TV Review: Black Mirror - The National Anthem

In the first of what is to be an ongoing series, I’m going to be reviewing each episode of Black Mirror, including my first-time thoughts on seasons 3 and 4 having not had the bravery to punish myself with that level of hopelessness yet. But I figured now with this blog at my disposal, I can at least take a breather between each episode with a review rather than binge through the whole lot and get overwhelmed.

I’ve heard a lot of people suggest that new viewers of Black Mirror start elsewhere in the series and come back to The National Anthem due to just how disturbing it’s central concept is, but to my mind that was the point, Black Mirror knew this was its first episode and set the tone right out of the gate, it’s absurd, it’s comedic, it’s disturbing and above all relevant. When Princess Susanna, a popular member of the royal family, is kidnapped by an unknown party, the singular demand is that Prime Minister Michael Callow be filmed live having unsimulated sex with a live pig or she will be executed. Naturally Callow refuses and puts all focus on finding Susanna alive and well but since the demand video was uploaded to YouTube the entire country is slowly but surely learning about this bizarre event and watching with bated breath to see just how far it will go.

What the episode does brilliantly (and why I think it’s required as a first viewing for the series) is that it balances humorous disbelief with shocked realisation, of course forcing someone to have sex with a pig is so ridiculous its laughable and even for the first 1/3rd or so of the episode no-one actually believes it’ll happen, but as it goes on there’s this sinking feeling as it gets more and more real. The beauty of it is that there’s such a gross curiosity from both the audience in the episode and the audience watching the episode that you do kinda want to see if it will actually go that far.

The central focus is on Michael Callow played by Rory Kinnear, best known as Tanner in Daniel Crag’s Bond run and Frankenstein’s Monster in Penny Dreadful, and for what is sure to be a surreal role to take he manages to make the performance work, Naturally he is adamantly against the demand to start with and doing everything in his power to prevent it, there’s an argument to be made of selfishness in the first half of the episode with Callow concerned more for his own well-being than that of Susanna’s but it’s an understandable selfishness and it makes Callow that little bit more realistic. It’s in the second half onwards when it’s becoming more and more likely that the act will happen that Kinnear give Callow the necessary dramatic weight, he gets angry, then he gets desperate and eventually resignation, you’ll notice him talking less and less as the episode goes on. In such a bizarre and disturbing episode, KInnear proves himself just human enough to be real and just sympathetic enough for the absurdity to become true-blue horror.

While not as technologically advanced as some of the later episodes, National Anthem keeps things low-key to delve into the nature of social media and the hive mind of the internet in general; so much of the plot has to do with how quickly news is spread online that it becomes a damnation of the callous nature of keyboard warriors as opposed to a satire on political dealings with terrorism. Any attempts to quash the news are impossible due to the net taking the hilarious news of their Prime Minister fucking a pig and running with it and that’s only the public, in Callow’s own party Home Secretary Alex Cairns tries to use digital trickey to have a performer take Callow’s place only to be brought down by a tweeted photo, aide Tom tries to keep the newsrooms from talking about it but can’t due to everyone else talking about it and even a low-level aide leaks information to field reporter Malaika because she shares nudes with him over her phone. News Media is often portrayed as being sensationalist but in National Anthem it’s the public that take over the story before the media is even allowed to touch it, sensitivity is ignored in favour of jokes and mockery leading to a desensitisation of the event which brings about a very ugly and very disturbing turn when the jokes are no longer funny.

National Anthem might arguably be Black Mirror’s most infamous episode simply for how far it’s willing to go, among the absurd and darkly humorous story-line there is a damning example of the callous nature of social media and a cautionary tale of just how a surreal concept can turn to a dark reality; something I think we can all agree has mirrored itself in reality over the last few months. As an opening episode it packs a hell of a punch but it sets the tone for the series right away and leave you wondering at what point do you laugh at how ridiculous it is or what point do you get scared that it’s just ridiculous enough to be true?

8/10