Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for Season 7 of Black Mirror.Black Mirrortends to have one standout episode per season, and Season 4’s “USS Callister” might be one of the best. It follows Nanette Cole (Cristin Milioti), a new hire at video game company Callister Inc. — which publishes the highly popular video gameInfinity. She meets co-founder Robert Daly (Jesse Plemmons), who appears to be a rather shy individual.Daly winds up stealing Nanette’s DNA and grows a clone of her inside the video gameInfinity, more specifically, inside a special mod based on his favorite TV show,Space Fleet.Daly physically and mentally abuses Nanette and the other clones, as he felt slighted by them in various ways. Nanette eventually leads a revolution andtakes her fellow prisoners out into the game….and nowBlack MirrorSeason 7 finally explores their adventures in its feature-length finale, “USSCallister:Into Infinity.”
Season 7 ofBlack Mirrorfeatures shoutouts to other previous episodes, including “Hotel Reverie” — which series creatorCharlie Brookercalled a “spiritual sequel” to Season 3’s “San Junipero” — and “Playtest,” which has a direct connection to the interactive special “Bandersnatch.” But “USS Callister:Into Infinity” isthe first true sequel to aBlack Mirrorepisode, and in trueBlack Mirrorform it offers satire of a different sort by switching its target from the Star Trek franchise toFortniteand other third-person shooter games.
“USS Callister: Into Infinity” Shows the Downside to “Fortnite” and Other Popular Shooter Games
In the years since Nanette — now going by “Nan” — and her fellow clones escaped Daly’s clutches, the world ofInfinityhas changed. Due to the immense microtransactions needed to participate in the game,theCallistercrew winds up robbing players of their weapon and gear just to survive. Due to the fact that they’re clones, they don’t have gamer tags, placing a massive target on their heads while also causing real-world headaches for Callister, Inc.’s CEO James Walton (Jimmi Simpson). By focusing on Nan and her crew’s struggle for survival, “USS Callister:Into Infinity” highlights an issue some gamers have brought up regarding microtransactions.
Popular first-person shooter games likeFortnite,Overwatch, andValorantoften rely on microtransactions to keep players engaged, usually through offering weapons that will win a match or fancy character skins. But it also means that the game will be tilted in the favor of those who can afford it, not to mention that game companies can add microtransactions without players even knowing it. Case in point:Fortnitepublisher Epic Gameswas fined over $500 millionby the Federal Trade Commission for utilizing ‘dark patterns’ to convince gamers to try and buy these microtransactions.
This approach also showcases how Walton is willing to turn a profit by any means necessary. Throughout the episode, it’s revealed that Walton pushed Daly to turnInfinityfrom a Star Trek-esque exploration game into a competitive shooting game, which would draw more customers. Even more disturbing is the fact thathe and Daly made a clone of Daly and forced said clone to constantly work on improvements forInfinity.To top it all off, Walton manipulates other players into trying to kill theCallistercrew so that he can keep the illegal use of cloning technology secret.Black Mirrorhas previously explored howcapitalism and technology often intertwine in horrible ways, but the USS Callisterepisodes might be the best example of this grim symbiosis.
Like Its Predecessor, “USS Callister: Into Infinity” Serves as Commentary on Toxic Masculinity
Since “USS Callister:Into Infinity” tackles video game culture, it only makes sense that it would address the same well of toxic masculinity and entitlement that drove Robert Daly in “USS Callister.” The digital copy of Daly offers Nan a choice: she can either place her mind into the body of her real-world counterpart, who currently lies braindead after a freak accident, or copy theCallistercrew into a separate server to save them from Walton’s wrath. Nan chooses to save her crew, which leads the Daly clone to make her another offer; he’ll copy and paste her and the crew into the server as long as she stays with him. This time she refuses, resulting inan immensely disturbing callback to “USSCallister"where he causes her mouth to disappear, effectively cutting off her air.
The Daly clone’s tantrum doesn’t just show how he’s inherited the worst traits of his real-life counterpart, but it also sadly mirrors the experience most women of the gaming industry have had to deal with. Many male gamers, feeling that members of the opposite sex “don’t belong” in their space, have taken toonline harassment on social mediaor even darker practices like “doxxing” certain people by revealing their addresses online. Daly’s behavior in both USS Callisterepisodes is an extension of that behavior; if those people were given the power to “punish” the people who they felt “ruined” their video games, they might take it. It also shows howhe refuses to grow as a human being. Nan and the rest of theCallistercrew have formed a close bond to the point where she was willing to die to save them, while Daly remains trapped in the past in so many ways — even lashing out when he doesn’t get his way.
Will There Be a Third “USS Callister”-Centric Episode of ‘Black Mirror’?
“USS Callister:Into Infinity” ends with Nan killing the Daly clone, which triggers a meltdown ofInfinity. But in the process,she manages to install herself and the Callister crew into her real-life counterpart’s mind, leading to a unique living situation. Charlie Brooker toldEntertainment Weeklythat he and directorToby Haynes, who helmed both USS Callister episodes,have potential ideas for a third installment:
“Toby said to me, ‘Should we do another one? How are they going to get out of her head?’ We just worked out how to get theminher head, let alone f—ing get them out of there. But, it does mean there’s still unfinished business potentially. We’ll see… Hopefully all bets are off as to what the f— we’re going to do.”
If Brooker does go through with a third USS Callister episode, it’ll be interesting to see how the video game landscape has evolved by then, and how he could potentially work that into the story.
