Hang the DJ (Black Mirror)

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"Hang the DJ" is the fourth episode of the fourth series of anthology series Black Mirror. It was written by Charlie Brooker and directed by Tim Van Patten. The episode first aired on Netflix, along with the rest of series four, on 29 December 2017.

Amy (Georgina Campbell) and Frank (Joe Cole) are two of many people in a walled-off System who are placed by a digital companion, Coach (voiced by Gina Bramhill), into trial romantic relationships with others. Coach dictates how long partners can spend together, collects their data, and helps them find their "ultimate compatible other". Amy and Frank meet for just 12 hours before being paired off with others. After a few brief encounters, they realise they are in love, and try to rebel against Coach and the System.

The episode received critical acclaim for its simple, satisfying storyline and Campbell and Cole's performances. Critics praised the Tinder and Siri-like technologies explored throughout the episode and its ending. Some compared the episode to the uplifting tone of "San Junipero".

Video Hang the DJ (Black Mirror)

Plot

Frank (Joe Cole) is instructed by "Coach", an artificial intelligence system installed on a small, circular tablet, to go to "the Hub", a large, mall-like building. There he enters a restaurant where he is joined by Amy (Georgina Campbell), who is also following Coach's instructions. The two discover that it is the first time each of them has met someone through "the System", which dictates which romantic relationships its users will have and for how long. Amy and Frank check their tablets and find that they have 12 hours together.

Amy and Frank are taken to a numbered house, passing an encircling wall on the way. They talk, then sleep next to each other, parting the next morning after their tablets count down their relationship time to zero. In their separate conversations with Coach, it is revealed that the System enters users into numerous relationships and collects data on them in order to match the user with their "ultimate compatible other" on the user's "pairing day", which it claims to do with a 99.8% success rate.

Amy is assigned a nine-month long relationship with Lenny (George Blagden), an attractive "old hand" at the system. Frank is assigned a one-year relationship with the humourless and dour Nicola (Gwyneth Keyworth).

Amy and Frank reconnect at a pairing day celebration, which they attend with their respective partners. After this encounter, Amy begins to distance herself from Lenny. When her relationship with Lenny expires, Amy is assigned to a string of short relationships that become increasingly meaningless. When Frank's relationship with Nicola expires, Amy and Frank are once again matched and agree not to check their relationship length.

As Amy and Frank's relationship continues, Frank becomes distracted by the fact that their relationship has a set end date. He breaks his promise to Amy and checks his tablet to see how long they have left. It initially says five years, but then "recalibrates" to ever-shorter periods. Coach informs Frank that his "one-sided observation" of the expiration date has shortened his and Amy's relationship. The tablet eventually settles on 20 hours. The next day, Amy confronts Frank about his distracted behaviour. Frank admits that he checked their expiry date and tells Amy they only have an hour left. The two argue, with Frank suggesting that they climb the encircling wall and escape the System, and are approached by a security guard carrying a stun gun. Amy leaves Frank, angry at him for breaking their promise and "breaking" their relationship.

After another string of indistinguishable short relationships, Coach informs Amy that her ultimate match has been found, and that her pairing day will be the following day. Coach tells Amy that her ultimate match is someone Amy has never met before, and gives Amy the chance to say farewell to one person of her choosing. Amy quickly chooses to say farewell to Frank, then throws her tablet into a pool. The two meet at the restaurant in the Hub and discover their farewell period is just 90 seconds. Amy confirms with Frank that neither of them remembers what their life was like before they entered the System. She tells Frank that they must be undergoing a test, and that rebelling against the System is part of passing it. They agree to rebel by climbing the encircling wall, and start to leave the restaurant. A guard tries to stop them with a stun gun. Amy defies the guard by putting her hand on the stun gun, which freezes him and everyone else in the restaurant. The two make it to the wall. As they climb it, the lights below them go out and pixelated blackness engulfs everything, revealing that they were part of a simulation. They reappear on a virtual plaza with the number 998 above their heads, surrounded by hundreds of other similarly numbered duplicates of themselves. They look up and fade out of existence in awe, as a digital counter announces that out of 1000 simulations run, 998 rebellions have occurred.

The camera then flips into the real world, where the System and its simulations are all part of an online dating app's matchmaking algorithm, with the app on their phones scanning everybody around them and identifying Amy and Frank as a 99.8% match. Amy and Frank smile at each other, as the lyrics "Hang the DJ" from the chorus of "Panic" by The Smiths plays in the background, and Amy begins to approach Frank.

Maps Hang the DJ (Black Mirror)

Production

Whilst series one and two of Black Mirror were shown on Channel 4 in the UK, in September 2015 Netflix commissioned the series for 12 episodes, and in March 2016 it outbid Channel 4 for the rights to distribute the third series, with a bid of $40 million. The 12-episode order was divided into two series of six episodes each.

According to Annabel Jones, the series' co-creator, "Hang the DJ" was intended to reflect on the state of dating in the present day and the "general sense of loneliness". Charlie Brooker came up with the idea of the dating app by analogy with Spotify: it determines one's perfect mate by running through a "playlist" of prospective partners and evaluating one's responses to each partner until the algorithm finds the best match. One challenge with the episode was to keep the twist--that most of the events took place within a computer simulation--unclear until the very end while still providing enough detail to make the viewer aware that something was off with the setting. Another aspect Brooker and his writers discussed was how long to have the semi-permanent relationship between Amy and Frank last. They ultimately settled on five years. Brooker said that when Frank discovers this time period "it's not devastating news, but it's not forever", and he thinks, "'Okay that's a reasonable amount of time for a serious relationship, a serious bond.'"

Some exterior filming took place at Painshill, a centuries-old landscape park in Surrey. One of the original remaining structures, an abbey, served as the backdrop for the Pairing Day ceremony scene. The instrumental soundtrack for "Hang the DJ" was created by Alex Somers, with two pieces contributed by Sigur Rós.

Marketing

In May 2017, a Reddit post unofficially announced the names and directors of the six episodes in series 4 of Black Mirror. The first trailer for the series was released by Netflix on 25 August 2017, and contained the six episode titles.

Beginning on 24 November 2017, Netflix published a series of posters and trailers for the fourth series of the show, referred to as the "13 Days of Black Mirror". On 6 December, Netflix published a trailer featuring an amalgamation of scenes from the fourth series, which announced that the series would be released on 29 December.

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Accolades

Charlie Brooker was nominated for "Writing: Drama" for the 2018 British Academy Television Awards for his screenplay for "Hang the DJ".

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References

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External links

• "Hang the DJ" on IMDb

Source of article : Wikipedia