Black Mirror “15 Million Merits” (2011) - 74%
Part two of the Charlie Brooker-penned Black Mirror trilogy is “15 Million Merits”, a dystopian satire concerning our unhealthy relationship with celebrity - and most pertinently our fascination with the X Factor style judge-contestant panel shows. The show is set in an “alternative” reality (bit of satire of my own there) where the only real occupation is to earn merits by grinding away on an exercise bike: these merits can then be spent on everything from toothpaste to new accessories for your ‘Doppel’, a kind of Mii character avatar, or for an entry ticket onto hit entertainment show “Hot Shot”. Success here is the only escape from the drudgery of the bike, but even that can come at a price.
Bleak and averse to subtlety, Brooker’s latest installment ticks all of the dystopian satire boxes and oozes from its every pore with Brookerian convention - a phrase I’m sure he’d appreciate. Only today actually I was re-reading selected articles from Dawn of the Dumb (one of the compendia of his Guardian column pieces), and what’s inescapable is his fascination and hatred for popular culture in equal measure. This is evident nowhere more than in “15 Million Merits”; where society is probably best embodied by the borish Nuts-reader type who sits next to our modest and passionate hero, Bing. This brute watches ‘Botherguts’, where obese people (regarded as second class citizens) appear as objects of fun, being hosed down and force-fed; and is exactly the kind of mindless oaf to whom the constant adverts for porn and ‘Hot Shot’ are aimed. He’s very much straight from the film Idiocracy (where Luke Wilson accidentally ends up in 2505 and finds that everyone has become stupid due to commercialism), as is the entire set-up in fact: every surface is filled with flashing bright colours and perpetual advertisements and bad fart jokes. It’s hard not to see Brooker’s hands all over the project really, and from a fan like me, that’s a big compliment.
Relative to “The National Anthem”, it’s a bit of a slow starter but in fairness, given that this is an alternate reality, there is a fair amount more exposition required than for the conceit of the latter. On which note Brooker did promise that, in Twilight Zone fashion, the first episode would be set in our precise reality, with future episodes to be based in a reality with some conceptual fluctuation. Next week’s episode (and the final in this trilogy) is “The Entire History of You”, where everybody has the inbuilt facility to record and recall all of their experiences. This one is written by Jessie Armstrong, of Peep Show fame, and has me excited for one. I’ve essentially decided I love it already.
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