Nosedive

"Nosedive" is the first episode of the third series of Black Mirror, starring Bryce Dallas Howard, Alice Eve, Cherry Jones and James Norton. Michael Schur and Rashida Jones wrote the teleplay for the episode based on a story by series creator and showrunner Charlie Brooker. It premiered on Netflix on 21 October 2016.^[1]

Plot

Lacie Pound (Bryce Dallas Howard) lives in a world where both friends and strangers can rate your popularity out of five stars due to technology inside phones and standard smart lenses that display everyone's name and current rating. Not only does this technology affect day-to-day lifestyle, but also affects social standing, with people below 2.5 considered lower-class. Obsessed with being received well, she currently has an approval rating around 4.2. She lives with her brother Ryan (James Norton), who has a lower approval rating than her because he doesn't worry as much about it. Their lease is expiring, and Lacie is eager to move out. She learns that in order to be able to afford to live in an exclusive estate, she must have a rating of 4.5 or above, and is advised that the best way to improve her own rating is to socialise with highly-ranked people because their ratings carry more weight. Her childhood friend Naomi (Alice Eve) contacts Lacie and asks her to be Naomi's maid of honour at her forthcoming wedding, which Lacie delightedly accepts. Naomi, who has a rating of 4.8, has many upper class friends and lives on an exclusive and idyllic island. Lacie believes if she delivers a perfect maid of honour speech, she will be flooded with enough 5-star ratings to pull her approval up to the 4.5 she needs.

Lacie leaves her house to travel to the wedding. At the airport, she is told her original flight has been cancelled, and she needs at least a 4.2 to get a seat on another. Due to a row with Ryan and several unfortunate encounters with strangers, her rating has dropped to 4.183, so she is refused the seat. She causes a scene at the airport due to frustration, and security gives her a 24-hour punishment: firstly, her rating is temporarily lowered by one entire point, to 3.1; secondly, all downvotes she receives during the punishment period will incur a double multiplier. Lacie's lower ranking means she can only rent an old model of a car to make the nine-hour drive to Naomi's wedding. When the electric car loses power, she cannot find a way to charge it because the car is so old that its adaptor is no longer carried at the charging station. Lacie attempts to hitchhike, but passing motorists are alarmed by her low ranking and refuse to stop, and some even downvote her further. Eventually she manages to get a ride from an older woman in a truck, Susan (Cherry Jones), who reveals she too was obsessed with ratings until her husband was passed over for vital cancer treatment because he was a 4.3 rather than a 4.4. After his death, Susan stopped caring about appealing to other people to get high ratings, and today has a rating of only 1.4. Susan also remarks that she felt better and carefree when speaking freely in front of other people. Naomi calls Lacie and tells her she is no longer welcome at the wedding due to her rating, which has dropped to 2.6. Lacie is shocked because she thought being one of Naomi's oldest friends would guarantee her invitation, but Naomi informs her that she was only invited because calculations suggested Lacie's appearance as a childhood friend with a rating in the low 4s would seem authentic and help Naomi get higher ratings.

Lacie is persistent and decides to go anyway. She breaks into the island, because her rating is too low to go in officially, and gatecrashes the wedding reception. She hastily performs her speech, ripping into Naomi for sleeping with her boyfriend when they were younger. All the guests subsequently rank her down, though Lacie is unfazed by this. She threatens Naomi's new husband, Paul (Alan Ritchson), with a knife when he tries to restrain her. She is arrested, has the technology to be ranked removed, and is jailed. While in her prison cell, she notices a prisoner (Sope Dirisu) across the hall staring at her. She tries to rank him down but then she realizes that she doesn't have her phone anymore. Like Lacie, the other prisoner appears to be a person who used to have a high ranking, as he is wearing a well-fitting business suit. Lacie and the man begin to exchange insults, and their mutual anger transforms into mutual delight as they each realize they are now free to speak without fear.

Production

The episode was based on an idea by series creator Charlie Brooker who wrote a three page outline, with Schur and Jones encouraged to write a "comedic, darkly" script.^[2]

Critical reception

The episode received positive reviews from critics. Benjamin Lee of The Guardian noted that the episode "manages to create a believable and aesthetically impressive mini-universe without the need for tiresome exposition".^[3] Furthermore, Adam Chitwood of Collider noted that the "lush world and bitingly hilarious script of 'Nosedive' brings some much-welcomed levity to the Black Mirror universe".^[4] Matt Fowler of IGN described the episode as "both fun and frustrating [but] it works well when you consider that the next two episodes get a lot more grounded and grim".^[5] Sophie Lee of The Atlantic compared the episode to the controversial mobile application, Peeple.^[6] Many reviews compared the episode to an episode of Community that had appeared several years early. The reviews stated that anyone who had seen that episode of community would be familar with the plot as it was essential a retread, though none of the reviews weren't as far as to allege plagarism. ^{[7] [8]} In an interview Charlie Brooker states he was unaware of the tv show Community and didn't know if it had ever been on broadcast tv. ^[9] It should be noted that Rashida Jones a co writer of the episode used to star in Parks and Recreation an NBC stable mate to Community.

See also

• "App Development and Condiments", a 2014 episode of the sitcom Community, which had a similar concept where people rated each other out of five, although the tone is much lighter and more comic.
• Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
• Love Minus Eighty, a 2013 novel by Will McIntosh where one of the main characters is a social media star in a world where status is determined by popularity in augmented reality.
• Peeple, a mobile application initially described as a "Yelp for People." It allows people to leave recommendations for other people based on professional, personal and romantic relationships.
• Social Credit System
• The Circle, a 2013 novel by Dave Eggers. The Circle concerns in part a social networking system that includes various ranking and popularity registering features for its users, including a PartiRank (or, Participation Rank) system, and 'Smiles' and 'Frowns' for users to respond to various details that arrive on their personal news feeds.
• Super Sad True Love Story, a 2010 novel by Gary Shteyngart. The dystopian novel is set in near-future New York, where life is dominated by media and retail. Many parallels are found with GlobalTeens, the Facebook-like social media site that dominates communication, and portions of the book are presented through semi-literate messages, called teens.

References

External links

• "Nosedive" at the Internet Movie Database