Black Mirror: 10 Character Fates Worse Than Death

3. USS Callister - Exit Game!

Black Mirror
Netflix

There's a lot of gruesome fates in this acclaimed season four opener. From airlock jettisons, fifth-degree incineration, and shape-shifting body horror, no one is having a good time on board the USS Callister. No one except Captain Robert Daly (Jesse Plemons).

Robert Daly might be one of Black Mirror's best antagonists because his motivations are driven purely out of his psychopathic ego to treat those around him like his playthings to command. It's creepy enough that in the real world Robert is taking DNA samples of his coworkers, but when we realise he's creating digital clones of them to act as the subservient crew of his Star Trek video game, his omniscient control over them shows how psychotic he can be.

That is until new recruit Nanette (Cristin Milioti) launches a mutiny against the tyrannical Captain, and through elaborate means involving a chase sequence through space, manages to fly the crew through a Wormhole/Upgrade which frees them from Robert's grasp. The crew is upgraded to more comfortable means, meanwhile Robert is stuck in a nether zone he cannot escape.

If the realisation that the real-world Robert will certainly starve to death isn't glorious enough, just know that the simulated Robert will be forever stuck in a spaceship screaming to be set free. The digital recreations cannot die, they cannot sleep, and they cannot erase themselves without exterior intervention.

Some say the digital Robert Daly is still sat in that spaceship, screaming at the top of his lungs to exit the game.

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I overthink a lot of things. Will talk about pretty much anything for a great length of time. I'm obsessed with General Slocum from the 2002 Spider-Man film. I have questions that were never answered in that entire trilogy!