Black Mirror Season 3 Episode 1 - Nosedive Review

Black Mirror (2011-)
Season 3  - 6 episodes (2016)

Watch Black Mirror Season 3 on Netflix
Written by: Charlie Brooker (story by), Rashida Jones & Mike Schur (teleplay by)
Direct by: Joe Wright

Starring: Bryce Dallas Howard, Alice Eve

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, and does it do more harm than good?
Black Mirror is an anthology. Each episode is self contained with completely different actors.

The first episode of season 3 is Nosedive. Imagine if Yelp rated people instead of places. Every interaction is rated on a scale of 1 to 5. If you get caught up in that, you try to make every public interaction as pleasant as possible so you receive a high rating. If you don't care how you're rated, you have a low score and can be refused housing, jobs, and basic staples. You become a pariah.

Verdict
Nosedive is a solid start to season 3. It's less bleak, and more accessible to anyone new to the series. It's a much lighter introduction than season 1's first episode The National Anthem.
This has the detail I expect from Black Mirror. Holding people accountable for each interaction makes them more pleasant, but it also excludes a whole range of emotion. If you break up with someone and are deemed in the wrong, you might lose you job. Being nice has become currency not a standard human emotion.
This has bits of Falling Down and Mean Girls, with a  conclusion that makes a solid episode even better.
Watch it.

Review
Two minutes in and Nosedive feels like Black Mirror, which was reassuring. Every interaction is rated, and it makes you want to be pleasant to maintain a high rating. You drink and eat things you don't like just so you can post an image to social media and wring out a few likes. Instead of creating a facade of how great you life is in a few images on social media, you do it all the time. There is very little down time, because if you want to keep your rating high you need to always be on the lookout for that image or sentiment that will get you a few more likes. This is a desire to not just fit in, but to stand out. Life is a performance, and Lacie is always on stage. If you see an old friend, you can mine their social feed for questions to ask them. People make even more of their lives accessible for likes.

Episode 1 - Nosedive

Bryce Dallas Howard plays Lacie, who needs to increase her rating to get into an exclusive apartment complex. Everything in this world is tied to that rating; friends, occupation, commodities. Lacie is hoping to socially manipulate her rating as she's a few tenths of a point short.When she's invited to be maid of honor by her childhood friend Naomi (Alice Eve) at a wedding that includes a lot of high lever users, that's her ticket to raise her score and finally achieve the perfect life.

Naomi didn't want her childhood friend at the wedding, it was that a 4.2 maid of honor would play well and help Naomi's numbers. Lacie was playing the numbers game, but so was the Naomi. Even the maid of honor speech was rehearsed and discussed with the bride to maximize the effect.

When Lacie's flight is canceled, she loses her temper at the airport. Her 4.2 becomes a temporary 3.2, negative ratings deal double damage, and everyone that sees her outburst rates her a 1.
Because of her low ranking she's stuck with a crappy rental car. Her whole life depends on this wedding and she is on the brink of missing it.

The penalty for losing your cool can be harsh. You can guess where this is going, which lacks the subtlety I've come to expect, but it doesn't hinder the message.  It's just a bit too on the nose. While this does end about where I thought it would, the path it takes to get there was a surprise.

An amazing train wreck caps this episode, but it doesn't stop. Lacie is locked up and that ending, once she is in jail, makes this entire episode better. Two people have lost everything and and just rip into each other. You have to see it.

One of the finer details in this episode is that it's no longer acceptable to just fit in. You can't live your life hoping not to look stupid, now you have to stand out. Everyone has a number that assesses how cool they are. The closer to 5, the more important you are, the more people that want to befriend you.

Black Mirror is great at building worlds and including incredible details. A great sub-plot was a breakup at Lacie's office. The at fault party got marked down so much that he couldn't even enter the building. We don't know who was at fault, but Lacie is penalized for even feeling sympathy for him and giving him a pity up-vote. She risks her own reputation for feeling bad for another human being. In this world people are nice, not because they are dealing with human beings, but because people are commodities, a potential vote to get closer to being a perfect 5.0.