Incredible Premise. Competent Execution.

CW: Police Brutality, Racism, Addiction, PTSD

There is a really interesting kernal to this story that I would love to see fleshed out end explored further. Unfortunately, everything else, while decent enough, doesn't distinguish itself or march the potential of the premise.

We've seen all manner of 'in the future everything is monetised' stories, taking the 'if a service is free, you are the product' we see most obviously with social media to it's inevitable sci-fi extreme. But something I have yet to see is a Black character using the racist and murderous thugs that are the police (ACAB) and their horrifying operating procedure to raise awareness and their following. This could be easily be used in a crass, disrespectful manner, but Lemelle handles it with enough care and intention, as far as I can tell. Particularly, with the protagonist, while going out with the intention of getting police violence on film, not being shown as provoking the police, aside from existing while Black. The sad part is that the structural racism and the white supremacist capitalist authority that the cops serve is discussed. The discrepancy in how the majority of people respond to the sanctioned killers and their victims is an impactful moment, but without a greater grounding and context I think the story loses some impact.

The worldbuilding is fine and overall it's a decently crafted story, but this could easily have been greater than a mid Black Mirror episode in quality -- I know people throw around Black Mirror as an insult, but I genuinely think the writing and commentary in some of the episodes are great, and allegorical sci-fi should be aiming to at least match the best that show has to offer, and should really be surpassing it.

The Kevin 'Murderbot' Free narration was great, and truly would have sang if the story had a little more going on.

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