Meeting other people who are looking for love has become a lot easier during the last few years thanks to dating sites and apps like Tinder. You fill in your profiles, send out messages, go out on a dat and find out if there is a sprak. The system which is used in Hang the DJ is based on that, but works completely different.
Amy (Georgina Campbell) and Frank (Joe Cole) are two users who are part of a community in which everyone has a small circular device named Coach. Coach gives them instructions on what to do and is also the computer to ask questions if anything is unclear. Both of them use the system for the first time, in which a central algorithm sends people on a date without them actually choosing the other person. But this goes even further. Going out with the other person is mandatory (there are guards making sure) and Coach (through “the System”) also shows the users how long they are obliged to stay together after the date. It doesn’t matter whether or not they are compatible.
Although Amy and Frank have a great time together, they part ways quickly and both end up in “relationships” which take months, which as time progresses puts their patience to the tests. Many of dates of various lengths follow, but they both remember each other and that first date. Will they see each other again and will the System eventually decide that they are allowed to stay together forever?
This might be the most positive episode of this fourth season because it all revolves around lover between two people where you wonder whether the two will find each other (and as this is a Black Mirror episode you can never be sure).
Maybe the most interesting question this episode asks about dating is “What if all it’s doing is gradually wearing us down… every time you get a little more pliable, a little more broken?”. Relationship, good or bad, change us. Because of it we will stand up against specific behaviour, but we might be easier when it comes to other aspects and even might be satisfied more quickly. Writer Charlie Brooker said this might be an episode that most resembles a romcom, but of course the meaning in the world of Black Mirror is different. While watching I started wondering whether or not this episode would turn out to be something like Logan’s Run. Is that the case? You should check out this great episode yourself.
[score8]