1 week Ago By Proma Khosla
Every “Black Mirror” episode is a standalone — except for the one that isn’t. Season 4’s “ USS Callister ,” written by William Bridges and Charlie Brooker and directed by Toby Haynes, now has a sequel debuting April 10 on Netflix . The 76-minute episode is essentially a tight feature film, starring the dazzling ensemble of Cristin Milioti, Jesse Plemons, Jimmi Simpson, Michaela Coel, Billy Magnussen, and more.
Ahead of the “USS Callister: Into Infinity” debut, join IndieWire in revisiting its 2017 predecessor, an action-packed and Emmy-winning episode that IndieWire awarded with an A grade back when it premiered. Among prescient themes about technology and consciousness, IndieWire also praised the episode as a critical look at fan culture, and “one of the most dangerous aspects of fandom, because the thing that takes one’s pure love for a story world and corrupts it is the idea of ownership.” “USS Callister” gets its name from the ship in a fictitious TV series called “Space Fleet.
” The episode starts with part of what looks like a “Space Fleet” episode — deeply and not subtly “Star Trek”-coded, from the visual style to the production design to the costumes. It reads as a mix of homage and parody, evoking the original as much as the “Saturday Night Live” version (like when the captain kisses all the women). Captain Robert Daly (Jesse Plemons) leads his crew on all manner of space adventures, usually leading to a last minute situation in which they rely on his daring leadership to save their lives.
In the real world, Daly is the Chief Technical Officer of a game company called Callister Inc., which he named after his beloved “Space Fleet” before CEO James Walton (Jimmi Simpson) became the face of the company. These days, Daly wanders the office floor with little more recognition than an intern, so it’s not hard to see why he craves the glory of captaincy that awaits him within the game Infinity.
In there, Daly reclaims the respect he thinks he deserves — but as the episode unfolds, it quickly reveals that he takes it too far and revels in the abuse he can perpetrate unchecked within the confines of his code. After new employee Nanette (Cristin Milioti) declares her admiration for Robert’s work, he’s quick to feel sour when she so much as speaks to anyone else. He steals her used coffee cup lid from the office and uses it to clone her into Infinity, where she wakes up in horror and disorientation like a space-bound Helly R.
As Nanette — known in the game as science officer Cole — learns, she and the rest of the Callister crew are clones of their outside selves, all imprisoned in the game after some perceived slight against Daly. When he exits the game, they remain inside, sentient and trapped and stripped of all agency (and sex organs). Walton’s Innie (I don’t know what else to call them anymore!) calls it “an eternal waking nightmare from which there is no escape.
” It’s one violation after the other (the women are only kissing him out of fear !), and Nanette won’t stand for it. Nanette hacks the game code to send a message to her outside self, but because it looks like a textbook example of phishing, Outie Nanette shows it to Daly himself, and he makes matters worse. He deploys one of his favorite punishments by turning Shania (Michaela Coel) into a giant insect-like creature—again, maintaining her consciousness and memories, but now trapped in an entirely different body as well as inside the game.
That turn of events would deter most people, but not Nanette (and dare I say again: Helly R!). She postulates that if they fly Callister into a wormhole, it will end every crew member’s existence — they’d be gone, sure, but they’d be free . As the others are tempted by this plan, Walton tells them the full story; it doesn’t matter if they get out, because Daly has a fridge full of their DNA and can make new clones in the game whenever he wants.
Worse yet (?!), he did this with Walton’s son — only to immediately kill the boy and make his father watch. “USS Callister” is one of the longer “Black Mirror” episodes, clocking in at 76 minutes, and character beats like this one give it the feeling of a fulfilling feature film. Walton subjects the viewer to exposition, but with the right mix of flashbacks and Simpson’s grounding performance, it raises the stakes for every character.
It also paints Daly in a fresh villainous light with Plemons not even present (and barely speaking in the flashback). With that horrific risk in mind, the crew hatches a new plan. They distract Daly inside the game (via Nanette flirting, a strategy that is brilliant in its laziness by clocking his thirst for attention), and then blackmail the outside Nanette with her own nude photos from the cloud.
She breaks into Daly’s home and empties the DNA fridge on their orders, buying the crew extra time while Daly receives a pizza he never ordered. Back in the game, he chases the Callister through an asteroid belt, and Walton sacrifices himself to kickstart the ship’s engines and get his friends to safety. “USS Callister” ends with the crew roaming free in a new universe of Infinity while Daly is trapped in his illicit version (and since he’s not a clone, his outside version is essentially rendered comatose).
The “Black Mirror” Season 7 trailer doesn’t reveal too much of the Callister crew but hints that maybe their independent adventures are getting stale. They’re also online and able to communicate with other gamers, so have they told anyone the truth? And if they escape the game for good, what does that mean for a clone in the outside world? “USS Callister: Into Infinity” premieres April 10 on Netflix, along with the rest of “Black Mirror” Season 7..
