Black Mirror Season 6 Episode 3 Beyond The Sea Explained- Is It Related To USS Callister And The Valley Of The Dolls?

Black Mirror Season 6 Episode 3 Beyond The Sea is compelling because of the relatable human struggle at its core. The dual setting of Beyond The Sea, part spacey future story, and vintage romance, are smartly written to allow us to see the potential of a well-meaning technology that becomes very warped by our basest instincts. This is why we can’t have nice things, people. Beyond The Sea is a tragic tale of grief, loneliness, and despair. Well-meaning actions have deadly consequences in this look at tainted love.

Josh Hartnett and Aaron Paul are astronauts on a spaceship that use tech to project their consciousnesses into robots or avatars back on Earth so they can spend most of their time with their families. Cliff(Paul) and David only have to wake up and be conscious on their spaceship when something goes wrong and to do checkups. It’s a handy setup that feels more romantic and optimistic than most episodes of Black Mirror. We should have known better, though. Black Mirror Season 6 Episode 3, Beyond The Sea, won’t let us off that easy.

It seems like a great setup until one night, some intruders break into David’s(Hartnett) family home on Earth and mutilate his body before turning their sights on his family. He wakes up on the ship and puts himself back into the robot on Earth, where he finds his family being terrorized by the intruders. They are disgusted by the high-tech doppelganger and want to punish them all. The intruders force David to watch as they kill his wife and kids. Cliff is woken up in his Earth body and told about the murders. He tries to talk to David on the ship, but he is in shock and in massive pain.

On Earth, Cliff and his wife Lana, played by Kate Mara, discuss David’s tragedy. The killers destroyed David’s robot, so he cannot reconnect with Earth now. Without him, there is no way to make a new avatar, and he wouldn’t have anyone to visit anyway. Cliff realizes that every moment he is in his robot body, David is alone on the ship with no one to talk to and only his pain to keep him company. With four years left in their mission, it is an untenable situation.

Day by day, Cliff watches David deteriorate. Realizing Cliff needs David to complete the mission and get home safely; he decides to let him use his avatar. Cliff and his wife agree to let David use his body temporarily. That isn’t enough for David, though; he asks for one hour a week to walk in his home, interact with Cliff’s family, and paint. It helps tremendously, but over time, David in Cliff’s avatar and Lana begin having feelings for each other. Lana comes alive and admires David’s interests in art and literature.

Things get really messy when David tries to seduce Lana, and she rejects him. When David first starts dancing with Lana, she accepts the attention because he looks and feels like her husband, and she is lonely. She has wanted Cliff to touch her like that, but she is not a cheater and cares for her husband. The confrontation is ugly and only gets worse when Cliff finds out David hit his son while in his avatar.

It gets worse still when Cliff finds nude drawings of Lana. The two men have a confrontation, and David shouts at Cliff that he doesn’t appreciate what he has. David says I am all alone, and your wife and son are alive yet so lonely. David says Cliff doesn’t care for Lana and doesn’t satisfy her. There may be some truth to that, but he was wrong to take advantage of the situation.

On Earth, Cliff questions Lana about David and the accusations he made. He learns nothing happened, but David wanted something too, and so did she for a moment. It wasn’t that she wanted David, she wanted Cliff, and in her confusion, she wished something had happened. Lana and Cliff reconcile, and now David and Cliff are stuck in an uncomfortable situation in an enclosed space. David begs for one more chance to use his avatar to apologize, and Cliff refuses, saying Lana is his and repulsed by David. It’s an understandably ugly response, but it seems to push David over the edge.

David asks Cliff to use his link one final time to apologize and say he is sorry to Lana, and things get very dark. Maybe you were expecting a love story or a tragic forbidden romance, but instead, Beyond The Sea gives you insanity and misguided vengeance. Cliff refuses, and while he is in his avatar, David summons Cliff back onto the ship with a ruse about a needed space walk and takes that opportunity to use his tag and travel back to Earth. David didn’t want to leave Cliff to die outside the ship. He wanted him to feel the same pain he felt. He used Cliff’s avatar and killed Lana and his son so he would know what it felt like to lose everything.

The real gut punch is that David and Cliff are stuck with each other if they want to survive. The mission requires two people to finish it, and the ship needs two people to fly it. They have to either live with each other or commit to dying.

Why is the significance of Valley Of The Dolls?

The novel by Jacqueline Susann, which was made into a movie in 1967, was a cautionary tale about the dangers of fame and Hollywood. It followed three actresses who moved to Hollywood looking for fame and fortune and instead found heartbreak and addiction. Sharon Tate was one of the movie’s stars, and the Manson clan infamously killed her in August 1969. This detail alludes to the Manson-esque group of intruders who broke into David’s house and murdered his family at the beginning of the episode.

Is Beyond The Sea related to USS Callister?

The two stories don’t have any direct ties; however, the look and feel of the episodes, plus the avatar concept, seem eerily reminiscent. The ship Cliff and David are on also looks similar to the one on USS Callister. If the same technology were used to transmit one’s consciousness into an avatar instead of a computer-generated computer program, then Beyond The Sea would be the result. USS Callister would be the result if that same tech were modified slightly. Additionally, Aaron Paul’s voice is Gamer691, the sadistic mind behind the computer-generated avatar world he created in USS Callister. If Beyond The Sea is a prequel and the murder of his family is the catalyst for his decline, he could become Gamer691 in the future. It’s unlikely this is true, but these two stories feel like they could have sprung from the same universe.

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