The biggest problem I had with the episode was that Hartnett's character didn't own a gun.

@cswood said:

The biggest problem I had with the episode was that Hartnett's character didn't own a gun.

that's not really unrealistic, plenty of people don't own a gun, after all who knows if replica could even legally use the gun

@Markoff said:

@cswood said:

The biggest problem I had with the episode was that Hartnett's character didn't own a gun.

that's not really unrealistic, plenty of people don't own a gun, after all who knows if replica could even legally use the gun

Why wouldn't it be able to use a gun? If not, his wife could have. Either way, going up against 5 intruders with a baseball bat was incredibly dumb. I think he was living in California so that could explain why he didn't have a weapon, but he's a government employee operating a replica device that likely costs millions of dollars. Imagine if someone wanted to take the replica in order to sell it or make a copy? There should have been some kind of security or ability to defend itself.

In fact, why wasn't it super strong? It should've had the strength to kill those intruders or break out of its restraints. I like the concept of the episode a lot, but that specific aspect really bothered me. They were clearly referencing the Manson murders, but I would have much rather the family died in a car accident or something completely out of his control.

@cswood said:

Why wouldn't it be able to use a gun? If not, his wife could have. Either way, going up against 5 intruders with a baseball bat was incredibly dumb. I think he was living in California so that could explain why he didn't have a weapon, but he's a government employee operating a replica device that likely costs millions of dollars. Imagine if someone wanted to take the replica in order to sell it or make a copy? There should have been some kind of security or ability to defend itself.

Agreed with lack of security on something so ireplacable, actually gov should not talk about replicas in public at all and IF they wanted to make them public then they should make them with generic average Joe face and not recognizable face of astronaut.

In fact, why wasn't it super strong? It should've had the strength to kill those intruders or break out of its restraints.

Yeah, I thought about it as well, it didn't make sense he would not be able to get out of restraints, I mean if you can't really feel or care about pain then there are much less restrictions to your body ability.

I would have much rather the family died in a car accident or something completely out of his control.

That would not really cause his replica to be completely destroyed by fire unless they would want to make unlikely strong fire during crash, they had to deliberately burn it to ashes, I guess otherwise the replica would be too durable. I wish episode was more thourough and made more sense, it had great potential.

Why do you think episode 2 isn't Black Mirror? I think it could've been made a lot better but maybe the point was to question how far people should go making these trendy true crime shows and make people realize that true crime isn't just entertainment, things really happened to real people and are their close ones are really affected by it. But yeah that topic wasn't really explored that much but that's what I got from it. Black Mirror has never been just about this future tech alternative life / upload your consciousness somewhere whatever bs, I think it's already getting boring when so many episodes are about that same thing with a different twist.

I haven't seen episodes 4 and 5 yet but the third one was really predictable. It was alright but kinda boring and unsurprising.

@Markoff said:

Btw they can link almost instantly light years away but they don't have spare replica or at least some generic body, so they don't have to share one? Seems quite unrealistic they are able to pull such link and travel that far, yet they are unable to make third replica.

edit: so finished whole season, I guess it's better than S05 but it jumped the shark already, out of 5 episodes only two are black mirror (1st and 3rd), the 3 have nothing to do with BM whether it's true crime, werewolf or demon, all these 3 are more suitable for x files than for black mirror, on the bright side we got at least two new episodes

More to the point, as they seemed to have real-time control of the replicas, why wasn't it replicas in space and humans on earth?

Agree about the lack of "twisted tech" in this season. I only really enjoyed the first ep. The second was OK, but a bit predictable for anyone who's used VHS, and the fifth was at least darkly humorous. This ep was far too bleak (though apparently is a commentary on toxic masculinity) and the fourth was a so-so horror. They should have kept it as the originally mooted "Red Mirror" companion piece.

@cswood said:

The biggest problem I had with the episode was that Hartnett's character didn't own a gun.

Not everyone needs a gun to feel like a real man. I was surprised that he was so easily overpowered, though.

@M.LeMarchand said:

@Markoff said:

Btw they can link almost instantly light years away but they don't have spare replica or at least some generic body, so they don't have to share one? Seems quite unrealistic they are able to pull such link and travel that far, yet they are unable to make third replica.

More to the point, as they seemed to have real-time control of the replicas, why wasn't it replicas in space and humans on earth?

I guess if you lose replica on Earth it's just inconvenience for pilot, but it doesn't endanger mission, while vice versa you lost the billion dollar mission. But this would be smallest issue, that whole episode was one big plot hole.

@M.LeMarchand said:

@cswood said:

The biggest problem I had with the episode was that Hartnett's character didn't own a gun.

Not everyone needs a gun to feel like a real man. I was surprised that he was so easily overpowered, though.

No offense, but this is an incredibly childish and short-sighted view. I don't blame you because I grew up around leftists and believed more or less the same thing until I got out on my own and realized, holy crap, there are some evil people out here. Depending on where you live it can take the police anywhere from 3-10 minutes to reach you, and that's if you have enough time to call them and tell them what's going on. I found out a childhood friend of mine was shot and killed by two introducers two years ago, they only found his body after the daycare his kid was at reported that he did not pick up his daughter on time. He did not own a gun, but if he had he wouldn't at least had a fighting chance.

And granted, are there people who treat guns like a religion? Yeah sure, but just because someone buys a gun for home defense doesn't mean they're doing it to "feel like a real man". In fact, I am fully in favor of single women owning one because nothing can prevent a 6 foot tall introducer from assaulting and killing a 5'1 woman like a bullet to the chest can. And not to say guns can't be dangerous to the owner, but if I'm facing down 5 assailants and I have to choose between a bat and a gun you bet for damn sure I am choosing the gun. I would have Kyle Rittenhouse'd the lot of them, but then we wouldn't have a story.

@Markoff said:

I guess if you lose replica on Earth it's just inconvenience for pilot, but it doesn't endanger mission, while vice versa you lost the billion dollar mission. But this would be smallest issue, that whole episode was one big plot hole.

In terms of mission success, losing a pilot on Earth would be less of a problem than losing a replica on Earth - just get another pilot to control the replica in space. In terms of money, a few grand to the dead pilots' families (two crew members needed) vs (presumably) millions for two irretrievable replicas...

@cswood said:

No offense, but this is an incredibly childish and short-sighted view. I don't blame you because I grew up around leftists and believed more or less the same thing until I got out on my own and realized, holy crap, there are some evil people out here. Depending on where you live it can take the police anywhere from 3-10 minutes to reach you, and that's if you have enough time to call them and tell them what's going on. I found out a childhood friend of mine was shot and killed by two introducers two years ago, they only found his body after the daycare his kid was at reported that he did not pick up his daughter on time. He did not own a gun, but if he had he wouldn't at least had a fighting chance.

And granted, are there people who treat guns like a religion? Yeah sure, but just because someone buys a gun for home defense doesn't mean they're doing it to "feel like a real man". In fact, I am fully in favor of single women owning one because nothing can prevent a 6 foot tall introducer from assaulting and killing a 5'1 woman like a bullet to the chest can. And not to say guns can't be dangerous to the owner, but if I'm facing down 5 assailants and I have to choose between a bat and a gun you bet for damn sure I am choosing the gun. I would have Kyle Rittenhouse'd the lot of them, but then we wouldn't have a story.

Yet here in the UK where, while there certainly are armed criminals, there isn't such a gun culture and I don't know anyone who has a bat/knife/whatever handy just in case.

The figures actually suggest that owning a gun is actually more likely to see you a victim of gun-related violence, be it suicide, accidental discharge, someone more willing to use their weapon than you are to use yours, or it being turned against you.

Also, how many civilians have stopped a mass shooting by using their firearm? I can think of one case where an armed guard decided discretion was the better part of valour, though.

Plus, "If you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns" = "If you outlaw sex with underage children, only outlaws will have sex with underage children".

@M.LeMarchand said:

Yet here in the UK

Oh, that explains it. You guys aren't even allowed to have forks there.

while there certainly are armed criminals, there isn't such a gun culture and I don't know anyone who has a bat/knife/whatever handy just in case.

Basically any woman can be snatched off the street and assaulted and there's nothing anyone can do about it. You're essentially living under the mercy of your government. You guys are unarmed, under surveillance, and can be thrown in jail for tweets. Why? Because your government doesn't fear you. Why? Because they have access to guns and you don't.

Also, isn't there like a ton of knife and van attacks in the UK? I could be wrong here.

The figures actually suggest that owning a gun is actually more likely to see you a victim of gun-related violence, be it suicide, accidental discharge, someone more willing to use their weapon than you are to use yours, or it being turned against you.

Technically you're right, but freedom does not guarantee safety. There were a lot less car accidents before everyone could buy a car, but I think we can all agree we'd rather have the freedom to own a car even if it means an increase in vehicular deaths. Same goes for alcohol; tons of deaths and/or injury/health problems can be attributed to alcohol consumption, especially when combined with car accidents, but we all would rather accept those risks if it means we have the freedom to consume alcohol.

Also, how many civilians have stopped a mass shooting by using their firearm?

Quite a few, actually, the problem is when a civilian stops a mass shooter our news media either doesn't cover it or makes the civilian looks like the bad guy.

When someone decides to commit a mass shooting they tend to choose places where they know or strongly believe there won't be anyone else with a gun. Isn't that odd? They don't usually target places where the population is likely to have a gun because they know what will happen.

Plus, "If you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns" = "If you outlaw sex with underage children, only outlaws will have sex with underage children".

Terrible strawman. Those are two completely different things and I think you know that. Having access to guns does not automatically create a victim like pedophilia does. A gun is a tool, it can be used for hunting, defense, collecting, or just for fun shooting targets. Sex with underage children automatically creates a victim. At the end of the day dictators do not want their citizens having more guns. If Jews in 1930's German had access to guns the 1940s would have played out very differently.

can we please discuss the tv show instead of this political nonsense?

@Markoff said:

can we please discuss the tv show instead of this political nonsense?

OK, mom.

Though I would be happy to refute all the arguments above.

The two major (and kinda obvious) flaws for me were:

1) Why not send the replicas to space? If they are so good, that should work, and be a much easier sell. The only thing I can think is that the replicas were untested/uncertain? (The one character mentions that he "hasn't adjusted to his grip yet" when chopping wood with his son. So maybe the consciousness has to "adapt" to the replica? Given that the astronauts were spending 6 days off station and 1 day on, those kind of adaptations, could ruin the mission? While watching I just thought: "The plot requires it." Fair enough.

2) Where was mission-control in all this? This one REALLY bugged me. Think back to 1969...how many ground controllers and decision makers were involved in every little decision (think Apollo 13). There is NO WAY the sending agency (obviously very public and known...likely the government), would not have a contingency plan for the earth-based replicas. Not to mention, security and everything else. This was super obvious when one of the astronauts just came up with the whole "you can borrow my skin suit" idea. I mean, anyone---anyone---would see the foolishness and potential disaster that could ensue...both on Earth and in the mission.

Other than those two items, it was interesting enough, but also, I didn't buy the ending. Meh, at least it was Black-Mirror-ish.