‘Black Mirror’ Finds New Life In Our Modern Hellscape

In the three years since Black Mirror’s last (and somewhat disappointing) season, we’ve lived through a global pandemic, seen a US president trigger a mob attack on the Capitol, and AI has gone mainstream . We are moving into the future faster than ever, but loneliness remains a major issue in modern life. What better time than now for Charlie Brooker to bring his feel-bad series back for another season?

In 2019, I argued that Brooker was running out of things to say with the show, despite his shrewd ability to predict our tech-infested dystopia. black mirror First few seasons. Something was lost with their transition to Netflix, which led to bigger budgets and more notable stars, but less of the sharp insight that made the show so memorable. (at least we got ,san junipero, Though.) Thankfully, help has come a few years away from the project. season six black Mirror, which hit Netflix on June 15, is the series at its best: shocking, sharp, and often hilarious. It also finds new life by repeatedly looking back at the past as well as exploring the horror more directly than before.

Minor spoilers ahead for Black Mirror season six.

“Joan Is Awful” Is The Perfect Way To Start The New Season — It’s The Most Stereotypical black Mirror establish. A disgruntled big tech HR worker is shocked to find a show on Streamberry (an obvious Netflix stand-in) that recounts her daily life. This includes a serious layoff from a co-worker (and supposed friend), and a therapist’s appointment where she reveals she is infatuated with her fiancé.

It’s a relatable millennial malaise setup, the kind that Charlie Brooker captured so early in the series. Joan, played by schitt’s creek Star Annie Murphy says she doesn’t feel like a main character in her life so she avoids everything on autopilot, almost always taking the easiest and least confrontational option. You’d think it would be illegal for a network to just calculate its lifetime for all its customers — turns out, it should have read the terms of service more closely.

I won’t spoil, exactly, where that episode goes, or the familiar faces you see. But as the twist revealed itself and it crept to its inevitable shaky conclusion, I couldn’t help but smile. It was like Charlie Brooker yelling at me through the screen,”black Mirror It’s back, baby!

What’s really surprising, though, is that even this season of the series feels fresh in ways that we’ve come to expect. “Loch Henry” is a fascinating exploration of our obsession with true crime dramas and the impact they have on those affected by those stories. But aside from Streamberry’s presence as a service thirsty for true crime fiction, the story is more cultural than technology critique.

Sure, we have more tools than ever for making true crime documentaries – a drone is being used to create wide aerial shots, and digital cameras are perfectly suited to shooting in low-lit basements – but The desire to tell and consume these stories is entirely human. And we can’t help ourselves when it comes to awesome drama.

black Mirror also gains some new perspective by exploring the past — or at least the timeline — without smartphones and ubiquitous fast cellular internet. “Beyond the Sea” is a beautiful but brutal story set in 1969, focusing on two astronauts on a deep space mission, wirelessly controlling mechanical bodies on Earth. The episode is less interested in how any technology works — just accept the mystery, guys — and how it affects those astronauts, their families, and society.