Line #10 YMMV/BlackMirrorNosedive


1	[[center:[-'''[[YMMV/BlackMirror Black Mirror YMMV]]'''-]]]
2	[[center:[-'''Series Three'''-]]]
3	[[center:[-'''Nosedive'''-] -- [-[[YMMV/BlackMirrorPlaytest Playtest]]-] -- [-[[YMMV/BlackMirrorShutUpAndDance Shut Up and Dance]]-] -- [-[[YMMV/BlackMirrorSanJunipero San Junipero]]-] -- [-[[YMMV/BlackMirrorMenAgainstFire Men Against Fire]]-] -- [-[[YMMV/BlackMirrorHatedInTheNation Hated in the Nation]]-]]]
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5	* AlternateCharacterInterpretation:
6	** Lacie is plain unlikeable during the events that lead to her epiphany. Most of the problems that caused her rating to go down were either caused by her or made worse by her actions. Depending how you see it, the rating system is not bad in and of itself—"That's how society works", and this particular person just made a string of horribly bad decisions, most of which were her own fault.
7	*** Does Lacie genuinely and delusionally believe that crashing Naomi's wedding will bring her back from the brink, or does she intend it more as a TakingYouWithMe to embarrass Naomi on her wedding day? Her SanitySlippage (aided by alcohol) could be an act to cause as much of a fuss as possible so everyone will only ever remember Naomi's wedding for it.
8	** Is Naomi a depressed {{Stepford Smiler}} just trying to survive in the system? Or a genuinely mean AlphaBitch?
9	** Lacie might be shallow and self-interested, but she's always giving out five-star reviews in the hopes of getting some in return, and it works, ''except'' with people who don't buy into her attitude just because they judge her for being shallow and self-interested. Those are flaws, certainly, but at the end of the day, she's following the Golden Rule better than anybody else in the episode: she treats others the way she wants to be treated. She just doesn't want to be treated with any depth.
10	* {{Anvilicious}}: Rating people is a bad thing, steeped in slippery slope.
11	* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEJ95bXxW-I "The Journey, Not the Destination"]] is a thrilling piece of music that describes [[spoiler:Lacie's determination to get into Naomi's wedding no matter what]]. The 'rating down' sound effects enhances the song as well.
12	* BigLippedAlligatorMoment, combined with TakeThat: Lacie overhears in a bathroom stall that a group of fans of the sci-fi series "Sea of Tranquility" is going to a convention near where Naomi's wedding takes place, so she fakes being another fan to hitch a ride with them. These guys are depicted as stereotypical trashy cosplayers and insufferable fanboys, especially when one of them gets angry because Lacie doesn't know that one character does not conform to gender conventions. Then Naomi phones her and tells her not to come to her ceremony anymore. The scene qualifies as a BLAM because it's unnecessary to the plot (Lacie borrows a motorbike to get to the wedding, she could have done that before), mostly irrelevant to the episode's theme and seems added just to take potshots at fandoms and social justice people.
13	** The alternate interpretation is that it shows people who do not conform to mainstream society yet still have satisfying lives, repeating an earlier point the episode made about Lacie's brother: he's shown not to care about society and slacks off playing video games, yet has a solid rating thanks to having a circle of friends who share his pastime. (Seen this way, it still seems to be a potshot at fandoms and social justice people, just not an irrelevant one.)
14	* EnsembleDarkhorse: [[spoiler:The "Man in Jail" at the end of the episode, thanks to both him being played by the handsome Sope Dirisu and the hilariously mean-spirited SnarkToSnarkCombat he gets into with Lacie. Suffice to say, many fans almost instantly started to ship him with Lacie]].
15	* EsotericHappyEnding: The corrupt points system is still in place and [[spoiler:Lacie is now in ''jail''. Really, the only positive part of the ending is that Lacie is finally somewhere where she doesn't have to be a StepfordSmiler and can be as {{Brutally Honest}} as she wants to be]].
16	** There's something beautifully human about it. Usually, Black Mirror takes a dim view of human nature, but the most joyful and genuine conversation in the episode is [[spoiler: two prisoners yelling "Fuck you!" at each other because no one can stop them and there's no incentive not to.]] We humans may be jerks, but we come by it honestly, and for better or worse, honest humanity is all the common ground we really have.
17	* SugarWiki/FunnyMoments: The hilariously childish (and not to mention, [[TruthInTelevision realistic]]) SnarkToSnarkCombat between [[spoiler:Lacie and the Man in Jail, with it basically coming across as what would happen if a comment-section flame war [[MundaneMadeAwesome was ever voice-acted]]]].
18	* HarsherInHindsight:
19	** The Social Credit System from real-life China, which was still in pilot trials when the episode came out, is eerily similar to the fictional scoring system. The main difference being its political bent to keep the population in check and enforce a nation-wide StepfordSmiler attitude. It became fully implemented in 2020, with things like being denied the sale of travel tickets or forcing people to cut ties with low-score citizens to preserve their own score, being big parts of it.
20	** Also, there is now an app called "peeple" which is sold as the "yelp for people." Needless to say, many people were saying, "Wasn't this done on ''Black Mirror''?"
21	** The taxi app Uber's system of rating both drivers and passengers has echoes of this.
22	* SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments: From two complete strangers saying "Fuck you" to each other, no less.
23	* HilariousInHindsight: This episode, which is all about people rating each other based on how they see them, was written by Creator/MichaelSchur and Creator/RashidaJones. Schur would go on to make ''Series/TheGoodPlace'', where whichever afterlife one ends up in depends on an arbitrary scoring system [[spoiler:and the points system for determining said afterlife is later revealed to be dangerously obsolete and critical of people trying to ''appear'' good instead of ''actually'' being good]]. The aesthetics of the society of this episode even feel very close to the sets in ''The Good Place'' (brightly lit, wholesome feeling and pastel colors galore).
24	* HoYay:
25	** When Paul finishes his speech at the wedding, he immediately goes over to his best man, Anthony, and gives him a very intimate-looking frat-boy chest bump, with their eyes locked to each other's. Not once in this sequence does he look at his gorgeous new wife Naomi, and the look on her face says it all. This heavily implies that the union is purely a MarriageOfConvenience for the sake of higher ratings and the two don't actually love each other.
26	** Lacie's last words in her wedding-crasher speech are [[AnguishedDeclarationOfLove "I love you, Naomi! I've always loved you!"]]. It's unclear if it was an intentional revelation (considering that the episode has a theme of social stigma and dishonesty) that came at the worst possible moment, [[PsychoLesbian making her look unhinged and vengeful]], or just a questionable choice of dialogue. Her comment a moment before about boys never working out for her while also praising Naomi's "tight ass" makes it more confusing (though that too can be explained via Lacie's chronic insecurity).
27	* JerkassWoobie:
28	** Lacie might be pretty unlikeable in the lead-up to her epiphany, but she still didn't deserve to [[spoiler:get thrown in ''prison'' for it]]. Not only that, but she's now separated from her brother Ryan who was probably the one person who truly cared about her.
29	** Lacie's brother Ryan. Despite being a messy, sometimes [[BrutalHonesty brutally blunt]] slacker, he's one of the more sane characters along with Susan. He really doesn't like the ratings system and genuinely misses having a sister who didn't care about ratings. He's also well aware that Naomi is far from a friend that Lacie claims she is and truly wishes that Lacie would just forget about her. In response to this, Lacie, his own sister, downvotes him and by the end of the episode he's unaware that his sister is now in jail.
30	* OlderThanTheyThink: The main premise had been explored two years prior in a much more comedic and exaggerated fashion in the ''Series/{{Community}}'' episode "[[Recap/CommunityS5E08AppDevelopmentAndCondiments App Development and Condiments]]". When asked about this later, Charlie Brooker said he was not familiar with this episode at the time of producing "Nosedive".
31	* SpiritualAntithesis: This episode is has the hallmarks of Creator/{{Michael Schur}}'s SignatureStyle, but played in a much darker and less comedic fashion.
32	* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: Lacie comes off like this for some viewers, seeing as most of her problems during the HumiliationConga she only made worse and her behaviour at the wedding would not be acceptable in '''our''' society either. The ending also comes off like she feels relieved at the ability to be an asshole and insult people without having to worry about social consequences.
33	* TheWoobie:
34	** Ches. Lacie's co-worker who, because he merely broke up with his partner, ends up getting downvoted by his so-called "friends" which leads to his rating going so low that he can't enter the office building he works at which presumably leads him to losing his job and becoming either jobless, homeless or both.
35	** Susan. A truck driver with a 1.4 rating who used to care about the rating system until she lost her husband to cancer because both her and husband's scores weren't high enough to get treatment.

Context YMMV / BlackMirrorNosedive