Enjoyed Striking Vipers as much as any episode of S4. It wasn't profound and the idea you could **** in VR Tekken requires some disbelief suspension but the acting and dialogue and so on was good (^^^) and it was enjoyably ****ed up.

Haven't seen the other two episodes but based on reviews would it be better if Brooker brought other screenwriters on board? He'd retain an element of creative control on each episode and write one to two episodes per year but 16 episodes in ~three years (1 story, 2 co-written, 13 solo) at ~an hour each....

All the worst episodes were solo written too.

Fifteen Million Merits (co-written with Konnie Huq)
The Entire History of You (Jesse Armstrong)
Nosedive (Story By Brooker; Teleplay by: Rashida Jones & Mike Schur)
Shut Up and Dance (co-written with William Bridges)
USS Callister (co-written with William Bridges)

Consensus opinion is two of those are elite and three are decent.

I think Striking Vipers missed the ending. His bday gift should've been he and his WIFE both playing the game as other characters - together. Spicing up their sex life. The wife going off to get laid by a stranger stretches credulity.

which of the 3 woudl you guys rank in order form fav to least fav?

Agree with you on the co-writing.

More specifically, he needs to bring back Konnie Huq and Jesse Armstrong asap.

So are they jizzing in their pants each time irl

I ****ed a polar bear man

Leave anything on tv for too long and it becomes horse****. 1 was boring 2 was mediocre 3 was insanely bad.

imdb ratings

This. After watching Striking Vipers I thought it was a WOAT BM contender, but then the following episodes somehow managed to be worse.

Enjoyed picking the "Head Like a Hole" riff out of Miley's pop hit though, even if it did give the ending away somewhat.

Striking Vipers did make me think... I wonder if SJ would be as highly rated if they cast 2 men in the lead roles...

Anyway:

1, San Junipero
2, White Christmas
3, 15 Million Merits
4, Hang The DJ
5, Be Right Back
6, White Bear
.
.
.
.
7, USS Callister
8, Entire History of you
9, Nosedive
10, Shut Up and Dance
11, Crocodile
12, Arkangel
13, Black Museum
.
.
.
.
14, The Waldo Moment
15, Playtest
16, Hated in the Nation
17, Men Against Fire
18, National Anthem
19, Striking Vipers
20, Metalhead
21, Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too
22, Bandersnatch
22, Smithereens

Just the first run of Twilight Zone went over 150 episodes. Time for them to try 22 minute episodes imo.

Well done. It was familiar to me but I couldn’t place it until the end.

I definitely think the quality has collapsed with the latest 4 episodes and I mostly agree with the rankings listed above. I’d also put Arkangel and Hated In The Nation amongst the top tier episodes, but most of the first 18 are really high level stuff and hold up well to multiple re-watches. Cheeky little references like playing Girlfriend In A Coma In the San Junipero 80s bar and the constant callbacks to the early episodes (there’s even a “Prime Minister Marries Pig” headline tucked away in Shut Up And Dance) make it such a rewarding series to dip back into.

I don’t see myself ever being motivated to watch any of the recent offerings a second time, and I guess that’s the strongest criticism I have to offer. Still holding out hope for a return to form in the future though.

Andrew Scott did a great job in Smithereens....it was certainly watchable, but the "lesson" was quite obvious.

Was the lesson to be a little ***** who doesn't take any responsibility for their actions and just tries to blame it on "the man"?

Or was it more about the fact that anybody, no matter how incompetent, can obtain a senior role in the British police force?

the lesson was stupid, yes

Dont Persona while driving

I didn't mind the Miley Cyrus episode as much as most of you...I liked the concept...I did think it was bizarre how the tone shifted to a madcap comedy once they were being chased to the concert at the end. The Aunt/manager turning to the camera and saying "Eff it" was so strange and a change in tone that did not work at all.

I like Miley Cyrus, though, and hope she acts more.

Smithereens was extremely poorly done.

It leads the viewer to think about the dilemma faced by sites surrounding what to do with accounts when the user dies

Maybe, and that might be an interesting story, but there needs to be more urgency to it than just "I'm hoping there's something there to give me a clue about why". Like, imagine it was her dead husband, and she knew all their life insurance info was in there somewhere and couldn't get to it, and her life fell apart as a result, while the company and gov't privacy commissions all fought in different directions.

It also doesn't give any kind of view into the dilemma from the company's perspective at all. In fact, it's not even the same company as Topher's.

A different view of Smithereens:

Maybe you are all too immersed in digital culture. The episode was made to point out the insidious damage that can be caused by various forms of social digital media. People in the episode are so obsessed with their smartphones instead of interacting with people in person they give attention to social media. They are conditioned to take pointless pictures of a tragedy rather than go on with their own lives. Individual privacy has been ruined as we see that Smithereens corporation has more information about innocent people collected from their apps than the FBI does. In order to talk to a suicidal person , instead of contacting a real human counselor someone tries to use a counseling app which fails miserably. The instigating event was caused by the distraction of digital media. Society is being degraded by its new inventions.

Smithereens modeled Twitter and its CEO Dorsey who actually has gone on a silent meditation retreat similar to the Billy Bauer character. (In the show Billy Bauer does a retreat at fictitious Furnace Valley UT but it was actually shot in Spain from what I could discover. ) He was made to appear like Jesus and found "God mode" on his laptop to emphasize the power and scope of the new technology. Now even he believes he has lost control of his creation.

The story twist is about two-thirds into the episode when we find out why this average guy became so unhinged. He kidnaps someone, but it is not for ransom, but for app related reasons. There was no need to show the outcome details of the snipers shot at the end. The point was that whoever got shot at the end it was going to be a tragedy and it would not occur except for social media.

By the way, the episode was intended to be about police tactics. As far as the plot flaw of the sharpshooter not re-positioning, just imagine that the car was parked next to a tree which blocked the view of the driver’s side window so that re-positioning was not a viable option.

Since few tv series or movies address the negative side of social media, I rated the episode above average.

Damn. A BM episode coming out against modern technological society?

lol I actually wasn't sure if that was a joke post or not until I got to this:

solid level sir

Ah, I didn't realize while watching that it was a critique of social media's increasing influence on all of our lives. Now it makes more sense

I thought it was about the difficulty of guessing passwords.