Black Mirror Episodes 1-13 Ranked

Black Mirror (2011-)
3 Seasons - 13 episodes

Watch Black Mirror on Netflix
Created by: Charlie Brooker

Plot 
Black Mirror examines the pitfalls when technology and society intersect. What happens when technology goes off the rails, creating a horrifying situation? Ultimately the questions are, does technology make us happier? Is being connected at all times beneficial? Does it do more harm than good?
Black Mirror is an anthology. Each episode is self contained with completely different actors.

Ranking
Black Mirror is my favorite show containing my favorite hour of visual entertainment. Season 3 definitely fit the Black Mirror mold and now I attempt to rate all the episodes. This is all I have until season 4 releases.
What's crazy is that my least favorite episode may have been the most prescient as it has kind of come true. The worst episode of Black Mirror is still better than most of what's currently on television.

1. The Entire History of You S1E3

Black Mirror  is about concepts and resolutions. It provides ingenious ideas and devastating conclusions.
What if you could record everything and relive your best memories? What you would really do is re-watch the bad job interview or stay up all night obsessing over little queues your wife may have made with someone else. Instead of thinking nothing happened and moving on, you can obsess over details and watch that moment over and over. Is the joy of seeing the best moments worth the suffering of reliving the worst nightmares? For the protagonist, it isn't.
This episode is superb, and some of the best parts are the little details about how this technology would be used. Babies are their own nanny cam, airport security reviews what you actually saw and did at the check points. This is an incredible concept and resolution attached to an amazing story.

2. Fifteen Million Merits S1E2

I was surprised at the amount of depth the episode has. Anything that's done well, that is new or different will be copied and overused and reduced to a caricature. Bing 'won' the competition after being completely broken, and now he must peddle products for points while holding that same shard of glass to his neck. Being a mindless drone was better than that.
People don't want real they want a gimmick, entertainment. Anything of value will be squandered. You spend every day working for a goal, a goal you're told will improve you life. You're still imprisoned, but the cell is larger and the veil has been removed.

3. White Bear S2E2

The most horrifying thing about this episode is that somebody, somewhere is nodding their head saying we need to implement this system.
A woman is pursued in a park where no one will help her, they just video her pleas.
She has no memory, so she doesn't know what's happening. When she discovers that she was an accomplice in a crime, she's devastated and then forced to do it again, all realizations about what happened erased. It's an eye for an eye meant to break the guilty and provide entertainment for everyone else.

4. White Christmas S2 Special

What if you could transmit everything you see? This has two intertwined stories about a life coach's past and his present at a remote outpost with another man.
If everything we hear and saw could be filtered, you could block other people. Criminals could be marked. Have you ever wanted to remove someone from your life? Here you can.
This also delves into whether digital torture is really torture or is it admissible because it's torturing a computer program. What if the computer program doesn't realize it's not real?
This episode delivers a devastating conclusion.

5. Men Against Fire S3E5

This operates on two levels, the future of warfare and making soldiers compliant, but it also provides a glimpse into the minds of the twisted soldiers and regimes that have committed genocide.
In Gattaca, anyone not genetically screened couldn't find a job. In this episode, they're hunted and killed. Meet the perfect soldier, blind, deaf, and mute.

6. San Junipero S3E4

This episode may have the best story telling of season 3. Each scene unfolds the characters and the mystery of this world. Once you realize the twist, the episode takes on a different meaning. Death has been defeated and it leads to depravity. This is a romance in a way that only Black Mirror would tell it, while analyzing life after death.

7. Be Right Back S2E1

It's another instance where a person can't grieve and thus they don't move on. Is that what technology would do to us? Prevent us from dealing with emotions?
 Through social media posting, a company can recreate a lifelike facsimile of a lost loved one. If you could have a loved one back, of course you would do it. It's that feeling of, "It's not real." that would eat at you.

8. Hated in the Nation S3E6

This bookends Nosedive well, exploring the hate on social media. Many people call for the death of someone they hate on social media, but what would happen if it happened? What should happen to the people calling for such a heinous act?
This episode feels a bit too much like The X-Files with bees and the attack, but it explores an interesting topic.

9. Nosedive S3E1

Imagine Yelp rates people. Every maintains a false facade because your rating is the key to getting a good job, apartment, or car. All social interaction is a fraud as society has managed to turn it into a commodity.

10. The National Anthem S1E1

This show doesn't just explore the main question, but the ripples too. Do you save your honor or a life? Politicians profane themselves in private and finally it's done in public. The public realized they didn't really want this.
It's because of technology this stunt was even able to work. This was our introduction to Black Mirror, and what an introduction it was.

11. Shut Up and Dance S3E3

Someone has discovered the skeleton in people's closets and is using the shame of outing them to coerce them to do their illegal bidding. You follow the orders of an unscrupulous person with no assurances that they will do what they say. Fear guides and motivates, because you will do anything to hide those secrets... anything.


12. The Waldo Movement S2E3

This episode feels weak, though the message is as strong as any episode. A cartoon overtaking the polls isn't far off from the current presidential election (when I first reviewed this episode it was primaries, not the election).
Politicians are just actors, parroting the information that will get them elected.

12. Playtest S3E2 

This felt the least like a Black Mirror episode. It was intense, but the focus was very limited. It could have explored how virtual reality can alter our memories or even the death of one test subject to benefit million, but it doesn't.