Misfits and Black Mirror

Misfits created and written by Howard Overman and Black Mirror created by Charlie Brooker have both their similarities and differences. Both of these shows are produced by channel 4. They are both in the sci-fi genre and show a dystopian future in a different way.  They both have a target audience of young adults but Black Mirror focuses more on the changing of the world and Misfits focuses on how we can be changed.

Black Mirror shows how technology can run the future and change it usually for the worst where as in Misfits they use a supernatural element by giving the group of protagonist’s super powers. Misfits isn’t set in the future but it defiantly shows a strong theme of Dystopia. Both Misfits and Black Mirror show strong connotations on how the world has a lack of control and order to create an unimaginable world. However Misfits can also come under the sub genre of black Comedy.

Due to Misfits being a hybrid-genre of sci-fi comedy the producer has opened up a lot more pathways that the TV show can take in order to be a lot more interesting. Misfits follows the narrative of a group of young offenders on community service that after a strange storm learn they now have a superpower. Although superpowers are very unrealistic the show adds a great sense of realism due to the portrayal of the characters. This show has a big representation of youth; the five main characters who happen to be teenagers are all on community service which certainly doesn’t portray teenagers in a good light. The youth are depicted in a worse light when they start committing terrible crimes even if they do it unintentionally.  Kelly is one of the protagonists and possibly the biggest stereotyped character; she is portrayed as lower class with bad language, lots of makeup and not much dignity. Kelly reminds me of a character in the film Fish Tank called Mia where she is portrayed in exactly the same way but you can see Mia is of a low social class which made me realise how Kelly was shown in the same way.

Black Mirror however follows a narrative in a dystopian future especially the second episode which surrounds the use of technology and how it will affect us in the future. The first episode surrounds the British prime minister being blackmailed into bestiality in order to save a princess’s life. This episode shows a representation of class and how much power they have. If the person he had to save wasn’t someone who belonged to a family of such great power maybe she would’ve been considered not worth saving, also the prime minister who is also upper class is who the blackmail was aimed at. Someone of such high status is more likely to attract attention. He has power over whether the princess died or lived but she had power over whether he was publicly embarrassed or deemed as a killer. They both have great power against one another although unintentionally. So this shows how Misfits and Black Mirror have the theme of power in both although very different types of power. However in the second episode we saw how the future would change at the speed technology is growing; soon our lives will be ruled by technology, the technology would be in charge of us and decide how we live our lives.

In conclusion both TV shows present themselves similarly by using similar themes. However how they both follow the conventions of the sci-fi genre is very different with one showing the birth of the supernatural and the other showing a new life for humans under the rule of technology.