Welcome back to Thursday Movie Picks series hosted by Wandering through the Shelves! I missed the deadline last week but now I've returned. In case you're interested, the rules are simple: based on the theme of the week, pick three to five movies and share the reason. Should anyone be interested in joining in, feel free to visit the main page here.
This year the series introduces a new category, the television edition; and this month's theme is science fiction. This time I'm picking some recent and popular TV titles (in case anyone wants to catch up with it, people wouldn't lost in myriads of seasons). This week I pick 3 titles and 1 honorable mentions. Here's my picks!
01. Black Mirror (2011- )
This British sci-fi anthology is rad! Each episode tells a different story about how technology has advanced in the near-future. The episodes are equally thought-provoking and harrowing-in a sense that they challenge our beliefs in the ideal future. People keep comparing it with The Twilight Zone; at some points, that claim is right in regards with how the story might lead to a total suffocating terror in a way we don't expect. However, Black Mirror 's tendency in delivering satire about 'the future' makes it as jaw-dropping as seeing a new gadget only to know that there's an invisible risk within.
02. Stranger Things (2016- )
Netflix original series, Stranger Things, stole the world's attention in 2016. Regarded as a homage to retro-family sci-fi films from the 80s, this Duffer Brothers' creation is astonishing in many ways. The complex, family-friendly plot is a thing, but the real dopes in this series are the cast. From Winona Ryder to Millie Bobby Brown, the solid cast presents us a bunch of characters we love to sympathize. It's really a rare gem.
03. Westworld (2016- )
HBO's new entry is an ambitious, sci-fi powerhouse co-created by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy. On the surface, Westworld looks as if it is inspired by Yul Bremner's film of the same title; however, it works at a completely different level. It's mind-blowing at all aspects in a way you can expect from the mind of Jonathan Nolan. Only, this one is Nolan's most thought-provoking and perplexed work to date. Not only it sparks buzzes over discussions about Baudreality and bicameral mind, it talks about science ethics at its finest.
Honorable mention: American Horror Story Asylum (2012)
Asylum is surprisingly the most sci-fi entry to American Horror Story saga. Set in an asylum called Briarcliff, there are more nods to scientific elements to create horror. Biological experiment, UFO abduction, brainwashing and dementia create more horrors than the possession subplots. It's wicked more because of the sci-fi elements for me.