Sex Trope #3- Robosexual

"Where did you learn this?"
"It's a set routine based on pornographic videos..."

"Be Right Back", the first episode of a new series of Charlie Brooker's dystopian satire Black Mirror, saw the latest entry into the television sex trope club that is 'Robosexual'; ie, any sentient machine, whether robot, computer, or something else, having romantic or sexual relations with an organic lifeform. The Mechanical Lifeforms version of Interspecies Romance. Most writers address the big white elephant in the room by somehow mentioning that the robot is anatomically correct. Such a plot, as in this case, often involves a Robotic Spouse and is a Super Trope to Sex Bot, which is a sentient machine is specifically built for sex.

Things began in mundanity, a young couple – Martha (Hayley Atwell) and Ash (Domhnall Gleeson) – teasing each other affectionately as they drive through the night. He's a little distracted by his mobile phone and she's clearly getting a little tired of coming off second. "Glovebox," she says in an admonitory voice, a cue for him to put the device into purdah for a while. As soon as they get home, though, he's staring down the electronic well again. She throws a tea-towel at him: "Just checking you're still solid," she says. "You keep vanishing down that thing." The writing's departure from idiom here is a clue – or a premonition. As is Ash's memory of how his mother reacted when there was a death in the family – sweeping away every photograph of the dead person and confining them to the attic.

It won't come as a huge surprise to any viewer that Ash doesn't have long to live. When he fails to return from an errand the next day, Martha's curiosity turns to anxiety and then, with the arrival of flashing blue lights outside the kitchen window, to grief. And it's at this point that Ash's obsession with social media comes into its own. At the funeral, a friend of Martha makes a suggestion: "I can sign you up to something that helps," she says. What she has in mind is an iAsh. Somebody has married artificial intelligence software with the dense crop of personal detail we leave behind us on the web to create a virtual loved one. Give it permission to access private information and the simulation will be even better: "The more it has, the more it's him."


Martha is initially appalled but then, in her grief, can't resist trying it. And the software it seems not only has a sense of humour. It has Ash's sense of humour. After she upgrades and uploads some home videos it has his voice too. And then she goes the final step. Two delivery men arrive with a very heavy crate. Inside it is Ash 2.0. All she has to do is add electrolytes, wait a little and he – or a fair replica – will be back. Ash 2.0 isn't perfect. He can't do sexual response because that isn't on the public record anywhere. But he has a degree of hydraulic control that flesh-and-blood men might envy and which clearly proves satisfactory when Martha succumbs to loneliness and sleeps with him.

It won't have come as a great surprise to any viewer either that this was a futuristic version of "The Monkey's Paw", that terrible short story about the dangers of getting what you wish for. Oddly, though, it was a tender, more wistful account of the fable, neither of those adjectives you would have associated with Charlie Brooker even a few years ago. Here they included the counter-intuitive truth that it's not always the sweetness and the give that you miss about someone you love but the sourness and the resistance, too. The show touched on important ideas – the false way we sometimes present ourselves online, and our growing addiction to virtual lives – but it was also a touching exploration of grief. "You look like him... on a good day," Martha told Ashbot, but what was missing was what made Ash human: his unpredictability, his flaws. "You're just a few ripples of you... there's no history to you... you're just a performance of stuff."

Television Series: Black Mirror (S02E01)
Release Date: February 2013
Actress: Hayley Atwell
Video Clips Credit: Deep at Sea

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https://hotfile.com/dl/194061916/347a902/788.zip.html
http://www32.zippyshare.com/v/99500583/file.html
http://www.putlocker.com/file/803744E9D9B73CF0
http://www.sendmyway.com/b7frlvhk4seu/788.zip.html
http://ge.tt/1OVWqEY
https://netload.in/dateiqv3GbmaEZM/788.zip.htm
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http://www.sharebeast.com/mregc9joq3s2
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Tyranny Of The Pissy-Panted Numpties

"Watch Utopia on Channel 4," Twitter harangued Grace Dent last week in multiple terrified voices. "It's really disturbing! I couldn't sleep!" Well, this felt like a reason to swerve it, notes Dent, because she loves to sleep. Sleep is her Utopia. Damn you domestic hibernating tortoises, wrapped in newspaper, packed in your cardboard boxes for a glorious 14-week shut-eye. Would Mr Tortoise poke his head out of his shell for a grizzly six-hour paranoia-fest featuring an extended eye-torture scene involving chilli, bleach and a dessert spoon? No, he would not. Would he extend a webby paw to series-link Sky+ after watching a shivering seven-year-old boy executed by a maniac with a gas canister? Perhaps if Michaela Strachan was starring in it, but still, no he would prefer a nice piece of lettuce...

I, on the other hand, watched two episodes of Utopia back to back, entranced, repelled, confused and in quiet admiration of writer Dennis Kelly for getting this beautiful, hideous, cerebrally-taxing filth near a screen in the first place. Utopia is a tiny bit Misfits, a scoop of Clockwork Orange, strong whiffs of Shaun of the Dead, Black Mirror and the Kate Bush "Cloudbusting" video, and the overall sensation of being trapped inside a vivid sleep-paralysed cheese-dream.


Neil Maskell, in his portrayal of "Network Henchman", previously seen being jolly unpleasant in Kill List and The Football Factory, manages to rubber-stamp himself as one of British TV's most affecting psychopaths, purely from ambling through every scene, mouth half open, agog with a blase sort of evil, in search of Jessica Hyde. After two episodes back to back I retreated to bed and dreamed I'd been given a tiny helpless dachshund puppy which I'd promptly lost at an illegal warehouse party then found on a road squashed by a truck. Perhaps I'll never sleep again. Incidentally, no dachshund puppies are killed within the episodes I've watched so far of Utopia, thank heavens. I'll gloss over men, women and saucer-eyed infants being butchered but once fluffy animals are in distress I become as lucid as, say, those imbeciles who call the BBC at 8am on Sunday to complain that a Tweenie reminds them of Jimmy Savile.

The fact the BBC pays heed to lunacy like this says a lot about where it is risk-wise as opposed to Channels 4, Five or Sky. By midday last Sunday the BBC had immediately issued a fulsome and self-flagellating apology about a scene from 2001 where a Tweenie wears a straw coloured wig and stands beside some DJ decks. Note: the BBC is actually listening to these plutonium grade, pissy-panted numpties and cuts its cloth accordingly. The new series of Idris Elba's Luther should be scintillating. "Um yeah, I know Utopia has been pretty gruesome, but can we downgrade this plot with Luther's enemy from 'cutting off the desk sergeant's fingers', to um, breaking into the police station and giving everyone a manicure in a colour they don't like?"

And what is the BBC making? Blandings on BBC1. The show, loosely based on PG Wodehouse, resembles a long episode of Cbeebies' Something Special with Mr Tumble, except with a dozen Mr Tumbles. It makes Downton Abbey look like Eli Roth's Hostel. Nothing to be offended about here. Not even a pig that vaguely resembled Gary Glitter. Blandings is filmed in a hall which, if you think about it, sounds like "Stuart Hall". Will nobody ban this filth?

When I'm made Director General I will (wo)man the BBC duty log myself, only to finish each call with the triumphant noise of a paper shredder in full thrust. I worry, quite genuinely, what we shall lose access to in the great BBC archive purge of 2013. All those fantastic episodes of Top of the Pops from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s which we're treated to on BBC4 – footage of every wonderful, strange superstar or one-hit wonder who ever graced TV centre – this is our history! The BBC spent your licence fee recording it and now owns all the rights to it and will never be able show it in 2013 lest some berk in Aberystwyth catches sight of Dave Lee Travis and reaches for the burgundy felt tip and the Basildon Bond notelets. I'm not saying these people would benefit from a lumbering visit from Utopia's Network Henchman, but it might reinstall a sense of priority.

Utopia continues for another four weeks, one giant conspiracy theory, wrapped in a ball of Russian multi-million-pound medical deals, government corruption, pregnant prostitutes, gouged out eyes entrails and "put to sleep" corpses. I have little real idea of what is going on, but I shall watch to the end and then, like with all good drama, watch it a second or third time to focus on plot. If it transpires that I'm the person who knows where Jessica Hyde is, I'm in trouble.
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Black Mirror Will Be Right Back

Charlie Brooker’s dark drama Black Mirror is returning to Channel 4 in 2013 for a second series, which will consist of three disarming, suspenseful and satirical films. Described by Brooker as a series in which "each episode has a different cast, a different setting, even a different reality", Black Mirror is concerned with examining the way we live now – and the way we might be living in 10 minutes' time if we're clumsy. "Like the last series we've done three stories that are three different genres," he states. "We've also got all sorts of unpleasant things and also one of them is very sad."

The first of the new Black Mirror films, Be Right Back, stars Hayley Atwell as Martha and Domhnall Gleeson as a social media addict named Ash. Set in the near future it is, in tone, closer to the third episode of the previous series, looking how technology affects relationships – and how relationships could affect technology. And no nasty business with a pig to scare away the Daily Mail. The man finds himself distracted by social networking to the mild annoyance of the woman. She is no Luddite, her wooden easel with its curved touch screen is a valuable tool, as is the safedrive option on the car, but there is a time and place and Ash is tapping away on his phone just a bit too much. Martha doesn’t really mind though, she loves him and thoughts of their new life together are enough to override the nagging sensation that she might be losing him.

Then, after the young couple have just move to their remote cottage idyll, she really does lose him, in a very terminal fashion, when Ash is killed returning the hired van. At the funeral, Martha’s friend Sarah (Sinead Matthews) tells her about a new way to stay in touch with the deceased and reveals that, by using all his previous online communications, status updates and the like, Martha could create a new, alarmingly ‘real’ Ash to help alleviate her grief. Martha is disgusted by the concept and wants nothing to do with it as she decides to stay in the cottage, despite her sister, Naomi (Claire Keelen), being worried about her isolation.

Then one morning Martha receives an email from 'Ash'. Sarah has signed her up. Martha is furious and deletes the message but then discovers she is pregnant and, in a confused and lonely state, decides to talk to 'him'. Invariably, what she has discovered is a service that will replicate him as an instant messenger, based on his public social messaging record. Paying more for his private messaging to be taken into account. Then all his videos and recordings to create an audio version of him. And then, the final step, to physicality… "Martha knows the well-named Ash is dead, and this replacement is fake", notes Richard Johnston, who went to the BFI of this first episode. "But she can’t resist the temptation to treat him as if he were her one true love restored from the grave. But it’s not him, it is the social networking him, the public – and private face – that he exhibited, There is no room for surprise, there is no room for the revelations that were only ever made face to face. And things have to come to a head."


Of course, there are many ways to handle grief. "It is not uncommon at all for people to create some kind of surrogate form to comfort them, in a variety of ways," writes Johnston. "I’ve come across these 'real life' dolls, it is very common to talk to the deceased person as if they are still there. And for them to answer back. As the Q&A has pointed out people have often gone to mediums as part of their way of coping, all this is, is a different… medium. The first part of this show, at least, will happen in the short term. Are we as a society ready for it? And the more that we live out lives virtually, instead of physically, the more there will be to replace us when we are gone. Already Facebook pages have become shrines to their past owners, at what point will they start to talk back to us?"

Next up in the series is The Waldo Moment, about a failed comedian who voices a blue bear on a children’s educational show that teaches youngsters about reality by interviewing politicians and establishment figures. Daniel Rigby stars as bitter comic Jamie Salter, the voice behind Waldo the bear who, far from being a cute mascot for a kids’ show, is actually a character on a late-night topical comedy programme that delights in ridiculing its unknowing interviewees. The bear proves popular enough for the channel to give him his own pilot and the production company, which is run by Jason Flemyng as a character named Jack Napier, comes up with the idea of having Waldo stand against one of his victims, Conservative Liam Monroe (Tobias Menzies), who has been parachuted in to win a safe Tory seat in an up-and-coming By-Election.

On the campaign trail Jamie meets and falls for Gwendolyn Harris (Chloe Pirrie), the Labour candidate who is a rising star in the Labour party. When Gwendolyn backs away, warned off Jamie by her campaign manager, Jamie struggles to contain his disdain for career politicians. At a 'Meet the Politicians’ election hustings, when taunted by Monroe, Jamie lashes out at all the politicians present and accuses them of being more artificial than Waldo. The clip seems to hit a nerve with a disengaged mistrusting public; his rant proving something of a YouTube hit, and generating a lot of commentary in the newspapers about the state of modern politics. Could the blue bear actually end up winning a By-Election?… Or is there even more to play for?

The last film in this series of Black Mirror will be White Bear (which, despite the title, has nothing to do with The Waldo Moment). It stars Being Human’s Lenora Crichlow as a woman called Toni who wakes up suffering from amnesia in a house she doesn’t know. There are photos of her with a man and another photo of a young girl on the mantelpiece – neither of whom she recognises. The TV is on and is playing a symbol that means nothing to her. Confused, she leaves the house and stumbles onto a deserted street where no-one answers their doors. She finally senses some movement behind a curtain and is surprised to see a man filming her on his smartphone.

A car pulls into the road and a man gets out (Michael Smiley). Toni starts to approach him until she sees he is a carrying a gun and pointing it at her. As she flees, she’s pursued by a mob of people from their houses who run out of their houses to film her. Running round the corner she stumbles into Damien (Ian Bonar) and Jem (Tuppence Middleton), who together with Toni seek refuge in a petrol station. The man with the gun tries to break his way in. A group of people have gathered outside and are filming this on their phones. As the glass shatters the man with the gun enters the petrol station and Damian tries to grapple with him. The girls make a run for it. They see Damien try to escape but he is shot and dies. Toni and Jem manage to escape.

Jem explains to Toni that this has been going on for months – a mysterious signal started being transmitted that has caused most of the population to become mindless voyeurs. This apathy has allowed those strong enough to resist the signal's influence to do what they want and they have essentially become what Jem calls "Hunters" – out to get people like her and Toni. During Jem’s explanation, Toni is plagued by various flashbacks – they are becoming more and more regular and involve her in a car with the man and the girl, her assumed daughter, from the photos. Jem and Toni set out to find and destroy the transmitter, to stop its signal. It is their only hope of finding a safe way out. Reaching the transmitter they try to set fire to it just as the "hunters" arrive. Will they manage it and is this the end of their torment?

"Black Mirror is hard science fiction given a softly softly media face, it is about big problematic ideas about the way we live, given fleshy form," concludes Johnston. "Tonally, it also fits in rather well with Channel 4′s current series Utopia, full of twists, technology, just out of our reach but oh so believeable. However, the first episode- at least- of the second series of Black Mirror does not seek to shock as the first series did. This is a very mainstream, middle class, emotional drama approach which may well welcome in a wider audience before hitting them with some very difficult ideas indeed. Black Mirror asks lots of questions. It doesn’t really give anything close to a satisfying answer. That’s what mirrors do, reflect our questions back at ourselves. Answers, I guess is for us to come up with."

The first series of Black Mirror, broadcast in December 2011, won a Golden Rose at the prestigious Rose d’Or Television Festival in May 2012 and scooped Best TV movie/mini-series at the International Emmys last November. While Black Mirror’s second series doesn’t yet have an airdate, Brooker recently revealed on Twitter that it would be coming to Channel 4 "soonish".
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