How Black Mirror wasted a chance to solve a big USS Callister problem

Now, season 7 has rewarded fans with a feature-length sequel, Into Infinity.

But instead of correcting a major issue with the original episode, the Star Trek-inspired sequel abandons the themes and tension that made it so compelling – even if its best moments were borrowed from old Trek.

The season 4 opener charts the adventures of a starship modeled on the crew of USS Enterprise (in the show, Star Trek is re-dubbed "Space Fleet"), with the domineering, abusive Captain Daly (Jesse Plemons) keeping a tight leash on his subordinates – who are digital clones of his coworkers and boss at a virtual reality gaming company, who he resents for not respecting his real-world genius.

USS Callister followed parallel narratives of science officer Nanette (Cristin Milioti) mounting a rebellion against Daly’s authority and real-world employee Nanette saving them from Daly’s illegal and consent-violating digital prison.

The original episode was a big hit, taking the iconography of classic Trek and telling a pacey, exciting story about power fantasies driven by a bruised nerd ego and the danger of someone who sees themselves as a slighted genius. But was it even original?

Sure, USS Callister boasted impressive sets, flashy visual effects, and more intensity than you’d see on an episode of Trek, but it explored topics that the historic sci-fi franchise had already visited.

In Hollow Pursuits, from season 3 of The Next Generation, a meek and anxious lieutenant engineer is discovered to have a holodeck addiction. Like Robert Daly’s sci-fi multiplayer online game Infinity, the holodeck conjures incredibly realistic simulations to play in – but can also recreate any period, person, or scenario in the known universe.

Like Daly, Reginald Barclay (Dwight Schultz) feels demeaned at work. He’s hyper aware of microaggressions and unable to project confidence or stand up for himself. So, he retreats to the fantasies of the holodeck, where he has programmed his superiors into romantic, swashbuckling fantasies that reflect how he wants the world to be – the women love him, his peers admire him, and the bullies get their comeuppance.

The Enterprise crew are shocked: Barclay has used the likeness of real people in ways they did not consent to, a chilling precursor to the modern crisis of abusers creating AI pornography of women without their consent.

In the episodic, tightly structured fashion of ‘90s network television, the crew process how Barclay’s addiction has violated them, while also trying to preserve the ongoing mission of the Enterprise by getting help for the engineer.

By showing us a meeker perspective than the bold personas of the main cast, Hollow Pursuits shows us the cracks in the shiny Star Trek facade: our heroes are capable of hurting less senior characters, and recreational technology can easily go from an emotional crutch to a dangerous habit that hurts those around you.

It may be more hokey than the nasty, contemporary social critique of USS Callister, but Hollow Pursuits condenses the 73-minute episode into succinct and impactful terms, all while avoiding the action or comedic asides that distract from our characters’ suffering.

In retreading the footsteps of Trek’s Golden Age, USS Callister revealed only a surface-level understanding of the ideas-driven sci-fi that paved the way for Black Mirror’s cultural dominance.

Instead of demonstrating how the series has grown more sophisticated on Netflix, USS Callister: Into Infinity borrows from a much less revered era of Star Trek.

Since the explosive JJ Abrams blockbusters Star Trek and Into Darkness, the franchise has chased bigger scale, smarmier character writing, and more exciting action with diminished returns.

The new shows Discovery, Picard, and Strange New Worlds have their fans, but they clearly do not resemble the tense power dynamics and gradual problem-solving of the franchise’s best days, in The Original Series, The Next Generation, and Deep Space Nine.

Into Infinity (which even borrows from the title of Abrams’s divisive 2013 sequel) takes place inside the open-world game, with the cloned Callister crew trying to stay alive in a world where the other players only risk a temporary death.

It’s basically a generic action-adventure film. Our characters return, but the tension between their real-world and in-game selves feels flat – there’s not much to distinguish between the two Nanettes when you remove their specific plot objectives, and only her narcissistic boss James Walton (Jimmi Simpson) feels like an in-depth character and not an obligatory returning actor.

Compare this to Hollow Pursuits, where the senior staff of the Enterprise are disgusted and confused by how they’ve been reduced without sense, empathy or intelligence in Barclay’s digital world – the contrast between real and digital worlds is clear and compelling.

It makes a USS Callister sceptic reflect on how clearly the abusive power dynamics were established in the original episode: yes, Daly was acting on predatory, violent impulses in a way that felt like a more explicit, nasty version of the network television-safe fantasies of Reginald Barclay, but for viewers who knew nothing of Star Trek beyond visual cues and vague set-up, the episode had a strong dramatic throughline.

Into Infinity just rewards fans who recognise the motifs and themes of an overhyped but understandably successful Black Mirror hit.

If Into Infinity wanted to look and feel different to the action-heavy, snarky voice of modern Star Trek TV, it could have tackled why Daly’s game is such a poor facsimile of the show Daly fell in love with.

Even though Daly died in the first episode (in both the real and digital world), we meet another digital clone of him permanently working in his garage at the heart of Infinity, where his entitled, possessive hang-ups fester without supervision.

How would a devoted fan of Space Fleet react to his beloved, thoughtful show turned into an empty guns-blazing romp?

If Into Infinity went down this route, then maybe the digital Daly would realise that his own insecurities and cruelty had warped his favourite show into a hollow, pathetic homage, and we could see his character realise his mistakes rather than returning as another boss battle for Nanette to overcome.

Black Mirror’s first sequel demonstrates that, while the show can still look critically at the tech-obsessed world around us, it cannot turn the same critical eye to its own history.

Black Mirror season 7 is available to stream now. Sign up for Netflix from £5.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream.

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