Talk:Beyond the Sea (Black Mirror)

Plot hole

Have any recognized sources mentioned the fairly obvious plothole (which is all over the IMDb page reviews) that if this technology was available it would have made far more sense, and been far easier, to send the replicants off in the space ship, and keep the astronauts at home. If there was a reason the men were sent and the replicants left on Earth it wasn’t made clear. Swanny18 (talk) 22:51, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Well today was the day that I read over a dozen "Beyond the Sea" reviews, so I can quite confidently say it wasn't a major source of critical commentary.

(For what it's worth: I've been very confused with the "plot hole" discourse I've seen online. For instance, the one you give is cited commonly but addressed in the episode itself—David says to the moviegoer, "The human experience, the survival of the human body, of life, that's really central to the mission". This accords with real history of space travel, which incidentally saw astronauts knowingly consent to a significant chance of mortality.) — Bilorv (talk) 23:02, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Ahh! I must have missed that: Still, if the mission comprised two blokes spending six years alternately sleeping and doing a bit of physical fitness, I'm guessing this alternate 1969 American space programme didn't have a Proxmire on its back! I appreciate the set-up was necessary for the plot development, but it created a niggle for me that interfered with the whole suspension-of-disbelief thing (Really? but why didn't they just...) Anyway, thanks for replying, Swanny18 (talk) 19:44, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Beyond the Sea (Black Mirror)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Premeditated Chaos (talk · contribs) 09:36, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

I'll take this. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 09:36, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Sorry to make you wait! Not sure if I've reviewed for you before so here's the deal: I go top-to-bottom like an FAC, leaving comments as I notice things. I am open to discussion on anything except something that would cause the article to fail the GACR; on the other hand I'll never force something that's off the GACR.

• "After David's family are killed" I know you're space-limited as this is the lead, but it feels slightly unclear as to where the families are at this point. Are they also replicas on the spaceship?
  • Always good to have someone (presumably) not acquainted with the episode to read things like this as I would never notice the ambiguity. Now: After David's family are killed on Earth. — Bilorv (talk) 00:23, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
• "Meanwhile, David uses Cliff's tag to kill his family." the word "tag" doesn't appear elsewhere in the synopsis or body and I'm not sure if it's a typo? Either way, it's confusing
  • Now "Cliff's replica", which is equally true but a term that's introduced. ("Tag" is the term in the episode for the metal card they scan to transfer their consciousness to a replica. David needs Cliff to be on a spacewalk, where he has to remove his tag, to access his replica without permission. But these would be logistics for a scene-by-scene description rather than the holistic explanation we're aiming for.) — Bilorv (talk) 00:23, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
• "and Valley of the Dolls (1966), a joke about Lana living with a replica" - feels off somehow. perhaps "as a joke"?
  • Done. — Bilorv (talk) 00:23, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
• Might want to mention that Paul's cameo was a voice-only cameo
  • Excellent point; done. — Bilorv (talk) 00:23, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
• "He wanted his acting roles to be "characters that are dealing with a lot of conflict"." I'm not sure about the placement of this statement. In the cited source, it's more of a general statement, not specifically to do with Black Mirror. In this article, it's kind of tossed in after some of Paul's statements about how Black Mirror has affected him personally, and it feels like it doesn't fit. Some revising to tie the general preference to Black Mirror might help, if that can be backed with sourcing. (Having read the Guardian source I'm not sure it's there but maybe elsewhere)
  • I've just removed this sentence, which hopefully works. I think this quote is related to Paul's thoughts on Cliff, but we already have plenty of detail about Paul. — Bilorv (talk) 00:23, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
• How does David "actually connect" with Cliff by killing his family? Can we expand on that a little in the article?
  • Spelled it out: ... as both of their families will have been murdered. I think it's clear enough in the source to do that. — Bilorv (talk) 00:23, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
• "at a house designed by a homesick American" In the source I can see how this is relevant because they were looking for an American-ish house, but the connection doesn't quite come through here
  • Now: To represent Cliff's American countryside manor, the production used a house in Whitstable designed by a homesick American. — Bilorv (talk) 00:23, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
• It might be interesting to note that although they took inspiration from 2001, they specifically worked to avoid doing a 60s-future pastiche
  • Added ... but avoided the "flashing buttons and blinking lights" used in futuristic fiction of the era. — Bilorv (talk) 00:23, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
• "According to Mellor, its setting is used..." this sentence feels out of place in a paragraph that's about other BM episodes. It might fit better in para 1 in this section.
  • Moved up. — Bilorv (talk) 00:23, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
• I'm not sure how much the sourcing supports, but para 2 could be bulked up by discussing how the other episodes explored their respective themes. (For example, "Marital issues, another theme of the episode, were also the subject of "The Entire History of You", which portrayed them as [some kind of way that's similar or a contrast to this episode]")
  • This paragraph is perhaps an exercise to the reader (if they have seen the rest of the series) to draw out the comparisons, but I've noted the other past time periods that were shown and Robertson had an analysis of what the artificial human means in "Be Right Back". — Bilorv (talk) 00:23, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
• We cite a reviewer mentioning Cliff rejecting a garden party, but this isn't noted in the synopsis. If it's something we're remarking on later, we should mention it earlier (even in a very summarized manner like "Cliff rejects Lana's attempts to socialize with others" or something)
  • I used all 6 of the words I had to play with, within MOS:TVPLOT's 400 limit, to swap Cliff has recently moved to the countryside with his wife Lana (Kate Mara), who is lonely and distant from Cliff, and his son Henry. for As Cliff and his wife Lana (Kate Mara) recently moved to the countryside with their son Henry, Lana suggests a garden party to meet neighbours, but Cliff rejects the idea. This is a tradeoff that improves a couple of things I didn't like in the previous version. The possible risk is that it's now unclear that there is tension between Cliff and Lana, as it's now subtext of Cliff rejecting Lana's decision. But, then again, in the episode itself it's subtext and doesn't reach text until the episode's climax. — Bilorv (talk) 00:23, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
• "saw it to exemplify" is grammatically awkward. "saw it as an example of how" or "wrote that it exemplified" maybe
  • Gone with the latter. — Bilorv (talk) 00:23, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
• Mellor's introduction needs to be moved up - currently you introduce her after she's mentioned by last name only a few times
  • Fixed. — Bilorv (talk) 00:23, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
• Cliff represents an "older style of masculinity" - does Mellor say what kind of masculinity David embodies? Something about this analysis section feels like it doesn't work and I think this might be part of it - I don't feel like it really discusses David's masculinity aside from briefly calling him "relaxed", so you don't see what it is that Cliff's hard masculinity is a contrast to. From skimming reviews, it looks like David presents himself as this kind of sensitive "new man" type - he's artistic, he reads, he seems to be happy with his wife. It's only later, when he can't get what he wants, that you find out that he's just as bad as Cliff, in terms of treating women as property and his propensity for violence.
• I think you could revise/combine paragraphs 3 and 4 to cover this in a way that flows better. Start with the contrast between the two men: Cliff being a hard man and David appearing to be a sensitive man. Then talk about David's ugly side coming out as he suffers grief and starts to fall in love with Lana: he gets possessive toward her, culminating in her rejecting his advances (and possibly him forcing himself on her?), the confrontation with Cliff, and the hard turn to "if I can't have it, no one can" violence.
  • (Taking these two points jointly.) You've hit the nail on the head with David as the "new man". Restructured so the first character paragraph is about contrasting Cliff vs David, the second about violence, and the third about controlling Lana. Though there's a lot of overlap, really. Possibly a key tension here is that Robertson's "strikingly generous" comment is not what Mellor/Baker/Arens think. I think Robertson is flat out wrong, but the reader shouldn't be able to tell what I think so it's important to me to keep Robertson in there. — Bilorv (talk) 00:23, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
    • The newer version is quite elegant and really gets to the bones of the episode. (As a side note, coming across some piece of analysis that I think is incorrect or absurd and trying to get it into an article neutrally is one of my great challenges. I always want to write things like "Robertson, who doesn't know what he's talking about, wrote..." or "In a view no other critic has ever presented, Robertson said..." :P) ♠PMC♠ (talk) 04:11, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
• Speaking of rejecting his advances, does David "force himself on her" as in he sexually assaults her? The synopsis glosses over this in a much more anodyne way. If he raped her, we ought to say so in the synopsis instead of being coy.
  • There's no rape. David tries to fondle Lana as they dance, the way he did with Jessica, but she pushes him away. He follows her and tries again. She explicitly says "stop" and he touches her face so she pushes him away again. I think "rejects his sexual advances" is accurate, non-euphemistic and as much as I can say without a scene-by-scene that breaches the plot's word limit. Now the Analysis says: [he] continues caressing her after she tells him to stop. Hopefully avoiding the alternatives "forces himself on her" and "touches her" makes it clear that there is no euphemism. — Bilorv (talk) 00:23, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
    • Gotcha. Yes, with that context, "rejects advances" is totally suitable in the synopsis, and I think the analysis version neatly makes clear that he's being pushy but not quite assaultive. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 04:11, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
• Is there any more analysis of Lana's character? How she reacts and feels about things? I recognize that the focus is on the men so if there's not, that's fine
  • Just the Rosenstock sentence and indirect subtext through her books. I wanted a Lana paragraph but with the quotes I had it ended up being about how Cliff and David control her. — Bilorv (talk) 00:23, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
    • Kind of interesting in and of itself, isn't it, how analyses of depictions of male violence towards women so often wind up focusing on the men. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 04:11, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
• Did anyone analyse Kappa's embodiment of male violence?
  • The closest is Mellor: Kappa might be the 1960s boogeyman, and David the All-American hero, but their violence and misogyny are drawn from the same well. I don't want to exceed due weight on this one review, already given quite a lot of space, and if you ponder the quote I think it's really about David, and his violence/masculinity is already covered. I was surprised how little this whole Manson Family-esque scene was covered by reviewers. — Bilorv (talk) 00:23, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
    • Yeah I kind of thought the same in my spot checks, I mostly asked because I was thinking there was something I might have missed. I wonder if it's because it's so clearly just the gas that gets Cliff and David into their conflict - Kappa could really have been anybody and the episode would largely have functioned the same way. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 04:11, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
• Your summary of Valley of the Dolls is a bit tonally off - it makes it sound friendly, like Sex and the City. Yes, it may remind her of the social life she's missing, but it's also misery porn where everyone's relationships are horrible, reflective of what Lana is going through (the source makes this connection so it's not synth).
  • Added: Its characters suffer issues with relationships, loneliness and mental health. — Bilorv (talk) 00:23, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
• The Reception section is really good work. Effective paraphrases, pull quotes that aren't overlong, paragraphs organized by theme - it's the platonic ideal of a reception section. No notes.
• No other GACR concerns: no CV/close para, sourcing is reliable and I never found any source-text integrity issues when looking at the sources, images are appropriately used and either free or correctly NFCC

Okay, that's me. Take your time responding, no rush :) ♠PMC♠ (talk) 20:50, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

@Premeditated Chaos: responded to everything, I believe. Thanks for the thorough review! — Bilorv (talk) 00:23, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Hello Bilorv! I've made comments above, but mostly just affirming what you've done. Great work! ♠PMC♠ (talk) 04:11, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.