This Underrated Twilight Zone Episode Inspired One Of The Best Episodes Of Black Mirror
When Charlie Brooker's dystopian future series "Black Mirror" first launched in 2011, there were immediate comparisons made to Rod Serling's "The Twilight Zone." Not only in the sense that the series is a horror, sci-fi, and alternate-reality anthology show and therefore will be associated with the groundbreaking series regardless of quality but because it was the first show since "The Twilight Zone" to truly capture its sense of bleak, social satire. There is a lot of shared DNA between both shows, but "Black Mirror" has (until the latest season) always been a series attempting to depict a future that feels just a breath away from becoming reality, whereas "The Twilight Zone" tackled just about every time period imaginable. There are some episodes, like "White Bear," that feel like something that could have been written by Serling himself, while others pull obvious inspiration from some of the classic show's most memorable tales.
And then there's "Fifteen Million Merits." The episode that helped introduce the U.S. to "Get Out" star Daniel Kaluuya, "Fifteen Million Merits" takes place in a future where the majority of society earns currency by cycling on exercise bikes under conditions that are tantamount to being enslaved (with few to no means of escape, save for winning reality talent shows broadcast to the world). The episode tackles themes of capitalism, the objectification of women in the public eye, systemic monitoring, and microtransactions. /Film's Jacob Hall has called it "the first great episode" of the series, so it should come as no surprise that the plot was inspired by an episode of "The Twilight Zone."
However, the episode in question is "Number 12 Looks Just Like You," an episode known more for its assessment of beauty standards than that of capitalism.
Resist the transformation
During a Twitter Q&A, Brooker admitted the episode was heavily inspired by both the Xbox Kinect and "Number 12 Looks Just Like You." The Kinect was a new product at the time, a line of motion-sensing input devices that could scan players' bodies, faces, and movements. It's easy to draw a connection between the Kinect and the surveillance state seen in "Fifteen Million Merits," but the connection to "The Twilight Zone" isn't as obvious.
Often outshined by the famous "The Eye of the Beholder" episode, "Number 12 Looks Just Like You" is set in a future where, upon reaching adulthood, everyone has their body surgically altered into one of a set of physically attractive models. Meaning, after a certain age, every person on the planet resembles a specific model. It's an episode that has sadly become more relevant with each passing year, with the "Instagram Face" phenomenon having people chasing the same physical appearance with increasingly uncanny results. The episode centers on Marilyn, who is set to undergo "the Transformation" but is having second thoughts about it. This is in line with the character Abi (Jessica Brown Findlay) in "Fifteen Million Merits," who knows if she conforms to the whims of the reality show, she'll be able to escape the cycling hellscape.
In both episodes, those in power produce a liquid convincing agent ("Cuppliance" in "Black Mirror" and "Instant Smile" in "The Twilight Zone") as a means of controlling people. Both episodes prove that the human will is so strong, it takes chemical interference to break us. Unfortunately, the women in both episodes eventually give up and give in, conforming to what is expected at the sacrifice of their individual wants. The result in both cases is one of the best episodes of their respective series.