*Episode premise spoilers*
As it happens, the only other episode of Black Mirror I’ve watched was also an Other Doctor Lives project, with Jodie Whittaker as a guest star. This time around, we’ve got an episode with a major role for Peter Capaldi.
When Cameron Walker tries to steal a bottle of liquor, a police DNA scan flags him in connection with an old unsolved murder. He’s brought in for questioning, but Cameron is less interested in discussing the murder itself than telling the psych evaluator about the “formative” experiences that led to it. The eccentric man spins a tale from the ‘90s involving a reclusive tech genius and the development of the first digital lifeforms in existence.
I know Black Mirror stories often involve near-future technology and its impact on society, so it’s interesting that this story, while set in the near future, is largely focused on the near past. While the older Cameron sits in the police station telling his story, most of the action occurs in the past. That’s in part because, in this instance, the technology we’re examining needed time to “grow” and develop.
Young Cameron, a reviewer for a gaming magazine, is invited to a private meeting with Colin Ritman, a tech prodigy who’s only recently returned to the scene after a breakdown. Cameron thinks he’s there to preview Colin’s new game, but Colin has much bigger things in mind. The “game” is merely a ruse to get funding: in actuality, he’s created the Thronglets, sentient lifeforms built from code. He pushes back on Cameron’s early misunderstandings—there’s not an objective, the Thronglets don’t exist for the user to make them do things, there doesn’t need to be a “point” to make them worthwhile. “We have to create software that elevates us, improves us as human beings,” Colin urges, “or else what is the fucking point of the tools at our disposal?”
Despite his initial confusion and skepticism, Cameron becomes increasingly enthralled by the Thronglets, spending more and more of his days caring for them and trying to understand their unique method of communication. It takes quite a while to get to the circumstances of the murder, which is tied up in Cameron’s obsession with the Thronglets and the victim’s inability to recognize their significance. It’s an interesting little yarn. Cameron’s characterization hits the “unstable loner” button pretty hard, but it also explores what can happen if someone vulnerable begins to see their computer as their only friend (after all, we’re currently living in an age of ChatGPT psychosis.)
Since most of the story’s action is taking place in the past, we spend a lot of the episode in flashbacks, where Cameron is played by Lewis Gribben. Colin, by the way, is played by Will Poulter—I’ve since gotten to know him through other things, of course, but Eustace Scrubb will always be the first character that comes to mind when I see him. With Peter Capaldi playing the older Cameron, that means we only see him in the present-day scenes in the police station, along with his narration over the flashbacks.
This is an interesting performance. The older Cameron is awkward and eccentric but fairly outgoing. During the police interview, he manages to control the flow of the conversation pretty well, all but ignoring the detective in favor of talking to the psych evaluator. His main focus is on the Thronglets, and he throws in other random details about his troubled past. He describes his dad as “an unpredictable violent giant who could never be appeased,” which is a hell of a line.
Cameron honestly could not care less that he’s been picked up in connection with a murder. He’s perfectly content where he is, and Capaldi has some fun with that in his performance. He waggles his fingers at the security camera, calling, “Hey, peekaboo!”, and he dismissively refers to the detective as “the chief…detective thingamabobby.”
Accent Watch
Scottish.
Recommend?
In General – Maybe. The two episodes I’ve seen of Black Mirror haven’t seen me running to watch more, but I’ve enjoyed both of them.
Peter Capaldi – I think so. The flashback structure means Capaldi’s role is smaller than Gribbens’s, but he does well with it.
Warnings
Violence, language, drug use, and strong thematic elements.
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