We know Charlie Brooker as the creator of “Black Mirror”, the sometimes-overwhelming, sometimes-annoying dystopian satire, always a bit pretentious but also disturbing. But before Brooker turned “Black Mirror” into a global sensation (the opening chapter The immortal, with the British Prime Minister and you know exactly which farm animal and exactly in which position, definitely helped) – he wrote in a BBC program that is not really known outside the British Isles, Brass Eye – a kind of provocative parodic news broadcaster, which gained its fame, among other things, thanks to the ability of its creators to confuse not only the viewers but also very serious people, who answered stupid questions with complete seriousness (a kind of early English incarnation of Sacha Baron Cohen’s Who Is America?, if you will). Why are we telling you this now? Because the series The new one that Charlie Brooker is producing and writing for the BBC, which is now coming to Netflix, may look like his experiment in a new genre – but in fact it has come home.
Cunk on Earth is a pseudo-scientific mockumentary program, hosted by “Philomena Cunk” (say her last name out loud, if you haven’t caught the joke here yet) – she is Diane Morgan, a British comedian you may recognize from Ricky G’s “After Life” Rabies or from the Netflix special “Death to 2020” (and its sequels), which were also created by Brooker. If we have already mentioned the almost-mockumentary pranks of Sacha Baron Cohen, then perhaps we can say that Philomena Kanak is the exact opposite of our beloved Borat Sagdeev – if Borat neutralizes people through his ignorance and detachment, then Kanak seems terribly smart, terribly progressive, terribly up-to-date and anything that comes her way The mouthpiece is utter nonsense full of infinite self-importance and no less ignorant than Borat.
This time Kanak sets off to talk to experts about the history of humanity on Earth, when she talks to a bunch of very serious people who think that a very serious woman is sitting in front of them about topics like the Big Bang, the Renaissance and the pyramids. Also, they’re mostly British and therefore too polite to interrupt her even when she asks a Renaissance art expert if Renaissance artists were at least as good as Beyonce, and then goes on the attack on him for not liking Beyonce enough. It’s a short season (five episodes, because it’s fun with Brits, they don’t want you to marry their series), it’s waiting for you on Netflix right now. Go for it.
Cunk on Earth (what a great name, god), now on Netflix