Reviving the Dead

           In this episode of Black Mirror, a couple with lack of communication due to social media comes across death. The protagonist, Martha who esteems her boyfriend Ash is left to face his death and soon the responsibility of his unborn baby. As she deals with his death at the funeral one of her close friends offer to help heal the wound by mysteriously bringing him back to life.

            Thus, Martha allowing her grief and curiosity to get the best of her and try out what her friend suggested. As she gives in and begins chatting with him it becomes kind of uncomfortable how she actually carries on a conversation with the other person or object at the other end of the chat. Especially since the robot quickly suggests enhancing the communication from a simple chat to a phone call and Martha agrees to it.

            From that point on it is almost as if she becomes a bit too obsessed with the robot as seen in the scene where she drops her phone after coming out her ultrasound and she loses her mind by breaking down and crying. I found it very weird how she let the robot soothed her as soon as she got to speak to it and also how she agreed to pay more to have the physical robotic form of Ash.

            As she became vulnerable to sharing her home with Robo-Ash and seeing her reaction to it, Masahiro Mori’s Uncanny Valley theory became noticeable. Perhaps she began to reconsider her decision of quickly having the life-like version of deceased Ash at home and treating it as if he was alive still. It seemed she expected him to act just like Ash but she failed to realized it was simple an animatronic she was dealing with.

            It’s at one point in which Robo-Ash becomes annoying to her and he doesn’t fully understand what she expected from him. As much as she insisted on having Robo-Ash around to keep that piece of Ash still living, it’s noticeable Robo-Ash wasn’t all that great as she thought.  Perhaps this is how robots will be in the future, they won’t know what we’ll expect from them and we’ll be too lazy to teach them then we’ll be annoyed by them. Maybe we’ll use them to deal with the loss of a loved one to keep them alive and also keep them up in the attic until we need them for an occasion or comfort.