real world more, but I get that this was primarily a love story, rather than a story about the afterlife.  

I don't know how I feel about the episode in general; it had some really strong moments and I loved Kelly and Yorkie, but I do think the story fell apart somewhat, or showed signs of fractures. Still, it's probably my favourite of the season thus far, though I've been super critical of this season compared to the last two.   

[Hanahope]

Its an interesting premise.  It reminds me a lot of White Christmas, where a "cookie" version of you goes to this virtual reality matrix, but the 'real' you dies and the soul goes where ever souls go.

I presume not everyone is present in every time.  We only saw Wes in the 1987 time-frame.  The guy that played the video games was maybe like the bartender, present in all times as a construct, someone to help people go through the scenario. 

Kindof interesting to think what time-frame/year I'd choose.  There's definitely pros and cons for several, musically at least.

I also thought it was interesting that it just showed relatively tame activities.  Going to a bar, dance club, even a risque dance club.  Where's the thrill seekers, skydivers, hangliding, surfing, car racing, etc.  

[VCRTracking]

On 11/16/2016 at 0:28 PM, romantic idiot said:

On 10/29/2016 at 5:34 PM, Slovenly Muse said:

There's a big difference. Maybe I can add to what natyxg is saying. When you are a "visitor" to San Junipero, you are alive inside your organic body. Your consciousness is seated in your organic brain, and that is where your memories are stored. You are a different KIND of being. Despite the posts up top, I don't think anyone is saying that "passing over" to San Junipero is like literally putting your SOUL inside a computer, but it's also not as simple as saying "souls don't exist, we are just the product of our memories, so why can't that all be copied digitally?"

Eh,  I don't see that point of this entire argument. Either you believe that technology can impact the soul, or that it can't. If you believe that it can, then there's no reason to believe that it can touch the soul but not enough to keep a bit of it around so that the soul can be with a mate. If you believe that it can't, then it can't, in which case Kelly's soul is reborn/in heaven/in oblivion etc. and there's a digital copy hanging around somewhere having fun. Which doesn't harm anyone. Seems to be a win/win. So again, I ask - what the hell is this episode doing in this series?

Pretty much my thought. If there's an afterlife and souls in that universe then Kelly's is reunited with her husband and daughter and a digital version gets to be with the digital Yorkie.

Not to spoil Season 4's "USS Callister" but it touches on the whole digital copy thing.

I loved Yorkie saying "How is this your era?" about 2002! It is nobody's era. If anybody gets nostalgic for the fashion and music of the early 2000s and wants to bring that back, they're insane.

Edited January 4, 2018 by VCRTracking

[Yeah No]

On 11/16/2016 at 5:01 PM, Slovenly Muse said:

Right, I see what you mean. Let me clarify. I was suggesting that souls DON'T exist (so your options are to wink out of existence or upload yourself to a computer, and there, hypothetically, IS no heaven where Kelly's soul might otherwise be romping), but that even though you may not have a "soul" that can be digitized, that doesn't mean that your memories are the sum total of what makes you "you." Simply recording and transferring your memories to a computer does not provide the authentic experience of living in an organic body, where unpredictable chemical reactions can shape your moods, behaviours, and even memories. I was suggesting that a digitized copy of yourself can't ever really be you, just a computer program that looks and sounds like you, that remembers things you remember, but is completely under the control of the computer housing you. From the way this show likes to make a point about people becoming corrupted by technology, what I'm suggesting is that a corporation that could store dead people's templates on a computer like this would be in control of their every thought, mood, and emotion. They likely would not allow any "resident" of SJ to experience the kind of feelings that would lead to them requesting to be removed (presumably there is a cost to keeping them around), and would be programmed to try and convince "visitors" to pass over and join them. In effect, the personalities uploaded to SJ could become nothing but advertising agents for the corporation that runs it. "Heaven" as a for-profit business. But then, that's because I'm always looking for the darker takeaway from any Black Mirror episode, and I agree, this one didn't quite satisfy in that regard.

I agree with you.  There is only one you, and any download of your memories, thoughts and feelings into a computer will only produce a computer generated facsimile of you, not you, no matter how sophisticated it is.

So when someone in this world dies, even if they choose to go to SJ, they would either just cease to exist or their souls would go to an afterlife (depending on what you believe), but their facsimiles will continue to live in that virtual world, probably ignorant of the fact that they are not "real".  The virtual people live in a virtual world, while the real people they are copies of either live in the real world or die in it.  

This presumes that there is a "you" that persists over the decades despite the fact that the body regenerates its cells over and over again.  If "you" were nothing but a collection of successive thoughts and feelings with no aspect of unity or soul, then it might be possible for virtual copies of you to also be you as there is no unique and abiding essence unifying you so you could easily be duplicated again and again and those beings would also be just as much you.  But if you have something like what is commonly called a "soul" that makes you a unique being, copying could not reproduce you so that the copy would also be you.  There could still be a virtual copy of you, but it would not be you without your unique essence.

This reminds me of a TNG episode where Ryker has some kind of transporter incident that produces another clone of Ryker, down to every memory and hair on his head.  But even so it wasn't the same Ryker as his experiences as a result of being created in a transporter and then living a separate life from the original Ryker made him another unique being, not identical to the original Ryker.  As a result of different experiences, he changed from the original and become a different person.

It also reminds me of the TNG episode where Moriarty and his lady companion think they're real when in fact they are only holodeck creations that somehow developed self consciousness of the world outside the holodeck.  But despite that they were still fooled into thinking they were real and that the computer simulation they were programmed to live in forever was the real galaxy and universe.  I guess from their POV they are real and what difference does it make?  But from our POV we can think otherwise.

If there is an afterlife and these women die, their souls might still experience what is going on in SJ at the same time they experience heaven, just as they experienced real life at the same time they experienced SJ when they were alive.  So it wouldn't be an either/or proposition (that you either go to heaven or you go to SJ).  You could theoretically do both.  The only time it breaks down for me is if there is no heaven.  In that case once the real person dies, the facsimile does not participate in the real person anymore so it is not a part of them anymore and so has separate experiences and becomes a separate, different being at that moment.  Just like Ryker.

Anyway, I also loved the shout out to an 80's version of artificial intelligence in a near future dystopia - Max Headroom, whose face appeared on the TV sets in an early scene.  I knew the author had to have known about that!  I watched that show!  I was in my 20s in the '80s so this episode hit close to home for me, especially with the music and fashions, and going out dancing.  I had just looked through some old photos so this got me at a vulnerable moment and I shed some tears wistfully thinking about my past.  A very powerful episode.

[Zuleikha]

I finally watched this, and I felt very mixed feelings. It was beautiful and sweet, and I was legitimately surprised by the reveal of Yorkie's reality. But I didn't think the central love story was much of a love story, so I was sad that Kelly chose to pass over into San Junipero instead of to actually die. I thought Yorkie's attachment to Kelly was unhealthy in the way that first relationships so often are and that the happier ending for Yorkie would have been to date other women in San Junipero. I bought Kelly's explanation that she was mostly moved by compassion for Yorkie but that there was no comparison to the richness of her lengthy marriage. Kelly's contempt for San Junipero seemed true and realistic for someone who had actually lived a long, rich, mostly happy-but-with-some-serious-tragedy life.

When you peel back the illusion of San Junipero, what you have are two women who had a very intense, brief relationship that was centered on fantasy. They know very little about each other, and they have a huge life experience/age gap. San Junipero is such a weird, permanent vacation environment that it's hard to imagine what developing a relationship would be like in it. But it seems most likely to me that Kelly is going to quickly grow unsatisfied with the illusion of existence whereas Yorkie won't. I think Kelly probably will pass on for real pretty quickly.

I also wonder about the worldbuilding and who pays for San Junipero. That tech can't have been cheap to develop, and I doubt it's cheap to maintain either! Kelly's finances are a mystery, and she could be super rich for all we know. But we know that Yorkie was functionally disowned by her family and had no significant income-earning years.

[Petunia13]

This episode made me cry. I thought it was really romantic and touched on the challenges or boredom of perfection. I also LOVE the 80s, arguably perhaps more than the 90s.

The music and styling were A++ Kelly looked amazing in her Whitney Houston/Lisa Turtle inspired clothes and hair but as a early 2000s baddie she looked cute like Rihanna or reminded me of a Pussycat Doll. It was interesting the power of attraction, Kelly mentioned that Yorkie hadn’t asked or known any of the deep or tough shit but they still were deeply in love despite that. 

[Neurochick]

On 12/21/2016 at 2:21 PM, jade.black said:

That isn't you. You're still gone. Why would I care if there's a virtual copy of me somewhere? I won't experience any of that. I'll be dead. It would only benefit the living who could meet/talk to a "copy" of me... but even then, you're getting into some grey area like in the "Be Right Back" episode. When does the computerized version of you start making mistakes? It may have no basis of reference for a new situation and react in a way that wouldn't be authentic to how you would actually have reacted.

Late here, just watched the whole episode last night.  

IMO, the question is, are you a body?  Is the body what makes you, you?  I don't believe it does.  I "feel" the same way inside now, that I did when I was 20.  So even though my physical body has aged, I'm still ME, if that makes any sense.

The first time I went to a funeral, I was shocked because the dead people looked like mannequins to me, because the part that made them, them isn't in their bodies.  I looked at SJ more as a metaphor for "souls" or what makes you, you; so that's the part that goes to SJ, but since no one knows what a soul looks like, they just used younger bodies.

Quote

When you peel back the illusion of San Junipero, what you have are two women who had a very intense, brief relationship that was centered on fantasy. They know very little about each other, and they have a huge life experience/age gap. San Junipero is such a weird, permanent vacation environment that it's hard to imagine what developing a relationship would be like in it. But it seems most likely to me that Kelly is going to quickly grow unsatisfied with the illusion of existence whereas Yorkie won't. I think Kelly probably will pass on for real pretty quickly.

Maybe, but IRL there have been people who fell "in love at first sight" and remained that way all their lives.  Sometimes I feel people put barriers up to keep themselves safe from relationships. 

Edited October 3, 2019 by Neurochick

[jade.black]

2 hours ago, Neurochick said:

IMO, the question is, are you a body?  Is the body what makes you, you?  I don't believe it does.  I "feel" the same way inside now, that I did when I was 20.  So even though my physical body has aged, I'm still ME, if that makes any sense.

The first time I went to a funeral, I was shocked because the dead people looked like mannequins to me, because the part that made them, them isn't in their bodies.  I looked at SJ more as a metaphor for "souls" or what makes you, you; so that's the part that goes to SJ, but since no one knows what a soul looks like, they just used younger bodies.

I get that Black Mirror wants to portray digital copies that way, but to me, that's not your soul. That's a scan of your brain that is downloaded into a computer. It's creating an AI to emulate you, an NPC that other people can interact with that looks like you and acts like you, but really, you're dead. You could "download" your brain while you were still alive, but would you look at that computer character playing yourself and think, oh good, that's me living on after I'm gone. I wouldn't. I would still be stuck in my body and afraid of death, because what actually happens to the essence of you after you die is no more certain whether or not a computer copy has been created. I see the digital copies as more of a legacy idea, like leaving behind a book you wrote.