Fasten your seatbelts, grab your popcorn and find a good cushion to hide behind: Black Mirror is almost back.
The hit anthology show has been a pop culture mainstay ever since it launched in 2011 on Channel 4. These days, it’s a Netflix juggernaut, having won several Emmys, and clocked in millions of viewers. It even coined the phrase ‘black mirror’ as shorthand for the bizarre or creepy.
With the sixth season set to launch on our screens this week, here’s what you need to know about the kind of nightmares you’ll be due to have over the course of June.
What storylines can we expect?
Netflix has already released synopses and titles for all its upcoming five episodes (yes, there are only five this time around) and they all tease very different plots and subjects.
Joan Is Awful – an average woman is stunned to discover a global streaming platform has launched a prestige TV drama adaptation of her life — in which she is portrayed by Hollywood A-lister Salma Hayek Pinault.
Loch Henry – a young couple travel to a sleepy Scottish town to start work on a genteel nature documentary, but find themselves drawn to a juicy local story involving shocking events of the past.
Beyond the Sea - in an alternative 1969, two men on a perilous high-tech mission wrestle with the consequences of an unimaginable tragedy.
Mazey Day - A troubled starlet is dogged by invasive paparazzi while dealing with the consequences of a hit-and-run incident.
Demon 79 - Northern England, 1979. A meek sales assistant is told she must commit terrible acts to prevent disaster.
Who’s starring?
Perhaps the better question to ask is, who isn’t starring? The list reads like a who’s who of TV stars – including Breaking Bad’s Aaron Paul, Schitt’s Creek’s Annie Murphy and Gangs of London’s Paapa Essiedu.
There’s also Ben Barnes, Salma Hayek Pinault, Kate Mara, Michael Cera, Himesh Patel, Josh Harnett and Rory Culkin. Phew: keep your eyes peeled for them in upcoming episodes.
What has Charlie Brooker said about the upcoming season?
Black Mirror wouldn’t be Black Mirror without some weird, wacky and horrifying sci-fi ideas: something the show’s writer and creator Charlie Brooker knows all too well.
“I’ve always felt that Black Mirror should feature stories that are entirely distinct from one another, and keep surprising people — and myself — or else what’s the point? It should be a series that can’t be easily defined, and can keep reinventing itself,” Brooker told Netflix’s website Tudum.
As a result, Brooker says, he’s changed up the format a little bit this time around.
“This time, alongside some of the more familiar Black Mirror tropes we’ve also got a few new elements, including some I’ve previously sworn blind the show would never do, to stretch the parameters of what ‘a Black Mirror episode’ even is.
“The stories are all still tonally Black Mirror through-and-through — but with some crazy swings and more variety than ever before.”
Brooker also shared insights into the making of the show, telling Empire Magazine that he’d “toyed around with ChatGPT” when the time came to write the new season – honestly, who hasn’t.
“The first thing I did was type ‘generate Black Mirror episode,’” he said. “It [came] up with something that, at first glance, reads plausibly, but on second glance, is shit.
“I was aware that I had written lots of episodes where someone goes ‘Oh, I was inside a computer the whole time!’ So I thought, ‘I’m just going to chuck out any sense of what I think a Black Mirror episode is.’ There’s no point in having an anthology show if you can’t break your own rules.”
When can I watch?
Black Mirror’s season six will start on Netflix from June 15.
