Black Mirror (The Waldo Moment)

“Lord, what fools these mortals be!” –Puck, from William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”

The worst episode of “Black Mirror”, “The Waldo Moment”’s heart is in the right place but its execution is all over the place. A story about a cartoon character (voiced by a failed standup) running for office, the episode can’t find its keystone moment where everything clicks. Waldo’s run feels propelled by the writers, not by himself, which is sort of the point but comes across as unearned to the audience. Its ultimate joke, of course, is that it doesn’t go far enough with its satire.

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