Netflix’s “Black Mirror” has returned for its seventh season, once again exploring the dire consequences of near-dystopian technology. The show’s third episode, “Hotel Reverie,” is one of three episodes this season to feature a gadget familiar to returning fans: The Nubbin, a tiny disk that can transport the consciousness of its wearer into digital worlds. Armed with the excitement presented by the show’s website highlighting the fictional technology, I was ready to dive into “Hotel Reverie.”
The episode opens with Kimmy (Awkwafina, “Awkwafina is Nora from Queens”) convincing Judith Keyworth (Harriet Walter, “Silo”), the head of failing production company Keyworth Pictures, to work with her company ReDream and revive “Hotel Reverie,” the studio’s successful noir film from the Golden Age of Hollywood. Modern-day blockbuster actress Brandy Friday (Issa Rae, “Rap Sh!t”) agrees to be cast as the lead in this remake.
Using Nubbin, ReDream transports Brandy into a computer-generated replica of “Hotel Reverie” where she must act out the script in real-time. She interacts with digital replicas of actors like Dorothy Chambers (Emma Corrin, “The Crown”) who plays the female lead alongside Brandy. But things quickly go awry as Brandy is unprepared for how real the set and its actors feel. The stakes are truly raised when a technological malfunction leaves her consciousness stranded inside the simulation.
At first, the plot is laughable — Kimmy’s proposal feels almost like a caricature of the fear of artificial intelligence taking over artistic jobs and the death of original content as major studios produce mediocre remakes or sequels instead. However, the scary thing is that it’s not only plausible, but it’s also already happening in today’s world. Keyworth Pictures’s use of ReDream, which uses AI to remake “Hotel Reverie,” is far cheaper and more efficient than traditional film production. “Black Mirror” has never shied away from its cynical lens on technology, hinting at the idea of corporations using AI to save time and money instead of paying human creators to produce real art.
The story grows more engaging when we see Brandy enter the fictional film set — it’s uncanny to see her interact with the fake actors. Although Kimmy assures her that the actors won’t see Brandy as a Black woman but rather as just the White male lead, it is very odd to watch Brandy, who uses language and mannerisms from the 21st century, be among people with terrible French accents and speaking in posh English from the 1940s. This contributed to ReDream’s bizarreness, allowing for a laugh about the absurdity of this idea until ReDream programmer Jack (Charlie Hiscock, “Ted Lasso”) spills coffee and pauses the movie sequence. It is here that “Hotel Reverie” begins its journey toward its pinnacle and its demise.
“Black Mirror” makes technology the center of its universe, but its best episodes feature human relationships entangled within these gadgets. Season three’s “San Junipero” is the perfect example. For some “Black Mirror” fans, echoes of “San Junipero” seem to underscore “Hotel Reverie;” the episode even makes a direct reference when we see Brandy’s mailing address at the end, labeled “Junipero Drive.” Both episodes focus on lesbian romances taking place in virtual landscapes. “San Junipero” is undoubtedly one of the show’s strongest episodes for making its lesbian relationship the center of the story. Although one can view “San Junipero” as a tragedy due to the couple’s circumstances outside of their virtual landscape, the couple’s chemistry was undeniable, which urged us to wholeheartedly root for a happy ending.
“Hotel Reverie” seems to attempt to replicate this relationship, which it does successfully, to some degree. Dorothy, who becomes self-aware of who she is in real life, is revealed to be attracted to women, leading to a romance with Brandy.
Despite strong individual performances by Rae and Corrin, their chemistry together is a little lackluster. Maybe it’s a symptom of the disconnect between the generations Brandy and Dorothy are from, but their romance feels unintentionally scripted. The show left me yearning for something deeper, but the episode only allows for the last 20 minutes (of 78) for their romance to be fully explored as themselves, not as their film characters. This pacing pushes the episode to race to its finish, not allowing viewers time to process the newly blossomed relationship.
The episode did present intriguing questions about the nature of their relationship like the validity of their love (can you actually be in a relationship with someone who is, essentially, an avatar?) and whether Dorothy sees Brandy as herself or as the original white male lead. But these questions aren’t as thought-provoking as they should be, and this isn’t a new discussion. “Black Mirror” doesn’t necessarily need to keep asking “new” questions in every episode, it can still push our thinking in different directions without attempting to come up with yet another gimmick. With its incorporation of futuristic technology, “Black Mirror” writers have an excellent opportunity to dive deeper into interesting dilemmas. By using the show’s invented technology, it can be new. It’s what makes the show exciting and creates a strong platform for writers to build characters and relationships off of. “Black Mirror” does tie “Hotel Reverie” into its core themes, but seeing how the show combines technological advancement with human relationships is what makes the series shine — in this regard, “Hotel Reverie” doesn’t live up to its potential.
Even though “Hotel Reverie” presents a novel application of a familiar piece of “Black Mirror” technology, the episode lacks narrative innovation and leaves viewers to continue dreaming of earlier seasons.
Daily Arts Contributor Eilene Koo can be reached at ekoo@umich.edu.
