Depending on who you ask, social media is either the greatest tool humanity has ever had at staying connected with each other and up to date with the latest news developments, or it is perhaps the worst thing humanity has ever created because of its seemingly destructive nature. Black Mirror has never been one to shy away from the effects of social media, with numerous episodes tackling various different aspects of social media usage and peeling back the shiny veneer to put the ugly truth on display for all to see. It’s easy to look at Smithereens then and wonder why creator Charlie Brooker and the rest of the creative team behind Black Mirror chose to do yet another social media cautionary tale, but there’s something about Smithereens that I really love, and almost none of it is to do with the social media storyline. It’s just an example of how tight pacing, excellent performances, and sustaining extreme tension, can create one of the most anxiety inducing seventy minutes of TV I’ve ever seen.
Chris (Andrew Scott) is a rideshare driver in London, when he accepts a ride from Jaden (Damson Idris), an employee at the social networking platform Smithereen. Chris goes off course and takes Jaden hostage, threatening his life unless he can put him in touch with Smithereen CEO Billy Bauer (Topher Grace).
Smithereens puts us in the middle of a hostage situation that just seemingly keeps going wrong. Chris discovers that Jaden is simply an intern who’s only been at Smithereen a couple of weeks, meaning he has no way to easily get in touch with Billy. Then the police quickly become suspicious of Chris’ driving and corner him in a field. Just to add insult to injury, Jaden has also lost his phone in the process of the kidnapping and so Chris needs to think of a way on the fly to get in touch with Billy.
It’s such a brilliant setup, as the situation goes from bad to worse for everyone involved, and the way that Chris has to go about working his way up the command of Smithereen to get remotely close to anyone who can put him in touch with Billy is not only incredibly tense, but also kind of darkly funny.
Chris (Andrew Scott) is a rideshare driver in London, when he accepts a ride from Jaden (Damson Idris), an employee at the social networking platform Smithereen. Chris goes off course and takes Jaden hostage, threatening his life unless he can put him in touch with Smithereen CEO Billy Bauer (Topher Grace).
Smithereens puts us in the middle of a hostage situation that just seemingly keeps going wrong. Chris discovers that Jaden is simply an intern who’s only been at Smithereen a couple of weeks, meaning he has no way to easily get in touch with Billy. Then the police quickly become suspicious of Chris’ driving and corner him in a field. Just to add insult to injury, Jaden has also lost his phone in the process of the kidnapping and so Chris needs to think of a way on the fly to get in touch with Billy.
It’s such a brilliant setup, as the situation goes from bad to worse for everyone involved, and the way that Chris has to go about working his way up the command of Smithereen to get remotely close to anyone who can put him in touch with Billy is not only incredibly tense, but also kind of darkly funny.
Scott is positively captivating, and he delivers easily one of the strongest performances in Black Mirror history here. The reason for why he is doing this is kept tight lipped until the last fifteen minutes or so of the episode. Whilst it’s easy to assume he’s doing it for fame or money, there’s actually a surprisingly poignant reason for him doing it, which also ties in well with how difficult it is for him and Jaden to even get through to anybody in Smithereen with any power. A story concerned with user obsession over social media and the peripheral damage it can cause in a multitude of ways. Social media addiction is a very real thing, and the way it’s addressed through Smithereens I found relatively nuanced.
There is a side plot involving a woman Chris has met in a support group. She’s trying to get into her daughter’s social media account following her suicide in an attempt to discover if there’s any answers there as to why she killed herself. This story feels like it’s been bolted on to give Chris’ story some extra oomph, but it doesn’t really deliver on that. It does serve to highlight how difficult it is to access information from social media companies, despite them being so willing to take any and all information from you. But it’s very superficial and I feel actually weakens the episode as a whole.
I like how confined yet also how large in scope the episode is. Most of it takes place within the car that Chris and Jaden occupy, in the middle of a farmer’s field. But it also hops around to Smithereen in London, HQ in California, and to a remote retreat in the mountains where Billy spends his time. It really shows you just how global this relatively small issue is.
The sequences in the car are really well shot too, they’re so claustrophobic and tense, and paired with Scott’s great performance they stand out by far as the episode’s most exciting scenes.
I really like Smithereens, and I find it strange that other critics often don’t share the same sentiment. It’s a very different kind of Black Mirror episode, that crucially doesn’t lose that Black mirror identity at its core. The story is well written, the way it’s shot and edited makes it really gripping, and I’ve already sung enough praise about Scott. Smithereens is definitely one of my favourite Black mirror episodes, and I’d absolutely recommend checking it out if you haven’t yet.
There is a side plot involving a woman Chris has met in a support group. She’s trying to get into her daughter’s social media account following her suicide in an attempt to discover if there’s any answers there as to why she killed herself. This story feels like it’s been bolted on to give Chris’ story some extra oomph, but it doesn’t really deliver on that. It does serve to highlight how difficult it is to access information from social media companies, despite them being so willing to take any and all information from you. But it’s very superficial and I feel actually weakens the episode as a whole.
I like how confined yet also how large in scope the episode is. Most of it takes place within the car that Chris and Jaden occupy, in the middle of a farmer’s field. But it also hops around to Smithereen in London, HQ in California, and to a remote retreat in the mountains where Billy spends his time. It really shows you just how global this relatively small issue is.
The sequences in the car are really well shot too, they’re so claustrophobic and tense, and paired with Scott’s great performance they stand out by far as the episode’s most exciting scenes.
I really like Smithereens, and I find it strange that other critics often don’t share the same sentiment. It’s a very different kind of Black Mirror episode, that crucially doesn’t lose that Black mirror identity at its core. The story is well written, the way it’s shot and edited makes it really gripping, and I’ve already sung enough praise about Scott. Smithereens is definitely one of my favourite Black mirror episodes, and I’d absolutely recommend checking it out if you haven’t yet.