Black Mirror is a satirical, suspenseful series about our collective unease with the modern world by Charlie Brooker. The first episode, National Anthem, is about an internet troll who kidnaps a princess and demands the Prime Minister (Rory Kinnear) commits an indecent act with a pig.

Michael Callow, the Prime Minister, boyish and balding, obviously rejects this idea. With nearly a full day to rescue Princess Suzanna, ‘The Princess,’ his wife calls her despairingly, he is confident that they have options. They will get her back.

Only they don’t, over and over again they don’t. With every avenue that closes Callow’s face gets a little shinier and more desperate. His wife hisses at him that in people’s head this is already happening, they are already imagining it.

Tom Bilce, a gingery and pucker faced Tom Goodman-Hill, is trying to manage the press, while another aide – a woman, who, or course, gets called a female dog – investigates the possibility of using CGI to map the PM’s face over that of a porn star doing the act. Neither is successful. A journalist sexts a civil servant a topless picture and gets him to spill classified details about a rescue attempt. (Really? For a picture? He’s easy.) The government uses a commercial studio to film the fake PM committing the act and a picture of the porn star volunteer (Rod Senseless) is tweeted to the masses.

Next thing you know a finger with a ring on it is delivered to the press along with an Alice in Wonderland note ordering them to ‘WATCH THIS’ memory stick. This is possibly one of the more ridiculous plot elements since it turned out not to be a dainty lady finger at all, instead it was the little finger of a middle aged artist. These are not observant people. (A spoiler, but such a ridiculous plot point it made my eye twitch.)

Did the PM do it? Didn’t he?

I don’t suppose it really matters for the purposes of this review – and a show is never gone with 4onDemand, and I don’t want to spoil everything – the important thing is that apparently the entire UK population was dying to see it. Not even at home, in the privacy of their sticky dens, but in pubs with their children. It was like some perverse street party.

The ‘collective unease’ Brooker is addressing in this episode seems to be the power of social media and the uncontrolled spread of information. Along with a soupçon of journalistic responsibility and an amuse-bouche about increasingly outre art and media. Except mostly, the people are just horrible.

The kidnapper is horrible, the media are horrible, the politicians are horrible, the prime minister is horrible (not because of his situation and decision, just because he seems like a bit of a knob) and the general public are grotesque, voyeuristic perverts. Everyone is horrible and they all get together for a lovely afternoon at the pub to watch bestiality on the BBC. Including children, because the people in this world are so horrible they let their children watch hard-core porn.

Are we meant to think, ‘this is what online pseudonymity and lack of answerability will lead to?’ That’s so Summer 2011. Less facetiously, go online. Yes there are trolls uncounted, but there are also people who refuse to engage, who call the trolls out and correct the use of slurs and discriminatory language. Riots, happy slappers and all, there are still nice people in the world.

Or maybe I’m just not quite as jaded and cynical as I like to think? That would surprise everyone.

Brooker says he was inspired by watching Gordon Brown apologise to Gillian Duffy. Apparently he thought, ‘wait a minute, who’s in charge here!’ Which, seeing as we are still a democracy, is a slightly strange question to ask.

National Anthem was an interesting idea, that was handled a bit heavy-handedly for my taste. Occasionally it just seemed like an opportunity to spend an hour making the audience squirm as much as possible. I think I’ve heard more references to bestiality in the last hour than I have in years online. (And yes, I know what furries are.) However, there were nice moments, such as when pinch-faced Tom tried to find a way to spin the event into the acceptable face of bestiality and the very final scene. (I found the whole kidnapper motivation ridiculous, it was a Doozer construction of beet sugar and snideness, but that last minute was excellent.)

Maybe next week will be better? It is a sarcastic look at reality TV, in a world where the only escape from physical drudgery is to take part in the TV talent show Hot Shots. They are up against tough competition though, it needs to out-do the Doctor Who episode where reality show losers were disintegrated.