[danso]

I think my problem with it was how plot-driven the last episode ("Hated in the Nation") was. It ended in a way as if it mattered whether the cops catch the bad guy. I love cop shows, but the procedural bits here took time from all the interesting tech concepts that had been brought up. Another reviewer described it as feeling like an episode of X-Files, which I think is an apt way to describe it: Good, but not the kind of good that Black Mirror is uniquely positioned to deliver.

[vorg]

I understood "Hated in the Nation" to be taking the piss out of the standard cop show format, with their happy endings, flashbacks from the debriefing, master villain, etc.

[JonnieCache]

Charlie Brooker has already thoroughly massacred the procedural format:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Touch_of_Cloth

[ashark]

I think in an episode largely concerned with revenge and justice it does matter, thematically, that at least one character is very driven to catch the bad guy, right up to the end.

[ashark]

Dirty self-reply here because it's too late to edit, but it has occurred to me that the ending is also indispensable to that character's arc.