Fans of Star Trek have a great television episode to watch that plays in the same area as classic stories from the original series, but with a biting twist. Star Trek premiered in 1966, with the series following the crew of the USS Enterprise and its esteemed Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner). The episodes saw the crew exploring unknown areas of the galaxy and having great adventures. This gave way to a movie franchise, starting in 1979, several spinoff shows, beginning with Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1987, and even more shows both copying the series and paying homage to it, with the recent The Orville a perfect example of the latter.
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However, eight years ago, there was an episode of a brilliant anthology series that delivered a must-watch episode for Star Trek fans.
U.S.S. Callister is a Perfect TV Episode for Star Trek Fans
Black Mirror is an anthology series that is similar to The Twilight Zone, but it has more of a focus on the fear of technology. Every episode takes the idea of technological advances and shows the horrific lengths that these advances could result in. This includes dark looks at social media’s impact, the manipulation of reality, the loss of human connection, the use of digital tools for punishment, and people’s tendency to use technology to control others. The Black Mirror Season 4 episode “USS Callister” took more than one of those ideas and created a perfect Star Trek homage.
This episode, released on December 29, 2017, was a feature length, 76-miniute, episode starring Jesse Plemons as Robert Daly, the co-founder of a virtual reality-based multiplayer online game. However, Robert feels he is not recognized for his contributions and doesn’t like how his coworkers treat him. As a result, he creates a new online game and uses the DNA of his co-workers to create characters in the game based on them. The game is a duplicate of Star Trek (called Space Fleet in the episode), with Robert as the ship’s captain and his coworkers as his crew.
However, things start to twist around when he uses the DNA of a newly hired young woman named Nanatte (Cristin Milioti) to bring her into the game, and she convinces the other members of the crew to revolt against the captain. The entire plot is complex, as Robert is somehow able to manipulate the game and force the characters in it to do what he wants, but somehow, they seem to have free will as well, and understand they are based on real people.
What really makes this stand out is that it takes the look and feel of Star Trek, but it then turns things on its head by having the ship’s captain be a dominating and overly demanding, often getting revenge against the characters in the game when he feels disrespected at work. It takes the design of Star Trek, but Robert clearly has no idea what the themes of a show like this are.
U.S.S. Callister Was Very Different for Black Mirror
This Black Mirror episode is very different from others in the series. For one thing, it is clear that this episode has a great love for Star Trek as a series. However, the story is not based on Star Trek at all, but is instead a retelling of one of the best Twilight Zone episodes of all time, “It’s a Good Life.” That classic episode stars Billy Mumy as Anthony Fremont, a six-year-old who has psychic powers where he can control everyone and everything around him. As a result, he forces everyone to do only what he wants and punishes anyone who goes against him.
Black Mirror takes this supernatural story and adds a technical twist to it, where it is a grown man who acts like a child and uses his video game to punish anyone who he feels threatens his sense of security. At first, Robert seems like the victim of the bullies at work, but soon, it is shown that he is more of a bully than anyone. This is a story about abuse of power and how people in charge have the power to make their employees’ lives a living hell. It is also a story about a male’s sense of entitlement and their fragile ego, making them lash out at anyone who threatens their manhood.
While this Black Mirror episode seemed to be poking fun at Star Trek, it actually treated the original series with great respect. Instead, this had the series offer up a mix of “It’s a Good Life” with the classic Harlan Ellison story I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, a story about an AI in the future who has complete control over the five remaining survivors of a global apocalypse. However, unlike both of those stories, the victims here find a way to get revenge and escape from their tormentor.
Most of the Black Mirror stories have the people in the episodes falling to bad endings. However, “USS Callister” did something very different. Not every episode needs to have a downer ending, and this episode received high praise for taking the right chance on the ending and putting the bad guy in his place. This Black Mirror episode isn’t just perfect for Star Trek fans, but it is one of the best sci-fi stories in the entire series.
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Official art by Bastien Lecouffe-Deharme -
Image courtesy of Tor Books/Macmillan -
A photo of the Retrovolt Arcade taken in 2017, showing several classic arcade cabinets and stools. -
Courtesy of TOHO Animation
