While we wait for season 5 of Black Mirror to be released, we asked the team to pick their favourite episodes of the series.

Best known for its dark portrayal of technology, the appeal of the popular series is the terrifying possibility that one day, the tech we use just might turn in on us. While waiting for season 5 to roll around on Netflix, we asked our fellow web developers for their verdict on the best episodes to watch.

San Junipero, Season 3, Episode 4

“This episode emphasises on immortality, where death can be overcome by translating the human consciousness artificially into a virtual world of 1’s and 0’s. It’s an interesting episode where, theoretically, human beings can live forever and stay at the age in which they please. Unless an EMP hits the servers that run the virtual world and destroys everything. In which case they are screwed. Theoretically of course.”

– Tun Amsyar, Software Engineer

The Entire History of You, Season 1, Episode 3

“This episode highlights how technology plays a huge role within relationships today and how fundamental trust is in a healthy relationship. But when given the ability to record your entire life, the element of trust is not required as one can just revisit someone else’s past using technology. This also highlights the loss of privacy. It’s also actually really scary because I believe this is what might happen when there is such a technology in the future.”

– Shaun Wan, Software Engineer

USS Calister, Season 4, Episode 1,

“I think this episode is the best one so far. I like that it’s a split between the real world that follows Robert, a CTO of a highly advanced game company, and also focuses on a fictional game universe inspired by Space Fleet. I also like the idea of having an outlet to vent your frustrations and anger, sort of a way to lash out at the world. Perhaps the moral of the story is to always behave ourselves, whether in fiction or in real life.”

-Muhammad Younes, Software Engineer

White Christmas, Christmas Special 2014

“The story is that of the Egg. The egg is a small device that runs your smart-house. It sets the temperature just the way you want it, controls the window shades according to the time of day and weather, it makes your coffee, orders groceries and so on and so forth. The Egg is smart because it’s an AI.  

“The main character in the story, the wealthy woman Greta, is very particular about her needs. The Egg offers a solution. She goes to a clinic, and lies down on a surgery table, in order to get her brain scanned and duplicated. By doing this the AI in the Egg will be a copy of herself, and therefore knows exactly how to get everything just right. But something goes wrong and she ends up inside the egg!

“I find this extremely interesting, as it might theoretically be possible to “copy” or “upload” your brain/thoughts into a computer someday. When you do that, it’s just a matter of random possibility whether you will wake up in the human body or inside of the computer.”

-Aslak Gronflaten, Technical Director