Healthcare has long been a source of dread for ordinary people across the globe. It is not simply because of illness, which is a cumbersome thing to deal with in and of itself. It is primarily because of the systems put in place that are meant to treat it. From staggering medical bills to overburdened public hospitals—access to dignified, timely care remains a privilege rather than a right. Every day, millions are forced to choose between inadequate care or financial ruin. The anxiety isn't just about getting sick. It's about surviving what comes with it.
While stylistically worlds apart, Black Mirror season seven라이브 바카라 Common People (2025) and HBO Max라이브 바카라 latest medical drama The Pitt (2025), dig deep into our collective anxiety about healthcare라이브 바카라 dehumanisation. Whether it is through unchecked tech capitalism or collapsing public infrastructure, the anxieties find new places to thrive in. Together, these shows form a bleak duet about modern medicine라이브 바카라 moral erosion and the ordinary lives that get sacrificed in the subsequent churn. Unlike the dystopia of Common People, The Pitt is a more grounded take and gets to centre the few good folks standing in between the final fall of our healthcare system and the precipice we are standing on the edge of currently.
Common People depicts a chilling future where survival hinges on an ever-increasing subscription service—ironic, considering it라이브 바카라 on Netflix, a platform that has itself steadily raised its prices and introduced convoluted tier systems over the years. Co-written by Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker and Bisha K. Ali, and directed by Ally Pankiw, this episode takes the gig economy라이브 바카라 logic to its grotesque endpoint. Here, Rashida Jones라이브 바카라 Amanda survives only because her husband Mike (Chris O’Dowd) can afford a subscription plan that keeps her synthetic brain tissue functional after a life-threatening tumour.
Common People is based in a world where governments seem to have forsaken their people entirely. But it is not too far off from the reality in the US, where private insurance companies regularly deny people the care they need. It is the reality that has led to the existence of a figure like Luigi Mangione, who is under trial for allegedly shooting Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare. In a searing critique of the insurance industry, the bullet shell casings at the murder scene were engraved with the words “deny,” “defend,” and “depose”—a chilling distillation of the very tactics undertaken by insurance companies that have turned modern healthcare into warfare on ordinary people.
The premise of Common People echoes real-world frustrations with tiered healthcare, from profit-hungry insurance models to the growing prevalence of privatised medicine globally. Amanda라이브 바카라 experimental surgical procedure may be free, but continued survival is paywalled. This is an eerie, haunting, heartbreaking commentary on how corporations redefine what constitutes treatment and how our loved ones ultimately pay the price.
In Common People, Amanda라이브 바카라 chip implant—akin to Elon Musk's Neuralink—turns her into a ghoulish human version of Siri/Alexa who has no option but to succumb to ultimate ruin. Ever had an ad for the exact pot of plant pop up on Facebook after an innocuous conversation with your mother over tea and wondered how intrusive that was? Imagine your brain becoming riddled with algorithms you have no control over. Amanda begins spouting ads mid-conversation when they can no longer afford the premium subscriptions. Her consciousness is intruded upon by commercial interests. This becomes a satirical extension of branded content라이브 바카라 invasion into even our most private spaces. More insidiously, Common People critiques the illusion of choice. As Amanda라이브 바카라 health deteriorates without upgrades, we see how the system pretends to offer autonomy while pushing them towards a fateful outcome.
What is even more disturbing is how Common People doesn't caricature Amanda or Mike. Instead, it shows how love and desperation can bind people to depraved systems. Mike라이브 바카라 degrading stunts on the Dum Dummies platform echo the rise of humiliation-based influencer culture, where pain becomes currency, and dignity is another commodity waiting to be sold to the highest bidder. In this storyline, there are echoes of Black Mirror라이브 바카라 very first episode (arguably one of its best ones), The National Anthem (2011), where humiliation becomes a tool of control. Here, too, degradation is commodified, through spectacle and as a necessary transaction within a system that thrives on exploiting vulnerability.
If Black Mirror critiques a techno-capitalist future, The Pitt faces the crisis already here. Created by R. Scott Gemmill and executive produced by ER (1994-2009) veterans John Wells and Noah Wyle, The Pitt is intimate, slow-burning, and hyper-grounded. Each episode represents one hour in a 15-hour shift, following overworked emergency room staff as they battle fatigue, trauma, and an overwhelmed system during a single workday.
Unlike Common People, which externalises our modern medical anxieties through sci-fi invention, The Pitt internalises it showcasing lived experiences all too familiar. Staff shortages, emotional exhaustion, and budget cuts are portrayed not as unusual circumstances but as everyday norms. Fresh-faced interns are dropped into the midst of chaos and forced to learn to navigate this world under pressure, while senior doctors like Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch (Noah Wyle) quietly unravels on the anniversary of a mentor라이브 바카라 COVID-19 death.
In a show that already tackles so many issues—from abortion to autism to the rise of incel culture—The Pitt also manages to capture how the pandemic continues to haunt healthcare workers, without sensationalising it. This refusal to dramatise makes it all the more compelling. There are no high-octane surgeries or miraculous recoveries. We see routine tragedy and ethical ambiguity. It라이브 바카라 not an indictment of individual failure but of systemic collapse.
Moreover, both shows explore the psychological fallout of the failing systems that serve as the de facto framework for their stories. Mike라이브 바카라 descent into desperation and Robby라이브 바카라 quiet grief—both reveal a corrosion of the spirit brought on by these systems meant to act as safeguards. Mental health is rarely foregrounded in medical narratives; but here, it's central. The shows revolve around the reality and trauma of working (or living) inside failing systems that demand superhuman endurance while offering subhuman support. They tap into the truth we are increasingly aware of while unable to do anything to change. We know access to care is less about need and more about means nowadays. Whether in the UK, the US, or elsewhere, neoliberal models have chipped away at healthcare라이브 바카라 foundational promise—that everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and compassion. Instead, we're asked to upgrade, subscribe, hustle, or settle. And somewhere in between we get glimpses of the immense toll it takes on those closest to us, who become the caretakers by default and dim their own energies while simply trying to survive.
Common People and The Pitt offer complementary critiques of the medical-industrial complex. One shows where we might be headed; the other reminds us where we are is already dystopian enough. Between the ads Amanda recites and the patients left waiting endlessly in Pittsburgh라이브 바카라 trauma centre, we sit down to take notes on how much care really costs, and, slowly, we get engulfed by the dread that it is a cost that is, increasingly, one we cannot afford. So where do we go from here? Who do we turn to for deliverance when all our elected leaders seem to have long abandoned us?
Debiparna Chakraborty is a film, TV, and culture critic dissecting media at the intersection of gender, politics, and power
