Arkangel
Year: 2017
Directed by: Jodie Foster
Starring: Rosemary DeWitt, Brenna Harding & Owen Teague
Runtime: 52 minutes
Published: 06/09/23
Directed by: Jodie Foster
Starring: Rosemary DeWitt, Brenna Harding & Owen Teague
Runtime: 52 minutes
Published: 06/09/23
The increased presence of technology in daily life has allowed parents to more easily keep track of their children, and monitor the kind of content they consume. Whilst these tools are generally beneficial for the protection of young people, it could be argued that they prevent children and adolescents from understanding the world’s more harmful aspects, and could have a more detrimental effect later in life once these safety nets are removed, particularly in cases where parents are overly protective of their children.
Sounds like a topic perfect for Black Mirror to twist into a cautionary tale.
Following her three year old daughter Sarah’s (Anita Hodge) brief disappearance in a play park, single mother Marie (Rosemary DeWitt) enrols Sarah in the experimental ‘Arkangel’ program. This technology allows Marie to monitor Sarah’s location, as well as what she sees, hears, vital signs, and even has the ability to censor harmful material from Sarah.
Following the collapse of the Arkangel program, Sarah (Sarah Abbott), aged nine, faces ridicule from her peers as she is unable to experience life the same way as her. This causes Sarah to self-harm, prompting Marie to suspend her use of Arkangel, hoping to expose her to a lot of what she had been trying to protect her from.
Now aged fifteen, Sarah (Brenna Harding) has started staying out late, getting involved with boys, and experimenting with drugs. Unsure how to handle the situation, Marie turns to Arkangel to try and control her daughters life.
Sounds like a topic perfect for Black Mirror to twist into a cautionary tale.
Following her three year old daughter Sarah’s (Anita Hodge) brief disappearance in a play park, single mother Marie (Rosemary DeWitt) enrols Sarah in the experimental ‘Arkangel’ program. This technology allows Marie to monitor Sarah’s location, as well as what she sees, hears, vital signs, and even has the ability to censor harmful material from Sarah.
Following the collapse of the Arkangel program, Sarah (Sarah Abbott), aged nine, faces ridicule from her peers as she is unable to experience life the same way as her. This causes Sarah to self-harm, prompting Marie to suspend her use of Arkangel, hoping to expose her to a lot of what she had been trying to protect her from.
Now aged fifteen, Sarah (Brenna Harding) has started staying out late, getting involved with boys, and experimenting with drugs. Unsure how to handle the situation, Marie turns to Arkangel to try and control her daughters life.
Similarly to Hated in the Nation, Arkangel is a story with so much potential that is unfortunately squandered by poor creative decisions. Whilst all Black Mirror episodes could be explored in greater detail if they were afforded a longer runtime, Arkangel is perhaps the best example in the show’s entire history of a concept that is far too big for a single episode, and tries to do far too much in just fifty-two minutes.
The Arkangel technology is really complicated, and has so many features and facets to it that are either glossed over very briefly or outright never explored. Plus the ever changing age of Sarah doesn’t truly allow us to bond with her as a character, nor understand her developmental problems brought on by Arkangel.
The whole thing is boiled down to its most basic concepts and coke the end of the episode you will feel as though it was totally wasted because of how brief the whole thing is. Honestly, Arkangel deserved a whole season dedicated just to its concept, and it could have been amazing to explore a lot of this episodes themes in greater detail.
The episode also suffers the same fate of Hated in the Nation in that the performances are a bit dull. DeWitt never fully commits to the character of Marie and it often feels like she’d just rather be somewhere else. Hodge and Abbott deliver half decent performances of Sarah at aged three and nine respectively, but they aren’t around for very long to allow us to see what they’re capable of. Harding meanwhile employs the same strategy of DeWitt, conveying that she’s got better things to do and so doesn’t even try to make Sarah an interesting character.
It’s such a shame, and I wonder how much of this is because the episode moves at a million miles a minute to cram everything in, or whether director Jodie Foster (yes, that Jodie Foster) just failed to inspire her performers to bring their best.
Arkangel unfortunately goes down as one of the worst episodes of Black Mirror ever (which admittedly still makes it pretty good), and it’s a huge shame as it’s probably got one of the best ideas the show has ever had.
Everything about this episode is either rushed or falls short of expectations, and you can’t help but get to the end of it all and not feel that it was a colossal waste of time.
Give Arkangel six-hour long episodes and some actors that committed to their performance and it could be some of the best TV of the twenty-first century. But as it stands Arkangel is rightfully forgotten about in the ever growing library of high quality Black Mirror episodes.
The Arkangel technology is really complicated, and has so many features and facets to it that are either glossed over very briefly or outright never explored. Plus the ever changing age of Sarah doesn’t truly allow us to bond with her as a character, nor understand her developmental problems brought on by Arkangel.
The whole thing is boiled down to its most basic concepts and coke the end of the episode you will feel as though it was totally wasted because of how brief the whole thing is. Honestly, Arkangel deserved a whole season dedicated just to its concept, and it could have been amazing to explore a lot of this episodes themes in greater detail.
The episode also suffers the same fate of Hated in the Nation in that the performances are a bit dull. DeWitt never fully commits to the character of Marie and it often feels like she’d just rather be somewhere else. Hodge and Abbott deliver half decent performances of Sarah at aged three and nine respectively, but they aren’t around for very long to allow us to see what they’re capable of. Harding meanwhile employs the same strategy of DeWitt, conveying that she’s got better things to do and so doesn’t even try to make Sarah an interesting character.
It’s such a shame, and I wonder how much of this is because the episode moves at a million miles a minute to cram everything in, or whether director Jodie Foster (yes, that Jodie Foster) just failed to inspire her performers to bring their best.
Arkangel unfortunately goes down as one of the worst episodes of Black Mirror ever (which admittedly still makes it pretty good), and it’s a huge shame as it’s probably got one of the best ideas the show has ever had.
Everything about this episode is either rushed or falls short of expectations, and you can’t help but get to the end of it all and not feel that it was a colossal waste of time.
Give Arkangel six-hour long episodes and some actors that committed to their performance and it could be some of the best TV of the twenty-first century. But as it stands Arkangel is rightfully forgotten about in the ever growing library of high quality Black Mirror episodes.