Black Mirror fans have pointed out a potentially major plot hole in one of the new episodes of season six - but is there an explanation for it? In Beyond the Sea, the story follows two astronauts who are able to project their consciousness onto robotic versions of themselves living on Earth while their human body is still in outer space, only returning to the ship for physicals or if there is a technical issue.
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However, fans questioned the logic of the situation, with one writing: "In the Beyond the Sea ep of black mirror season 6... if a perfect robot situation could be made of a person WHY would they send the person to space but keep the robot thing on earth." Another person agreed, adding: "Said this about ten minutes in, plus, why in the hell would the government not guard the replicas with at least a police detail given that they can't make another one, also why is there no locked door into each astronaut's pod? That would solve everything." A third person added: "This was my issue with the episode. Not to be the fun police but I hate bad science in sci-fi. Engineers would never send two people with no redundancies up on a ship that requires two people to function. It only makes sense to send the replicas w/ multiple backups."
However, other viewers had explanations, with one writing: "It's pretty obvious. If you spend billions on a space mission and the link somehow fails you have no way of continuing the mission and all money is lost. If the link fails on Earth at least you can continue the mission." Another fan pointed out that the robots wouldn’t have been able to go outside, as Cliff and David have to remove all metal items before going through the airlock. They wrote: "I remember they remove all the metal things on their body before going outside their ship."
A third person added: "They actually say in the episode that the point of the mission is to track the effects of being in space on the human body lol."
The haunting episode follows the two astronauts as they deal with a catastrophic incident when David’s wife and children are murdered in front of the robotic version of himself, which is then destroyed, leaving him grief-stricken while trapped on a spaceship. As an act of kindness, Cliff offers to lend him his robot link, meaning that David can spend time on Earth in Cliff’s robotic body double. However, he soon becomes infatuated with Cliff’s wife, leading to a grisly conclusion.
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Speaking about the episode, creator Charlie Brooker said: "These [characters] haven’t been touched in years but they get this sort of simulated touch. [David] has an obvious need, from the very first scene to connect with Cliff on a different level, and that doesn’t ever come to fruition. I felt like I got it, and I understood why he went to that place [at the end of the episode]."