BLACK MIRROR: WHITE CHRISTMAS: freaky yet flawed till the predictable end

As usual Black Mirror was good. The festive special was great, great concept, great execution, great acting but there was something missing from it. Which is odd for Brooker, he tends to make very complete feeling works, each previous episode has been perfect in it's little bubble of the future only this time it wasn't.

SPOILER ALERT

It starts off promising. With John Hamm and Rafe Spall stuck in a workplace in the middle of winter, where they have been for five years. They begin talking about their pasts so far so good. Murders have happened, blocking takes a far more literal sense etc etc. Standard dystopian Brooker fare. It starts to feel stale though and i'm honestly not sure why, I have tried to work it out in the next few paragraphs.

However by part 3 with the cookies introduced, it starts to sag. Quite badly, It doesn't feel scary anymore at all. Then the Spall's story starts and thats a lot better but still the cracks are firmly there.

Maybe it's due to the fact that it feels poorly constructed. All the stories fit yet, but not well. They feel badly done and not expanded enough maybe had they been separate episodes we could have got a better end product.

So what killed it for me you ask. well. the end sequence, so the house wasn't real, Hamm's there for the police, Hamm gets blocked by everyone, the police torture the cookie. It was predictable. It didn't pack the punch the end of The Waldo Moment did, it wasn't as sadistic as White Bear. In fact in felt diluted and clean. Maybe the feature length was too much to keep up and that sucks.

I wanted to love you Black Mirror: White Christmas, I did but you killed it for me. Let's hope if it comes back it goes back to it's superior format this doesn't work.

(Christmas posts will be tagged with tis the season from now, so be warned)