USS Callister - Loved the theme & aesthetics but absolutely ridiculous.

I've expressed much the same concerns in other threads here. I would like to respond to a few points.

I got the idea that the digital clones are supposed to be sentient beings, therefore the Daly's treatment of them despicable. Also explains their desire to break free from his tyranny.

"Nannette shows up and pretty much immediately single-handed comes up with the solutions to undermine Daly's program where the others collectively could not in all their time there."

I think this is supposed to be commentary on how people give up and resign themselves to the their fate. The group did tell stories of how they previously tried and failed. They end up trying to convince newcomers how hopeless things really are. But human spirit, triumph over evil and underdogs rising up is a popular theme.

"Throw in Daly being naive/dumb enough to fall for her transparent distraction ploy and plot is just too hard to believe and take at all seriously."

Daly seems to be a social misfit and I doubt a guy like that would have the social intelligence to recognize a ploy. That's why he has to steal DNA and build his own world to begin with. But, yeah, super naive.

The blackmail idea was just stupid. But the most ridiculous plot point was that he could use a DNA sample to recreate them digitally, including personality, thoughts and memories. WTF?

Please check out more episodes..
Despite the attention this one received it is absolutely the worst episode of all seasons..
To me

""First being the lack of moral context given. What are the rules? I wasn't entirely convinced of Daly's "villainy" for his treatment of digital "clones". Are these digital copies just hyper advanced programs that "act" like real people or are they actually sentient beings?""

It is made clear they're totally sentient with the quite lengthy sequence of Nanette's "introduction" into the virtual world. They go to great lenghts to establish that the whole time she's totally convinced she's real ("but I'm me...") and naturally doesn't understand how she got instantly transfered in a "spaceship". So the same goes for the others and so yes it is cruel even if they're just software.


""Second it is established that the digital "clones" have been stuck in Daly's game program for a very very long time and have tried and failed many times to escape/undermine Daly's program with no success. Nannette shows up and pretty much immediately single-handed comes up with the solutions to undermine Daly's program where the others collectively could not in all their time there.""

This is established earlier in the real world when she's introduced to us as a very skilled programmer who applied for the job because she admired her boss's code programming innovations (meaning she was at a close level). She was way better with computers/programming/hacking than any of the others and both of her two "tries" for a solution were largely based on those skills. In short for the first time they had a "match" for their coding genius tyrant-god.


""Don't even get me started on digital Nannette easily convincing real life Nannette to commit a felony against her boss no less without hesitation and may very well be implicated in his death later, all so her pg 13 lingerie photos (ridiculous no matter how x rated) would't be released on the internet and to people she knows? Come on!""

Kind of far-fetched yes. Still she was a quite timid person and these pictures it was established were extreme XXX...

What happened to Daly at the end? They must have found him at his appartement a few days later and woke him up.
He might as well even started the whole thing again.

This episode, and San Junipero, are easily the most overrated Black Mirror episodes out there!!

I find this episode highly entertaining, but the plot holes are even more ridiculous than you point out here.

The most glaring one is this:

Assuming for the sake of argument somehow there is a way to create digital clones of people that have pissed you off for whatever reason and insert them in your gaming platform so you can get your jollies off by torturing them as you please, from samples of their DNA off of coffee cups or suckers or what have you. DNA only contains code sufficient to replicate your physical biology, it doesn't contain code for all your memories and experiences up to the point of your digital creation. These people appeared in his game with their real world memories intact. DNA simply can't do that. Only your brain in its entirety contains that information. In reality, these people would've awoken in the game as mindless automatons or puppets that just looked like the egregious office workers.

They threw a bone to Trekkies. It was well done and the bird was lovely.

The real problem here is your DNA doesn’t contain your memories and personality, it’s just a blueprint of your biology. While, for the sake of argument, it may be possible for Daly to clone his employees into his game, these clones would be mindless vessels with no memory of the outside world.