Released in 2013 (at a brief point when this concept initially felt utterly preposterous), I can fondly remember (a happier, much simpler time in our nation's history) all those years ago when "The Waldo Moment" received a fairly tepid response from critics & fans alike across the globe (myself included, I'll admit) - labelled as "the worst" the series had to offer, brazenly disregarded & forgotten about by the majority who paid the foreboding warning no mind etc.
How wrong we were.
It aged like fine wine.
Ironically (in an ominous collision between fiction & reality), that's because nobody took this cautionary satire seriously (chronicling our population doing precisely that, complacently sleepwalking in to the inevitable chaos guaranteed to ensue by dignifying dangerous ideologies / lack of them, over simplifying complex issues - requiring nuance, diplomacy - & galvanising support for a contemptuous façade under the guise of meaningful protest votes, actually rendering all votes meaningless as a consequence); collectively, we naively laughed at the farcical absurdity with incredulity & derision (under the false pretence that such a circumstance would never arise in truth - challenging our suspension of disbelief since our imaginations were unable to stretch further than was needed - in hindsight, what would await us only 3 years later), yet in the grisly prophetically accurate style of "Black Mirror", just like the people within the episode learned their lesson to complete dismay, underestimating the power of nihilistic, far right populism (giving voice to the disenfranchised within society - angry at the injustices of the world, yet channelling the frustration in completely the wrong direction; cynically wishing to tear down the old whilst offering nothing new in its place) is dangerously unwise & lacking in self-awareness. Hence, we're not laughing now & the joke's irrefutably on us.
Brexit. Trump. Boris Johnson. Bolsanaro. The list goes on.
Personality has triumphed over politics (as it predicted) & soberingly, we're now living in the age, obliviously never thought possible only a decade ago.