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Black Mirror- A spoiler and frustrated filled review

Furiustobaco

Mega Poster
17/06/2021 was my first coaster day of the year. It was a long one in the making
So first off, the park has a solid coaster lineup. It does lack a true headliner, but Inferno in the back row is by far my favourite, and the ride ages like fine wine. My friend had an exemption, which meant we got 4 back row rides on Inferno, and it was great in the morning, and absolutely amazing by the late afternoon. I honestly believe Inferno is top 5 worthy in the UK (at Number 5, but still).
Stealth and Swarm are also good rides that have their fans, and i am generally lukewarm on Saw and Colossus. Colossus seemed to beat me to death.

This was my first experience of Black Mirror, and i am gonna spill every thought out of my brain for this review.
Before this opened, i was a huge naysayer. Dubbing it as another walkthrough attraction that would last a few years and become completely irrelevant. A novelty that will not contribute anything in the long term for this park.

I found the whole identfication with taking your picture and name as a little weird. It was cool at points, especially with our small group of 2. Though honestly i do believe it wasn't essential to the experience. Just kinda eh. I believe in the future it will just be scrapped, as it is really just kind of a gimmick.

The main experience is fine. Finding the way out was fun to do, it was very confusing at points with plenty of dead ends. The theming is lacklustre and meh, and so is the whole feel of the attraction. I believe the theme is just drab, more doom and 'ESCAPE NOW' bullcrap. I believe it is a complete 'one and done'.
Interestingly a lot of the public around me seemed to dislike it or find it weird or boring. My best friend summed it up as 'that was just pure shi**'.

I think the attraction would work well as a good seasonal attraction/maze with actors! But as a full-term experience during non-halloween, it really just comes across as try-hard and depressing. A lot of the public seem equally puzzled with why this thing exists more than they find the actual labyrinth puzzling..
Honestly Thorpe is a park that is crying out for an actual new ride, a flat ride, a new roller coaster, a proper dark ride. This is just, a low throughput low cost investment with little regard to the long term.

The IP does not even feel all that relevant.. The preshow seems to have something to do with technology? I do not watch Black Mirror, but did this attraction really need the IP, or is the IP just part of the 'new merlin addition contract'? I have not seen Black Mirror, but i doubt this maze sells it. It seems hugely disconnected from its IP..

On the upside, the booking system was easy to understand and stress-free, and the actual maze did make me feel lost at points. Though other than that, Black Mirror is a labyrinth of mediocrity.
 

Nitefly

Hyper Poster
I found the whole identfication with taking your picture and name as a little weird. It was cool at points, especially with our small group of 2. Though honestly i do believe it wasn't essential to the experience. Just kinda eh. I believe in the future it will just be scrapped, as it is really just kind of a gimmick. […]

The IP does not even feel all that relevant.. The preshow seems to have something to do with technology? I do not watch Black Mirror, but did this attraction really need the IP, or is the IP just part of the 'new merlin addition contract'? I have not seen Black Mirror, but i doubt this maze sells it. It seems hugely disconnected from its IP..
Cheers for your thoughts. I wouldn’t argue against you and say that it’s a great attraction, but the snippets I’ve quoted above (particularly: “… seems to have something to do with technology?”) suggest that some aspects of the attraction may have passed you by.

The show Black Mirror has an ongoing theme of “our willingness to rely on technology leading to nightmarish consequences”. A common everyday concern for many is how our personal data is being stored and accessed, unwillingly, by inadvertently authorising its use in this manner. If you’re not worried about your personal information being used in this manner…. You should be!

The attraction, which states that it respects your privacy, requires you to ‘sign up’ and give a photograph of yourself. In the very first pre-show, by virtue of giving your consent, the antagonist accesses all of your personal data and photographs (from social media) and ‘downloads’ them. Obviously this is all ‘fake’ but it’s absolutely 100% Black Mirror and is meant to invoke a sense of humility (about how helpless you are to stop such things) and comic irony (laughing at how easy it is to give away your information).

I think that aspect of the attraction (and/or theme) is excellent and integral to the experience in its current form.

Otherwise, yep, it’s a walkthrough maze with some interesting effects, likely to prompt a ‘mixed’ reaction in many and also likely to be a ‘once and done’ affair.

I can’t take your experience or feelings away from you, nor was that my intention, but to say the intro has “something to do with technology?” is to have missed the point somewhat, I think.
 

Furiustobaco

Mega Poster
The show Black Mirror has an ongoing theme of “our willingness to rely on technology leading to nightmarish consequences”. A common everyday concern for many is how our personal data is being stored and accessed, unwillingly, by inadvertently authorising its use in this manner. If you’re not worried about your personal information being used in this manner…. You should be!

The attraction, which states that it respects your privacy, requires you to ‘sign up’ and give a photograph of yourself. In the very first pre-show, by virtue of giving your consent, the antagonist accesses all of your personal data and photographs (from social media) and ‘downloads’ them. Obviously this is all ‘fake’ but it’s absolutely 100% Black Mirror and is meant to invoke a sense of humility (about how helpless you are to stop such things) and comic irony (laughing at how easy it is to give away your information).
somewhat, I think.
If that is relevant to the show then fair play. If that is how the theme plays out with context then that is very good indeed!
Though to those like me who have no prior experience or inkling to what the hell this attraction is about or what Black Mirror is- i am sure your average GP will be more confused by the theme than anything like myself. I believe sometimes being simple theme-wise is the way forward, and perhaps Thorpe got a little bit convoluted with this theme.
 

Robbie

Hyper Poster
To be fair, Black Mirror is an anthology show which means you can watch any episode with no prior knowledge of other episodes. So in theory you don't need to know about the show to experience the attraction and it should all be explained as you go along. I've not done it, but maybe they need to make this clearer.
 
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