By far my favorite episode. I wish it could be adapted into a movie so it could be longer. Had that great mixture of not knowing what wasnt real and was real. Also the Resident Evil house references were good. Add about 40 more minutes and maybe some ghosts and ghouls and your looking at a fine horror sci-fi flick
shareOh yes. A couple more encounters, a stronger build up and it could've been a hit on the big screen.
In fact black mirror is so good it should be premiered in cinema, at least for a week.
It was kinda a horror take on Total Recall
shareI didn't find anything of value in Playtest. It was by far the worst episode for me. At the end the guy dies simply because his phone was on, when he was never told that leaving it on during the test could cause death. So what's the moral? Phone your mum and turn your phone off when you're told? The effects and the suspense were great, but in the end they were for nothing. No story was told except 'Guy travels to England, guy meets girl, guy volunteers to be a guinea pig for a VR game, game kills guy.'
shareI think the operator turned his phone off, knowing it could interfere. He turned it back on when taking the picture to send to his girlfriend.
"Get off my lawn."
I realise that. My problem is that Katie never said the phone signals could interfere with the equipment and fry his brain. I'm sure if he had known, he wouldn't have taken the risk. Therefore his death wasn't his fault. It wasn't directly Katie's fault either as she thought his phone was off (although she should have removed it from the room to be completely sure). His death was a silly and easily preventable accident. And the argument 'he should have just phoned his mum back before' doesn't stand either. Anybody could have called him and he would have still died.
shareYeah, if that could have happened there's no way she would have left the phone anywhere in the vicinity at all. That was a bit of a reach.
But I also agree from a standpoint of the meaning of that ending. It didn't really achieve anything. If the first fake out ending had been the real one I would have been ok with it. In that scenario he would have had a harrowing and visceral experience that would have resulted in him learning to deal with his sh-t when he got back home to his mother. That may not have been especially original or surprising, but it wouldn't have subverted the entire point of it, and considering how engaging it was up to that point it could have still been a strong episode overall, but the ending did leave the whole thing cold and kind of pointless.
Do we know that SHE knew the exact risk? The whole thing was a test after all.
shareI was gonna make a Total Recall reference but I forgot too
shareFor me it wasn't the ending. It was watching him react to things he know couldn't hurt him but they did.
shareJust goes to show that you shouldn't put off calling your mom. Had he answered her phone calls sooner, he probably wouldn't have called her when he did, and he would still be alive.
I enjoyed this episode. Well most of it anyways.
i was into it but they eventually lost me. too many endings.
imo