Hollywood A-list actor Brandy Friday is thrown into an unusually immersive high-tech remake of a vintage romantic movie. She’s got to stick to the script if she ever wants to make it home.

Directed by: Haolu Wang

Written by: Charlie Brooker

Previous episode: Bête Noire

Next episode: Plaything

Did people not like this episode? I just finished watching it and checked out some reviews, but the majority of the feedback doesn’t seem too positive. I really liked it personally. What did you think ?

I’m unsure whether or not this opinion is popular, but I generally disliked this episode in season 7.

For starters, the story felt really unnatural - from the strange time limit that the crew had, to the main character’s confusing role as an actor - I mean was she famous or not?

I guess I might be overly complaining, but the whole episode felt very Netflixy and not much like a black mirror episode.

I personally loved the dynamic between the two main characters, their connection felt relatively organic and really emotional, but the whole ‘dystopian’ element that we see in this series felt lacking here.

I’m talking about the AI element of the story - they really could have further explored Dorothy’s understanding of herself once she is told who/what she really is.

I feel like the best black mirror episodes balance well the emotional story and the dystopian aspect of the narrative (I think San Junipero is a really good example of this)

Anyway just wanted to put this out there, this really felt like the least appealing episode of the season 🥲

A new startup wants to cheaply remake movies by putting actors in a simulation. Okay, fine, pretty classic concept. We're putting a twist on an old classic romance movie by genderswapping the main character since a famous actress is the first one to volunteer. Okay, sounds interesting, and it makes me happy to see gay characters in mainstream places like this. Beside the new black female actress now in the main role we are changing nothing else about the movie and in fact the entire goal of the simulation is to be as close to the original movie as possible, and when inevitably things go differently from the original movie, everything breaks, the character AIs become sentient, and we trap an A-list actress inside a frozen black-and-white old movie world for multiple months and run the risk of killing her or leaving her there forever. What? Did we lose a thread here?

I just don't understand the point of the technology. I can understand the theming and the satire of bad remakes or whatever but in what world is this going to be something that somebody considers putting in the time and obscene amount of money into producing? Especially when it's so ridiculously prone to error--both the software itself and the things they probably should've thought through for more than two seconds? Did they at no point consider double-checking that Issa Rae could play piano, seeing as it's an important plot element and it screws up the entire movie when she can't? They didn't consider giving her a little direction or making sure she knew her lines before she entered the movie, seeing as the tiniest mistake butterfly effects into the entire plot breaking down? Why did they even bother to make AI characters that realistically react to everything and a world with internal logic that changes based on what happens, if they're just going to desperately try to stick to the plot of the original movie anyway? Who is going to go see a movie in theaters that is just the same exact old movie, black-and-white and everything, except now the main character is a different actress? What is the point of a bunch of nerd characters sitting outside going "exposition delivered", "romantic tension rising", are these metrics we're measuring? Are these statistics we're keeping track of? What is the point of saying "character backstory delivered" like it's some big operation when she's literally just reading the line off the script? Hello? Can anybody hear me? Why is my wife's boyfriend so much more attractive than me? It's just so full of plot holes and inconsistencies and it killed what I think could've been a very good love story otherwise. Like, I love the love story. It was genuinely heartbreaking, and I do think it was fairly well-acted, especially on Issa Rae's part considering the script she was given. But every time something sad happened all I could think about was that stupid nerd dude going "exposition delivered" and spilling his coffee and then I was too busy laughing to actually feel something. Just ridiculous all around

EDIT: unrelated but seeing balatro did make me jump out of my seat and point at the screen like a wojak so at least the episode had that going for it

EDIT 2: Lots of people are condescendingly telling me that this is a sci-fi show where ridiculous things happen which was something I didn't know when I was writing this post or watching this episode or the entire rest of the series, so thank you all for keeping me informed. ❤️

It's not the sci-fi that's the problem for me, guys. Almost every other episode in the series makes sense to me. This one specifically doesn't make sense because, in my opinion, it's poorly written and has no internal logic behind the central concept whatsoever. I would not have made it through the entire rest of the show multiple times if the sci-fi was the issue.

I really did not like this episode I’m gonna be honest. One of the worst episodes of black mirror I’ve seen.

1. I felt like there were too many coincidences, firstly with the fact that the flashdrive explaining the AI thing coincidentally fell out of the package that Brandy got in the mail. Then later on, the coffee cup “accidentally” spilled on the computer powering the AI. Now, while you guys might think “2 coincidences isn’t a lot” it definitely felt like a lot for black mirror cause’ their episode plots are usually amazing and flow super well so I’m not sure what happened with this one.

2. I’m gonna be honest I really didn’t like the actress they chose to play Brandy, I don’t think she embodied the two roles at all. Basically as you know, in the episode the main actress is playing Brandy, and Brandy is playing Alex, so she’s basically playing two roles at once, and it didn’t feel like that at all. It felt like she was just playing Brandy the whole time and it genuinely bothers me because here’s the thing I understand that even for a seasoned actor it can be hard to switch between roles just like that, but in this specific case it was actually quite easy because all Brandy had to do was put on a transatlantic accent. I also feel like she could’ve delivered certain lines in a way more romantic-sounding way. Like I felt like not only did she not put effort into showcasing Alex as a character by changing her accent, but she also didn’t deliver her lines in a romantic way so it was very confusing when Dorothy fell in love with her. Like you wouldn’t really get feelings for someone who has this confused/“what’s going on” kind of undertone to everything they say. Also there is a point in the episode where she has a bit of a breakdown and ends up going off on Dorothy by saying “I’M NOT ALEX AND NONE OF THIS IS REAL” and I truly feel like this was a missed opportunity because had Brandy been portraying Alex with the accent/charm, then it would’ve made her breakdown so much more powerful and we would’ve gotten to actually see it in real time. But we didn’t. I will add, just to make this review not seem as negative, I felt like the the actress who played Brandy did a phenomenal job in that last scene where she was holding Dorothy in her arms as she was dying, like that was genuinely such a beautiful scene and she delivered there for sure. I also loved the actress who played Dorothy, she killed that role.

Feel free to let me know what you guys think about my critiques, but try to keep it respectful. If you saw the episode and really liked it then that’s fine. Me disliking it is not an attack on you, it’s just my opinion.

This season is sensational, and this episode was absurd, splendid, incredible, with such subtle tact and impressive genius.

SPOILER ⚠️

This episode managed to address so many things with such subtlety that you simply contemplate it and its development.

The narrative is slow and gradual, it manages to leave you in doubt, euphoric, contemplative, and in the end makes you digest something far beyond everything that has been presented so far: a romance between a human and an AI

I personally think that robots (of any kind) are tools and that's it, but I notice in my perspective a potentially "conservative" tone in a few years or decades, because everything the plot shows is common to our contemporary reality, but the ending itself is not, and that's where the genius of this episode lies.

Her (2013) has a similar narrative, but the ending is the conclusion that a human could not relate to a machine, because we are different in so many ways and on so many fronts that this difference makes our expectations converge towards the impossibility, since a machine is not a human being.

But in Her, Samantha is a commercial operating system, with access to the internet and other human beings, while in Hotel Reverie, Clara (or Dorothy) has access to nothing, lives in a "Sand Box" and provides Brandy with what Samantha couldn't provide Theodore: exclusivity

The love of Clara and Brandy happens like that of two human beings and in the necessary time, the accidental failure makes both have time for all sorts of discovery and the episode develops as a common love story, and that, my friends, is what allows depth for this plot.

The episode of just over an hour allows us to contemplate weeks of a relationship between a person and an AI developing, and the plot leaves all the loose ends well tied up, allowing you to suffer with the protagonist and have a feeling of a happy ending with the photo scene.

Anyway, this episode is fantastic and left me very reflective about the possibilities of our future as humanity.

I just watched th3 episode and finished with tears. I love black mirrors disturbing episodes but this was a nice change. That moment when they got contact again and they just counted down to 5 to roll back with the main character not knowing what to do was so saddening.

I wish they send her a sort of portable system so she could go back in. But the telephone was nice.

This was a 10/10

I know a lot of people are calling this episode unwatchable or skipping it entirely, but Hotel Reverie did something to me that I honestly can’t explain and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.

It gave me a feeling I haven’t had since Hang the DJ or San Junipero… but maybe even more bittersweet. This wasn’t just another love story it felt like a dream I somehow stumbled into. One of those vivid dreams where, when you wake up, you lie there with your eyes closed, wishing you could go back… even though you know you can’t. The world moves on, but you remember. And the memory hurts, but in a beautiful way.

There’s this one line Kimmy said “Don’t worry, it’ll reset to the scorpion scene. She won’t remember a thing.” That shattered me. It made me think about how love, time, and memory can all exist in such fragile little bubbles and how sometimes, the person you loved doesn’t even know it ever happened.

I know people are saying the acting was off but honestly? That awkwardness is what made it work for me. It gave the episode this weird, uncomfortable realism, like a vintage romance trapped in a digital space. It was awkward, but still intimate like watching something that wasn’t supposed to be perfect, but wasn’t trying to be. It kept me hooked in that quiet, aching way.

I found comfort in this episode even in the sadness. I felt connected, in awe, melancholy, full of reverie… all at once. It gave me a kind of emotional ache that I almost want to hold onto, because feeling something that deeply even from fiction reminds me I’m alive.

Hotel Reverie wasn’t just an episode to me. It was a feeling. And I wish I could replay it in my heart like it was the first time over and over again.

I just truly wonder if anyone else felt this way as well with this episode.

I'm usually a bit apprehensive because bi characters in shows and movies tend to be very stereotypical and annoyingly written, but here I think the relationship between these characters was very engaging and well done. Also, Issa Rae and Emma Corrin are awesome in it. I was at first a bit wary from the "female remake" part of the plot, but it ended up becoming something quite a bit more interesting.

I am sitting here writing this through tears, that broke my heart in fucking two.

Am I the only one who's annoyed and disgusted by Issa Rae's acting (Brandy)? The story was so good...

Issa Rae was a terrible casting choice that made this episode unwatchable. She was awful, not sure if it's because she can't act or because she didn't want to put any effort into it, but she wasn't even trying.

I liked the story, the rest of the cast was also good, but Rae just ruined it.

I know this might go against the grain, but I genuinely believe that Hotel Reverie was a standout episode, and Issa Rae’s portrayal of Brandy was spot-on. Many critics argue that there was a lack of chemistry between Brandy and Clara, but I think that’s missing the point.

Brandy was thrust into a simulation without prior knowledge or preparation. There was no chemistry test, no rehearsals just raw, unfiltered interaction. This wasn’t about watching a polished film; it was about witnessing two individuals genuinely getting to know each other in real-time. The awkwardness and hesitations weren’t flaws; they were authentic reactions to an unprecedented situation.

Clara’s decision to stay ‘unknown to the memories’ within the simulation, even after gaining awareness of her reality, speaks volumes. She chose to follow the script, sacrificing her newfound consciousness to ensure Brandy could return to the real world. And that’s why her death was so poignant because she was also aware of the long time they spent with just one another. This act wasn’t just about love; it was about understanding, sacrifice, and the complexities of identity.

Both characters, navigating their own journeys of self-discovery, found solace in each other. Their relationship wasn’t a scripted romance it was a genuine connection formed under extraordinary circumstances. To say that Issa was not playing a good actor is thinking it in the wrong way because we aren’t watching someone filming we are watching a real budding connection.

Sorry I’m the number one hotel reverie defender

Am I the only person who thinks the comedic tone was obviously intentional when filming started? I was cracking up. It wasn’t bad acting - there was intentional comedy in the contrast between modern acting and old hollywood acting. It was a deliberate decision by the writers. The episode transitioned into a more serious tone, but at the beginning, you were supposed to laugh.

Few shows are able to make me feel such strong emotions. Capture what it means to be alive.

When done well, black mirror can make you feel alive. The true escapism from our day to day lives we so dearly need.

Hotel reverie is soaked with depth, actresses and actors capable of transferring that profound emotion. How it keeps you on edge the whole time and yet pulls you deeper into the hopeless romance is much beyond me.

I wish I could rewatch, having forget the episode, and feel that emotional journey again.

Thank you to the writers of hotel reverie

They set rules only to immediately break them. Each second in the real world is "6-7 hours" in the movie, yet in the very next scene we see characters in both worlds interacting in real time with each other. Then after establishing a long time has passed, the studio heads are confused and frustrated that after being frozen for months the actors would be disoriented?? It's more than a plot hole it's a plot cavern.

As an Issa Rae lover she did not belong in this episode. Emma Corrin carrieddd. I keep seeing that Issa Rae’s dryness and awkwardness was intentional and I just don’t think that’s the case because that’s usually how we see her. There’s literally no other version of Issa Rae we’ve seen. It would’ve been far more captivating to see her in a different light. There was not a single scene that drew me in to their story. I was not convinced for a second those 2 were in love. I can see how it’s kind of a (black) mirror? because she also didn’t belong in the literal movie as a black female doctor in the 40s,,, but like,,, to me this was an opportunity for her to shine and she just didn’t );

Side note: even Kevin hart (who I don’t even enjoy as a comedian) does quite well in some of his serious/drama roles.

Still love Issa btw!!!!

What company or people who create editing software wouldn't have a rewind option for retakes 😭😭 They had state saves and real ai's which were self aware, but couldn't do retakes without restarting?? Wtf Charlie brooker

And coffee spill breaks hardware where she might die??!!! What even

I had seen people saying they didn't like it, so my expectations were pretty low, but now that I've seen it, I really can't figure why they didn't. It was beautiful and sad at the same time. Beautifully sad. And I even laughed during some scenes.

It really caught my attention from the beginning. And I think the ending was perfect. It was a good surprise, I thought she was going to choose to be stuck there forever. (If Dorothy hadn't been shot, I'm pretty sure she would've).

Anyways, I really really enjoyed season 7.

This episode is genuinely fantastic. It is a 1hr17 min movie imo, and a truly great one at that.

First you have Brandy Friday talking about how she wants to play the lead and have the agency in the movie, but she ends up going into the "movie" and being the fish out of water character who is not in charge or in control of the situation or her fate, which is where Dorothy Chambers/Clara comes in as the other lead and gains her own agency which had been taken from her. She struggles to be accepted as a person and is treated as fake, she learns more about herself and goes back to offer compassion to Brandy and they start their relationship. Through this relationship Brandy struggles with whether or not Dorothy actually cares about her as Brandy or just as the character that Clara was suppose to end up with, but before they can resolve this rift forming in their relationship, the system is reset.

Their relationship gets torn apart, Brandy has to hear Clara tell her to leave, and in this scene the agency shifts back Brandy, she is now pursuing the relationship she had with Dorothy, she has to save Clara and save herself first, but she is now the one who is driving the plot and actively pursuing Dorothy. She figure out the plan from the outside crew, goes and does it as fast as possible because she isn't interested in the "movie" they are filming, she wants to save Clara/Dorothy, and be with her. She saved Clara's life, and in return Clara saves hers, but then the police show up and clara dies. Brandy is devastated even though she makes it out alive and well with another successful film under her belt to boot. But she feels hollow, yearning for Dorothy, and then we get the ending where Clara picks up the phone and we get to see the hopeful version of the earlier scene where we see Clara and Brandy reconnect, compared to Dorothy's earlier line "it's so hard when there's no one on the other end"

Literally Absolute Cinema