Talk:Playtest (Black Mirror)

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Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
November 15, 2020	Good article nominee	Listed
August 27, 2021	Good topic candidate	Promoted

Current status: Good article

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"All events subsequent"[edit]

"Cooper wakes up again, and it is then revealed that he has been in the white room all along, and that all events subsequent to the initial test are part of the "playtest", including him waking up in Shou's office."

Actually, the phone call occurred subsequent to the initialization headband/'mushroom'-installation in the white room, but before the wack-a-mole (gopher, in this game) event. It is the phone call which disrupted the wireless signal just as the initialization was completed. So the initial (whack-a-mole) test itself was part of the botched game-experience. In other words, the woman herself never saw him playing w-a-m, her presence (during that sequence as she 'observes' his slapping at the to-her-invisible VR gopher) was itself part of his mangled hallucination. When the phone rang as the initialization completed, he finished the last 0.04 seconds of his conscious—but lived in a growing nightmare— life... and then he expired.

(1/25 of a second, incidentally, is the classical time-frame of the blink of an eye. I don't know if that was an intended allusion.)

This might raise questions of either breaching conventions for dream/hallucinations (or else whether there might be a plot hole) with respect to the subject-room monitoring we see. It is strictly canonical for irreal sequences to maintain objects substantially within the the person's field of view, though not (necessarily, and indeed not normally) from his/her point-of-view. But this goes beyond the purposes of talk-page discussion. I will see myself out. JohndanR (talk) 05:24, 20 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks JohndanR: I've reworded the description in this edit, but feel free to edit the page yourself if you think this still isn't accurate. We can't mention the eye blinking time of 0.04 seconds, or the rest of your analysis, unless a reliable source (like a professional review) discusses this, per the verifiability policy. — Bilorv_(c)(talk) 01:46, 21 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review[edit]

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

Reviewer: The Rambling Man (talk · contribs) 17:11, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I am on this and apologies for the delay... The Rambling Man (Hands! Face! Space!!!!) 23:08, 11 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

"Whac-a-Mole" or "Whac-A-Mole"?
- All uppercase now. — Bilorv (talk) 12:49, 14 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
"traveling" - are we using USEng or BritEng for the article?
- British English – this was just me struggling to spell the word. — Bilorv (talk) 12:49, 14 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
"the production decided...." production can't decide anything.
- "Production" to "crew". — Bilorv (talk) 12:49, 14 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I think you can link foreshadowing (as you have linked psychological horror...)
No mention of the fact that the "Sonja" depiction goes out of whack before he "kills" it? (you mention " her face being torn off" later...)
- Yeah I've traded this for being a bit less specific on how Sonja claims she got to the house to keep the word count under 400. — Bilorv (talk) 12:49, 14 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Four actors' names are overlinked - you link them in the "Plot" section and also in the "Casting and filming" sections.
" 12 episodes (split into two series of six " twelve/six or 12/6.
"outbid ... with a bid" this is repetitive.
""Playtest" is the second episode... " count the use of "episode" from hereon... five times in three sentences.
- Hopefully three in three sentences is better. — Bilorv (talk) 12:49, 14 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
"series 3" or "series three"?
- The latter. — Bilorv (talk) 12:49, 14 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
"The episode was..." reiterate "Playtest" instead of "The episode"
"casting of Wyatt Russell as Cooper led" repetitive.
"he production found it difficult to explain in-story" again, not sure the production can find anything. Anthropomorphic.
" were done from" ugly phrasing, "were made in"?
- while scenes in Harlech House were filmed in the home of an elderly woman. — Bilorv (talk) 12:49, 14 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
"a one shot take," hyphenate one-shot.
"As hints that most of the ..." not parsing this very easily.
- Yeah this sentence was sort of repeating the same thing twice but not understandably either time. Now: To hint that most of the episode takes place inside Cooper's mind, features from early scenes were incorporated as background elements later on. Hopefully the examples that follow give enough of an explanation—the idea is that when Cooper's mind generates a scene (such as the living room of Harlech House), it puts in details of things it's seen recently (like a raven, reflected through Poe's "The Raven"). — Bilorv (talk) 12:49, 14 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
"as both Brooker and Trachtenberg were former video game journalists ..." you already said this.
"favorite" engvar?
Repetitive use of "props".
" BioShock. The phrase in BioShock related to whether players follow instructions unquestioningly, which Miller saw as related t" BioShock and related both quickly repeated.
"world [...] is nicely" per ELLIPSIS don't we just use " ... " with a non-breaking space at the beginning?
- Yes, I have to say ELLIPSIS/BRACKET could be clearer but you're right. — Bilorv (talk) 12:49, 14 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
"Handlen.[28][21] " numerical order.
Vulture overlinked.
So is Digital Spy, check others.
"19rd" -> "19th".
5th, 4th, 4th - why in reverse order?
- A thing I forgot to change when copying over most of the structure of this section from another episode page... — Bilorv (talk) 12:49, 14 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Ref 4 - spaced hyphen should be en-dash. Check others.

That's it, sort of enjoyed watching the episode again, although it's certainly one of the more harrowing ones in my opinion! On hold. The Rambling Man (Hands! Face! Space!!!!) 09:54, 13 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

All addressed and/or replied to. It's not one of my favourites to be honest, but expanding this article has given me a new appreciation for it. Horror isn't really my style, but it makes sense for them to do a horror episode. — Bilorv (talk) 12:49, 14 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Cool, happy with the changes so promoting to GA. Let me know when the next one's available! The Rambling Man (Hands! Face! Space!!!!) 11:00, 15 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The Mezzotint[edit]

The changes to the painting are clearly a reference to the M. R. James story The Mezzotint. Has Brooker mentioned this anywhere? Nick Cooper (talk) 21:03, 29 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

From memory not in Inside Black Mirror and not anywhere else. A critic mentions it in passing but without explaining it (which we'd need for anyone not familiar with the story). — Bilorv (talk) 21:40, 29 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]