In this episode, computer programmer Robert Daly, a socially inept outcast who has little authority and commands no respect in his workplace, digitally replicates all of his coworkers into an inescapable Star Trek-esque simulation. The acting talent in “U.S.S. Callister” episode is highlighted by two fantastic performances in particular: Jesse Plemons as Robert Daly and Jimmi Simpson as Walton, Daly’s demanding CEO. Both show tremendous range between their performance in the real world and in Daly’s fantasy. Callister does as good a job as any Black Mirror episode, this time addressing the question of simulated consciousness.

“Arkangel” follows the lives of Sara and her overprotective mom, Marie. At a young age, Sara is given an experimental implant which gives her mother the ability to track her location and vitals, see through her eyes, and even block out things that raise Sara’s stress level. The idea of helicopter parenting raised to such an extreme level brings out the fear in any high schooler. The result of this technology combined with the natural curiosity of a paranoid mother spells impending disaster, spelling out a clear dialogue on the value of privacy.

In “Crocodile”, an insurance investigator who accesses memories of people begins to pick up on a string of murders committed by architect Mia Nolan. Shot entirely in Iceland, this episode’s greatest asset is its cinematography; sadly, the writer’s room couldn’t keep up. While I can’t say “Crocodile” is a bad episode in good conscience, the concept and execution isn’t exactly groundbreaking. The idea of memory access was already explored in “The Entire History of You” in season one, and was arguably done much better. While one of the weaker episodes of the series, “Crocodile” could hold its own against any sci-fi network television show.

Romance is a topic rarely touched on in the bleak, technology-run world of Black Mirror, but “Hang the DJ” explores the subject and with a lighter tone than most episodes. The two protagonists, Amy and Frank, are thrusted into a place in which a dating program pairs up “perfectly matched” individuals but assigns each pair an expiration date. Parallels can be seen between this dystopian concept and online dating. The monotonous, repetitive nature of both the real and fictitious worlds resonate with today’s young adults. “Hang the DJ” offers more of an intriguing concept than a paranoia-inducing nightmare, which is an unusual but welcome departure from the majority of the series.

If you watch Black Mirror for the mind-boggling and heartbreaking social commentary, “Metalhead” is not the place to look. “Metalhead” follows a woman and her fellow survivors of an unexplained crisis as they navigate a barren countryside overrun by lethal four-legged robotic creatures. The small-scale setting does this episode a lot of favors and is the reason why it isn’t the worst of the season. The world the writers created is clearly one with vast context and backstory, but the episode is much stronger by ignoring all of that and focusing on the concept of one woman fighting for survival in a bleak, monochromatic wasteland. While the tension this episode created was fantastic, the lack of real substance makes this episode out of place thematically.

In this episode, the owner of a museum in the middle of the desert gives a passerby a tour of his artifacts, each of which has a dark and disturbing background. The separate exhibits are used to delve into many different micro-narratives within the episode, like one in which a doctor uses a headset to feel the pain of his patients, one with a coma-ridden woman whose consciousness gets transported into different forms, and one with an unexpected fate for a man on death row. Douglas Hodge, who plays the museum owner, masterfully crafted his character’s persona through his performance by letting the audience first become attentive and somewhat empathetic to his plight, then truly revealing his evil nature. One of the micro-narratives in this episode carried much more emotional and dramatic weight than some entire episodes did, demonstrating just how brilliant the series can be when under the right direction.