In Mr. Robot, a quirky young computer genius named Elliot copes with the tedium and life stressors of the modern corporate world. But his abilities have drawn special interest, and he's being drawn into an alternate world of resistance. Black Mirror is a British anthology series; each episode stands alone like a short movie, but they all depict possible futures marked by advanced technology.
Black Mirror has the Hitchcockian feel of psychological suspense, tinged with a dark hilarity that feels almost out of control. In the pilot episode, Britain's most popular princess is being brutalized by a vicious kidnapper who demands that the Prime Minister have sex with a pig on national television. It sounds like the set-up to a bad joke, but as the clock ticks down and options run out, tension mounts both within the government and on the streets. It's like somebody is sitting next to you and blowing up a balloon very, very slowly. Filled with rotting fecal matter.
Another episode follows a couple through a dinner party as their relationship dissolves in a future where all memories are preserved on an implant called a grain. Memories can be played back to settle an argument, to get feedback on a performance, or, problematically, used as porn. The hostility palpably cranks up between the two as they interact in a series of increasingly spare and linear interiors, until the inevitable violence erupts.
Black Mirror has a polished feel. The future is touchscreen video perfect. Characters inhabit spaces that are controlled and man-made. The sense of artificiality is heightened by within-story advertising that looks and sounds creepily familiar. People seem less than organic in these spaces; less than human, blank, vapid. It's a kind of death within an ongoing human life. I guess this is not your show if you like things to be uplifting and hopeful. But if you're a fan of science fiction or black humor and the post-apocalypse is your jam, you'll find Black Mirror both thought-provoking and satisfactorily disturbing.
Elliot's world in Mr. Robot is a more familiar one. He lives in a crappy city apartment and rides a dirty subway to his shitty corporate cube farm job, where his boss nags him about the dress code and his coworkers annoy him with pointless small talk. The people around him are all pretty much messed-up in one banal way or another. Elliot narrates directly to the camera, which he calls his "invisible friend." His mental health and addiction issues are immediately apparent. Here's the unreliable narrator in all his misleading glory.
Elliot doesn't have a lot of dialogue outside his narration, but Rami Malek is so expressive with his face and body language that viewers feel as if they are inside Elliot's head. However, that's not always a sane or happy place to be. Much of the show takes place at night; it's literally a dark show. Christian Slater is in it. That's how dark it is. There are not enough synonyms for sarcastic in the English language to describe Christian Slater on-screen.
This show is blatantly anti-capitalist. Mr. Robot enlists Elliot to help save the world by eliminating everybody's debt through the simple means of wiping out all of the pertinent data. (I am told this is not actually possible as described in the show, to keep us all from doing that. Very important for national security.) His best friend suffers with student loan debt she can't pay, and both their parents were killed by industrial pollution when they were kids. Elliot even has to wear shirts with collars to work. Obviously he has reasons to be angry at The Man, here called Evil Corp.
As a person with Asperger's I identify strongly with Elliot, although that's never mentioned. His way of showing affection is kind of weird--he hacks into everyone's various data files and learns all about their lives, sometimes turning in a pervert, sometimes doing somebody a favor. His self-talk is eerily similar to mine, as are his non-standard social interactions. Yet it's obvious, to me at least, that Elliot loves his friends and cares deeply about what happens to them. He isn't cold at all, just more detached that most people are used to. It doesn't mean a connection is not there.
Black Mirror is easily available on Netflix, but Mr. Robot is a USA show, so you might have to pirate it, but that will be really quick as there are thousands of seeders. If you plan to watch Mr. Robot, do yourself a favor and don't Google it. Spoilers are rife.