The release of Black Mirror’s Season 4 is fast approaching, and the episode titles and corresponding directors for each episode have finally been revealed, reports The Independent. The titles and directors, reportedly gleaned from a Reddit post, are listed below:
- Episode 1: “ArkAngel”, directed by Jodie Foster (while best known as an actress, she has also directed television episodes before for shows such as House of Cards and Orange is the New Black)
- Episode 2: “USS Callister”, directed by Toby Haynes (Doctor Who, Sherlock)
- Episode 3: “Crocodile”, directed by John Hillcoat (Lawless, The Road)
- Episode 4: “Hang the DJ”, directed by Tim Van Patten (The Sopranos, Boardwalk Empire)
- Episode 5: “Metalhead”, directed by David Slade (Hannibal, American Gods)
- The final Episode 6, mysteriously titled “Black Museum”, is currently without a director – or at the very least, the name has not been released.
No plot details concerning any of the episodes have been released, although the Reddit post from which these titles were revealed suggests that “USS Callister” might involve space exploration and/or travel while “Crocodile” is likely to be a story based in Australia, considering the title and director Hillcoat’s Australian nationality.
Charlie Brooker, the creator and showrunner of the increasingly popular futuristic anthology series, constantly seeks to push the envelope and challenge both audience and critic expectations with every new season. In a podcast interview with IndieWire, Brooker revealed he specifically wrote “San Junipero”, a futuristic love story set in Los Angeles that ended up being one of Season 3’s most popular episodes, as a biting response to some critics who complained that Black Mirror’s move from the UK television network Channel 4 to Netflix would ruin the series as a result of “Americanization”.
It would follow suit that Brooker will continue his work to avoid the pigeonholing of Black Mirror with Season 4, and will continue to confront the typical expectations of the series and explore different themes tones within each episode. If the predictions for “USS Callister” and “Crocodile” are true, then Brooker seems to be widening the net for his show once again and expanding the Black Mirror universe out of the typical US and UK settings.
Production of the latest season ends this month, and Black Mirror Season 4 will reportedly premiere this fall on Netflix.
