Leaning heavily into its X-Files influence, the episode follows Karin Parke (a fantastic Kelly Macdonald), researching the sudden death of a political figure who’d recently come under malicious social media attack, only to uncover a slow-growing hashtag – #DeathTo – that seems to be literally killing people, as vindictive social media users take to Twitter and Facebook to “vote” for the person they decide, en masse, deserves to die that week. It’s a bold move to make the final episode of your season feature-length, and while I’m not wholly convinced that “Hated in the Nation” earns its 90-minute runtime, it is a welcome change of pace that nonetheless delivers all of the elements of Black Mirror we’ve come to expect. The strength of “Men Against Fire” lies almost entirely in it’s “gotcha” – an inquiry of racism and prejudice that seems unfortunately immediate, but it’s so strongly hedged in heavy-handed messaging and, frankly, hammy acting that anything worthwhile gets lost in some awfully melodramatic clutter. The protagonist, who’s characterized by little other than his own incredible desire to bone a beautiful girl conjured up in his mind’s eye, is so smooth-edged and impenetrable that there’s nothing much to hold on to, making the inevitable pain and personal meltdown he’s meant to go through before the episode is up seem more like a narrative imperative rather than emotionally stirring stuff.
government, Brooker’s exercise in the war and combat genre lacks the visual flair or compelling choreography that marks the best of the style, while slowly uncovering what might have been a genuinely disturbing central secret. But by the time the episode bows, with Waldo as a strangely inflated political figure mimicking the movements of some sort of oppressive Reich, there's little to do but laugh it off and head back to Twitter to see what new fresh hell our POTUS has wrought.ĭespite all of its self-serious presentation, it’s awfully difficult to find the edge in “Men Against Fire.” Following a young soldier in a near-future dystopia meant to hunt down monsters called “cockroaches” for what appears to be the U.S. Not quite sci-fi, more plainly dystopic, “The Waldo Moment” tracks the slow corruption of the political character, as he grows from tasteless leader to a mean-spirited despot that cashes in on his popularity to demand violent acts from his supporters. Centering on a strange, political campaign that posits what would happen if an apolitical, brutally honest comedian (who also happened to be represented publicly as an animated blue bear named Waldo) attempted to run for elected office. Joyless and never quite as clever as it fancies itself to be, there’s little about “The Waldo Moment” that makes a strong enough argument for its existence, despite the boost the outlandish political climate might have given it. But the fun of the show's foray into politics almost ends there. On the bright side, “The Waldo Moment” certainly provides the binge- Black Mirror viewer a much-needed reprieve from the crushing darkness of the series.
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