The critically acclaimed anthology series, created by Charlie Brooker (Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, Fifteen Million Merits), Black Mirror has always been mind-bending and unpredictable. Season six proves that this season is no different. Brooker told Entertainment Weekly that “it was always designed to be a more paranoid and weird and hopefully unique show.”
The first episode in the new season titled “Joan is Awful” is a terrifyingly realistic depiction of where technology may eventually advance to. The episode follows main character Joan, portrayed by Annie Murphy (Schitt’s Creek, Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken), as she opens her Streamberry account, which is uncanny to Netflix, and she notices a show titled Joan is Awful. She curiously watches the series and it dramatizes events of the day she had just had, only she’s portrayed by an AI Salma Hayek (Frida, Grown Ups), and the series continues to cause her relationships and mental stability to fall apart. Streamberry has every right to do this within her universe, she agreed in the terms and conditions of Streamberry for them to basically steal and monetize the events of her life. The episode is essentially a take on how we “accept terms and conditions” without reading (because, come on, who actually reads them?) and how technology companies can do whatever they want with user’s information.
To put it simply, this season shoots right out of the gate showing how detrimental technology can be in these universes, which could eventually be today’s world’s reality. Season six genuinely sets new standards for sci-fi and predictive television and takes the viewer where they least expect it.
People can only hope this type of technology isn’t in the near future but Brooker mentioned he tried using artificial intelligence in order to write an episode of this season. While the results of that amounted to next to nothing, with ChatGPT and the current Writer’s Guild strike, this is almost scarily feasible.
Zazie Beetz (Atlanta, Joker) explained to Entertainment Weekly that she “thought it was really brave of Charlie to deviate from the basis in technology that we’ve come to know Black Mirror for… I like that he is trying something new with introducing a supernatural element versus a futuristic element. I think he did so successfully. You can still achieve the same exploration of the human condition, about how we interact with each other and the consequences that certain decisions can lead to. I was excited to be part of a new iteration of the show.”
Throughout the various episodes of this season of Black Mirror such as “Mazey Day,” “Demon 79,” and “Loch Henry,” Brooker has exponentially expanded the scope of this season of Black Mirror. In regards to this genre break, Brooker stated that “I don’t want to write another episode about what I’ve already written episodes about… one way to stop yourself from doing that is to almost delete from your head the idea of what a Black Mirror episode is and think ‘fuck it’ and start writing something else.”
It’s clear Brooker knows how to take his own advice! Check out season six of Black Mirror available for streaming on Netflix now.