WHAT IT'S ABOUT: Comprising this anthology's fifth season, there are three episodes. "Smithereens," about Chris (Andrew Scott, "Fleabag") who works for a London-based ride-sharing company and who is stalking the offices of a social media giant, Smithereens. He needs to talk to the company CEO (Topher Grace). One day, Chris picks up a Smithereens employee (Damson Idris, "Snowfall"). In "Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too," a high school student, Rachel (Angourie Rice) asks her dad for a special birthday present _ an Ashley Too, an Alexa-like device, which is modeled on pop star Ashley O (Miley Cyrus). And in "Striking Vipers," a pair of old friends, Karl (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, "Aquaman") and Dan (Anthony Mackie, the "Avengers" franchise) reunite when Karl gives his pal a particularly vivid virtual reality game they both can play together, remotely.
MY SAY: Any good writer needs a break from routine, and one of TV's more gifted ones, "Black Mirror" czar Charlie Brooker, got that with "Bandersnatch." The surprise "Black Mirror" movie drop late last year was unlike anything he or anyone else had ever done, by essentially putting viewers in control of the story's fate. It was a gimmick, but at least a gimmick consistent with the true meaning of "Black Mirror:" Technology has ingenious ways of sucking us in, and keeping us in.
The fifth season is a return to routine _ just three episodes like the first, and also a return to "Mirror's" familiar theme, of the Svengali-like hold that little device in our hands maintains over us. But Brooker clearly wants to prevent routine from becoming routinized, which means more stretches. Miley Cyrus' brain is downloaded into an Alexa-like doll. Is that stretchy enough for everyone?
