Heinlein’s ‘The Moon is a Harsh Mistress,’ is an Easter Egg in Season 6’s Beyond The Sea
What are the parallels between ‘The Space’ episode of Black Mirror and Robert Heinlein’s seminal sci fi work, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress?
Season 6’s “Beyond the Sea” starring Aaron Paul, Josh Hartnett and Kate Mara takes place at the height of the space race in 1969. In the depicted alternate reality, though, astronauts are able to keep a lifeline at home via ‘replicas,’ synthetic bodies that they can remotely control from their spacecraft.
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Astronaut Dave’s family is killed by a Manson-esque hippie cult with an aversion to synthetic beings. After destroying his replica body, they effectively imprison Dave on the lonely reality of his space pod. Given that Astronaut Cliff still has his connection to Earth, Dave is left in solitude for days at a time, while Cliff ports his consciousness back to Earth.
Eventually, Cliff perceives that Dave is at a breaking point, and realizes that without a sane co-pilot, his own life is in jeopardy. He reluctantly agrees to loan out his replica to Dave, so that Dave can have an Earth respite every once in a while. Dave (in Cliff’s replica body) is welcomed by Lana, Cliff’s wife to Cliff’s lakeside retreat. While she initially keeps her distance, she and Dave eventually hit it off – and after mentioning a love of sci-fi, he gifts her Heinlein’s book.
The Significance of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Heinlein’s epic sci-fi is considered one of the great novels in the sci fi cannon. It tells a story of a moon colony, with an 18th century Australian-like population of ex-convicts, who eventually decide to revolt against the powers that be on Earth. Below are just a few of the elements of Beyond the Sea that may have been inspired by Heinlein’s novel:
A Robotic Arm
When the hippie cults attacks Dave’s family and replica, they verify his synthetic body by cutting off one of the replicas’ arms. The still shot of the severed arm drives home that Dave isn’t really on Earth – and that he’s just a mechanical projection.
The Parallel: The protagonist and narrator of Moon is a Harsh Mistress is Manuel Garcia O’Kelly Davis, who is a computer technician with a mechanical (bionic) arm. In actuality, he has a whole suitcase of robotic arms depending on what the situation calls for.
The Dinkum Thinkum
In Moon, Manuel (Mannie) is called on by the Moon government to fix a supercomputer that runs many of the colony’s critical systems. In conversing with the computer, Mannie realizes that its sentient and even likes to tell jokes. As he builds a relationship with the computer, called Mike, Mannie realizes that the entire fate of the Moon colony depends on what Mike decides to do with his newfound self awareness.
The Parallel: Mike, the supercomputer, was a primary inspiration for the HAL 9000 computer in Arthur Clark and Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Given that one of the astronauts in Beyond the Sea is named Dave (after Spaceman Dave from 2001), and the episode takes place in 1969, and the movie launched in 1968, the influence of Mike & HAL on this episode is very real.
TANSTAAFL
TANSTAAFL is an acronym used by Mannie in Moon that stands for There Ain’t No Such Thing as a Free Lunch. This is Mannie’s way of saying that nothing is free.
The Parallel: In Beyond the Sea, the astronauts have the best of both worlds — being able to sail among the stars, while still having a home life with their families via the connection to their replicas. But, as Mannie tells us, nothing is free. You cannot have your cake & eat it too, even as a beloved 1960 astronaut. For while adventuring in space and still having a home life seems like the best of both worlds – in reality, you’re leaving your family with an otherworldly, robotic doppleganger, that may alienate them.
