On Things that Seem New, but Aren't

I finally had a chance to see the first season of Black Mirror a few days ago and had mixed feelings about it. Aesthetically, I quite liked the show. It's dark humor is well done, the acting is very good, and the scripts are interesting without being too preachy about the individual dystopias each episode creates. We are immediately dropped into distinct worlds during each episode, without overlong descriptive devises or narrative gags to help us understand how things work. In short, the show does what good science fiction ought to do. (Most call this show speculative fiction, but as the episodes I saw, including "The National Anthem," "Fifteen Million Merits," and "The Entire History of You,"all refer to sf tropes, I'm going to call it all as science fiction.) I especially like how all three episodes, though distinct, deal with the similar ideas: our enslavement to media, our self-destructive natures, a growing lack of connection between people, etc... We can even see the first season as variations on the same theme - it all looks very different, but in the end says the same thing three times. Which, in my opinion, makes the show all the more potent. 

My issue, then, is with reactions to the show. As recently as today, io9 published this story about Black Mirror. I agree with many of the things said in the piece, but what gets me is what they say here:

But while technology (and a healthy fear of it) have always been hallmarks of good science fiction, what makes Black Mirror work so well, what makes it so chilling and intense, is that among the technology it’s a deeply human series.
The focus is always stunningly real. It’s never about the ramifications of technology on a wider societal level but through the lens of a handful of characters. The technology, as scary as it can be, is never the element directly responsible for the messed-up scenarios that play out in each episode; it’s the people who make, use, and (almost worryingly above all) normalize it. It’s what people do, what they stoop themselves to, that makes the show so engaging. The technology itself is just a hook to take a look at ourselves in a fascinatingly dark manner.

These paragraphs make it sound as if science fiction is only about technology - that good sf isn't about people at all. It's about robots and cyborgs and aliens, but not about individuals. And I have a problem with that. Good sf does exactly what io9 outlines - it talks about people put in odd situations. Yes, some sf deals with things on that "wider societal level" with less emphasis on the smaller actors within those larger frameworks. Authors like Isaac Asimov come to mind, or series like Star Trek. But even those examples betray the false logic of the claim that sf only deals with big ideas instead of small, human struggles. Asimov was king of the short story as much as he was a writer of huge, nebulous chronicles like the Foundation series. And Star Trek was all about the people, not the technology, even if the cell phone was based on Kirk's communicator. And what about so many other sf shows and books that focus on the people? What about Battlestar Galactica, which eschews almost all technology (aside from the cylons and the spaceships)? It's pretty much The West Wing in space. What about anything by Margaret Atwood, especially The Handmaid's Tale? Heck, why not read A Canticle for Leibowitz, as it focuses on how the individual affects the course of history in relation to technology in very much the same way Black Mirror does?

And that's what really gets me, in a nutshell. Reviewers don't tend to acknowledge the huge backlog of sf novels and shows and movies that have led to Black Mirror. The show isn't anything new, really, at least in terms of tropes and themes and even its message. It's a really, really good show, don't get me wrong. Its darkness, its humor, the way it creates a narrative based on these themes - these aspects of each episode are innovative and create exceptional TV. But it's not saying anything new. It's 1984. It's "We Can Remember it For You Wholesale." It's Never Let Me Go or "Harrison Bergeron" or anything by Ray Bradbury. The show owes so much of what it does to so many others. And it acknowledges this in the way it uses it motifs. It gives nods to its predecessors, cultural or literary, in many ways. But the critics and the audience don't do that. And I really wish they would. There is so much good sf out there, stuff just as good as or better than Black Mirror, stuff that emphasizes the human within the tech, that focuses on how individuals make the system, not the other way around... but the reaction to the show hasn't encouraged fans to go out and find more just like it. And that's a shame.