With a few notable exceptions, Black Mirror has always viewed humanity’s relationship with technology through a decidedly pessimistic lens. Given the enhanced ability to do something as seemingly innocuous as streamlining small daily tasks, the show suggests, inevitably leads to exploitation and moral rot.
When Charlie Brooker’s futuristic anthology series debuted on Channel 4 in 2011—and later reached a larger audience when it made the jump to Netflix—it made TV viewers reconsider their reliance on everything from social media to smart homes. But 14 years down the line, those cautionary tales no longer feel like science fiction. In an age when sociopathic billionaires hold more and more power over our daily lives and generative A.I. has become a pressing existential threat, is it still entertaining to speculate about how much worse things could get? On one hand, a new season of Black Mirror feels like the very last thing we need right now. On the other, Brooker’s high-concept techno-fables may be more vital viewing than ever.
The first episode of season seven,“Common People,” is a punch straight to the gut. Rashida Jones and Chris O’Dowd star as a middle-class couple who, in the wake of a devastating medical diagnosis, opt into a high-tech subscription service that promises to work miracles but quickly becomes a nightmare. Featuring devastating performances from its two leads and a darkly funny turn from Tracee Ellis Ross as a slick customer-service rep, “Common People” is a damning examination of the broken American healthcare system and the death cult of late-stage capitalism. (It’s also—in a clever, meta twist—a sinister satire of Netflix’s own subscription model.) The masterful installment will leave you feeling utterly hollowed out.
And then there’s “Bête Noire,” a nasty piece of work about the corrosive effects of absolute power. In it, Siena Kelly plays Maria, a young, talented confectioner whose life goes sideways when an old classmate (portrayed by Rosy McEwen) embarks on a campaign to gradually erode her sanity. Though it’s a bit campy by design, the episode’s take on weaponized gaslighting is viscerally anxiety-inducing.
We get a respite from the horrors with “Hotel Reverie,” a swoony sapphic romance that really wants to reach the heights of season three’s sweeping, masterful “San Junipero” but falls short of the mark. But if you don’t mind suspending your disbelief, it’s a whole lot of fun. And that’s largely because it boasts four fantastic actors. Issa Rae tackles Brandy Friday, an A-lister who agrees to star in an update of a Casablanca-esque Hollywood classic with the help of A.I.-driven tech that allows her to step inside the movie itself. The premise falls apart almost immediately, but don’t worry about it. After all, what’s not to like about watching Rae put the moves on Emma Corrin, channeling Ingrid Bergman as the film’s long-dead star, or Harriet Walter butting heads with Awkwafina as they try to salvage their increasingly doomed endeavor?
Brooker then lets his freak flag fly in “Plaything,” which features erstwhile Time Lord Peter Capaldi as Cameron Walker, an amiable but unhinged murder suspect who’s charged himself with caring for a colony of sentient video-game characters. Black Mirror loves an Easter egg, and this episode sees the return of eccentric game mogul Colin Ritman (Will Poulter), whom we first met in the interactive 2018 installment “Bandersnatch.” As Cameron strings along a pair of detectives (played by Michele Austin and James Nelson-Joyce) who are trying to extract a confession, it becomes clear that Capaldi was made for this role. By turns kindly and creepy, he constantly keeps us guessing: Is this guy a dangerously unstable sociopath or an enlightened techno-mystic who holds the key to saving the human race from its worst instincts?
Those who caught the trailer know that the show saves its biggest pyrotechnics for the season finale, a sequel to the popular 2017 episode “USS Callister.” The incredibly likable Cristin Milioti returns to play Nanette Cole, a shy programmer for an immersive Star Trek-esque MMORPG.We catch up with her a few months after she and her crew have defeated uber-misogynist CTO Robert Daly (Jesse Plemons), who’s left digital clones of Nanette and her co-workers stranded inside the game. Though “To Infinity” doesn’t rise to the level of the original, it’s a pulpy piece of escapism that might have you literally shouting “Oh, shit!” at your TV more than a few times. While “Common People” is a deadly serious takedown of the moral rot that comes with unchecked capitalism, “To Infinity” lets Jimmi Simpson get as absurd as he wants as a clueless billionaire who will do anything to save his own skin.
If you only watch one episode this season (as an anthology series, Black Mirror lets you skip around without missing anything), check out “Eulogy.” This intimate, understated exploration of memory and regret uses the show’s premise to explore the complexities of people’s relationships with each other rather than with their devices. Two-time Oscar nominee Paul Giamatti stars as Phillip, a lonely man who revisits a decades-old relationship with the help of a piece of tech that allows him to literally step inside snapshots from his past. His traveling companion is a mysterious woman simply known as the Guide (Mickey 17‘s Patsy Ferran). “Eulogy” unfolds like a stage play as the two wander through impressionistic tableaus of Phillip’s debauched twenties, the raucous scenes rendered ghostly by their silence and stillness. While most Black Mirror episodes offer the very opposite of catharsis, this one leaves you with a bittersweet savor of emotional fulfillment.
Maybe it’s a sign of the times that season seven’s more optimistic episodes are also its least impactful. (Or, as Colin says in “Plaything”: “The world is vicious and people are awful. Perpetual terror would be a rational response.”) But even at its bleakest, Black Mirror never truly embraces nihilism. Doomed though we may be, the show seems to suggest that there may be hope for us yet if we’re willing to learn from the mistakes we’re on the verge of making.
Black Mirror season seven premieres April 10 on Netflix
