Mr. Robot is one of the most underrated shows ever

Mr. Robot is a contemporary cyberpunk masterpiece that captivated audiences with complex, intricate storytelling characters, and thought-provoking themes. Created by Sam Esmail, the show delves into the world of cybersecurity, corporate warfare, mental health, world politics, and the alienation of modern society.

The show follows Elliot Anderson, played by the Academy Award winner Rami Malik. Elliot is a cybersecurity engineer working for a security company, saving servers during the day and hacking in the night. He joins a mysterious hacking group called F-Society, which plans to take down the biggest conglomerate on the planet and make everyone's debt disappear.

The hacking cum-global-conspiracy drama also stars Christian Slater, Portia Doubleday, Carly Chaikin, Grace Gummer, BD Wong, and Martin Wallstrom in prominent roles.

Minor spoilers ahead!

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Acclaimed yet overlooked: The high ratings paradox for Mr. Robot

Mr. Robot is one of the most critically acclaimed and highest-rated shows of all time. The first season has a 98% rating on rotten tomatoes and the rest of the three seasons also score above 90%.

Mr. Robot was ranked as the best show of the year in 2015 by acclaimed critics and magazines such as Entertainment Weekly, Rolling Stone, and TV Guide. Forbes, The Daily Telegraph, and The New York Times hailed the writing, acting, and visual mastery of the show, naming it one of the best.

The show was also nominated for several accolades and won two Golden Globe awards, three Primetime Emmy Award, a Writers Guild of America Award, and a Peabody Award over the years.

However, despite these accolades and critical acclaim, the show faced a consistent drop in ratings since season one. The show premiered to around 1.39 million viewers per episode. The rating dropped to 0.76 million in season 2, and almost 0.57 million viewers in season 3.

It's unclear why, despite its cult following and critical praise, Mr. Robot is still underrated.

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Mr. Robot is a masterclass in mind-bending storytelling

Revolutions have consequences( Image via whoismrrobot Official Instagram)

The show follows Elliot Anderson as he manages a corporate job, with a little side hustle of hacking to go after the top one percent of the one percent, the ones who play God without permission, as he calls them. As a member of the F-society, he can breach into security, access hidden secrets, and uncover global conspiracies.

However, Elliot is not a reliable narrator. He is a clinically depressed insomniac and a frequent drug abuser who can't remember most of the things he did. In the first season, he tries to kiss Darlene, only to be pushed back by her, who seems visibly disgusted. In a shocking twist, she reminds him that she is his sister.

It's not only Elliot that the audiences can't trust but a whole bunch of characters in Mr. Robot. All with their hidden motives and agendas trying to win this game, keeping the viewers on the edge of their seats at all times, sometimes making them trip due to shocking revelations.

Elliot however is the core of the show's mind-bending narrative structure. Viewers can't figure anything in the show until he figures himself out. His journey of self-discovery through uncovering conspiracies makes up for some of the best scenes in television history.

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Mr. Robot has iconic episodes celebrated by critics and fans alike

Vera from Mr. Robot(Image via whoismrrobot Official Instagram)

Mr. Robot commits to its genre and pushes the limit of television and visual storytelling, by crafting some of the greatest individual episodes of all time for a TV show.

Season 3 episode 5 of the show especially caught attention for pulling off an episode that looks like a 44-minute-long one-shot take. The New York Times considered the episode as at the limits of television as an art form, and described the episode as 'exceptional' and 'unforgettable'.

Season 4 episode 5, '405 Method Not Allowed', and episode 7,'407 Proxy Authentication Required' received similar praise. The former episode is shot almost without dialogues, and the latter is filmed entirely in the same building and set up like a five-act play.

The bold storytelling of the show has earned it a cult status among viewers, with dedicated fan groups hailing its themes and complexity. Emily Saint James of Vox named it among the "shows that help explain the decade", praising its contemporary relevance.

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Mr. Robot takes a deep dive into mental health

Still from season 4(Image via whoismrrobot Official Instagram)

Can you change the world that has changed you? Can you show the world the reality that hides in broad daylight?

Elliot Anderson, the protagonist of the show grapples with the turmoil of existence and the corruption of modern society that common people choose to ignore. He is a man of deep thought, desperate to make a difference.

But despite his revolutionary thoughts, he is just a clog in the wheel of this giant corporate machinery, that secretly runs the world behind political systems. All he can do is hack into the accounts of pedophiles and low-level criminals to make a dent in the rotten nature of reality.

Then he meets Mr. Robot, an anarchist with a revolutionary idea and resources to bring the rich and powerful on their knees. But there's a catch! Mr. Robot doesn't exist. Elliot is Mr. Robot. He is the perpetrator, the victim, the executioner, and the savior. It's not just his fight against the world, but also with himself.

Every character in the show is nuanced and battling their inner demons while uncovering the web of societal structures. Mental health plays a key role in defining these characters. While Elliot battles disassociative personality disorder, clinical depression, anxiety, insomnia, and drug addiction, his sister Charlene battles loneliness and anxiety of surviving in this unforgiving world, clinging on to her brother who doesn't even remember her at times.

Elliot's love interest and best friend Angela Moss works in the same company as him and gets increasingly alienated from everything. The FBI agent played by Grace Gummer is a smart detective at work, but comes home to an empty apartment, talking to AI to make herself feel loved.

Even the characters like the therapist played by Gloria Rueben and Dominik Garcia, though look well put together and healthy from the outside, have deep psychological issues rotting them from the inside.

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Mr. Robot explores the complex modern-day alienation and politics

Darlene from Mr. Robot( Image via whoismrrobot Official Instagram)

Mr. Robot doesn't just get into the intricacies of mental health problems but also examines modern-day alienation, and in more than one way criticizes the modern socio-political system as the perpetrator.

The rich have created a world where youth is exploited in every way possible. They graduate with debt and are thrown into a cut-throat economy, where they have to work on uninspiring jobs, and for employers that dehumanize their efforts and treat them as numbers - unimportant and easily replaceable.

Modern life is surrounded by lies, everything has an element of fakeness. Social media is the mirror to that aspect of society, where everyone is performing and playing a better version of themselves. The photos, the captions, the friendship, and the romance, everything has a theatrical nature to it on social media, hampering the real connections that could be made, and that used to be made.

The world is becoming increasingly performative, but eventually, the performers have to come back to reality, whether willingly or unwillingly. Though Elliot is deep within the web of this cyberpunk world, his inner monologues communicate to the viewers that he is still aware of reality, and we should be too.

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Mr. Robot is a masterclass of long-form storytelling that perfectly uses the medium of television to weave a rich and complex story together. The show pushed the boundaries of the medium with its bold narrative choices, visual style, performances, and thought-provoking writing.

Through complex realistic characters, the show invites the audiences to examine the nature of reality, confront their moral dilemmas, and contemplate the perils modern world that is increasingly getting consumed by technology and corporate power.

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All four seasons of Mr. Robot are available on Amazon Prime Video, USA Network, and Apple TV.