Black Mirror Struggles to Imagine the Future in an Uneven Season 6

In the 4 years since Black Mirror last aired an episode, technology has changed a lot. AI is capable of creating realistic looking images and writing entire research papers. Apple is trying  to make Google Glass a thing again. And we’ve all been forced to learn about the Metaverse and how crypto currency works, since their failures can tank the stock market. With all these new developments, Black Mirror has a wealth of new material to spin with its uniquely sardonic take on technology.

Season 6 is a frustrating return to form, yet simultaneously attempts to step out of Black Mirror’s shell. There is a pervasive feeling that Charlie Brooker and Co. are beginning to feel locked into the show’s premise. The majority of the new episodes are period pieces or take place in the present. What ever happened to imagining the future?

The first episode of the anthology series, “Joan is Awful,” feels in line with how the show has changed since moving to Netflix. It boasts an impressive cast (Annie Murphy, Salma Hayek, Michael Cera, Ben Barnes, and Himesh Patel, to name a few) to fill out its meta-commentary on streaming itself. Season 6’s opener concerns the future of AI generated content, which has become a major topic since the recent WGA strike and possible upcoming SAG strike. Writers and actors understand that, when you put creative decisions in the hands of a machine, art as we know it will never be the same.

“Joan is Awful” is a fun romp at times and delivers some great jabs at Netflix. The fictional Netflix surrogate “Streamberry” begins to create AI-generated shows about normal people, highlighting their worst qualities to keep every subscriber hate watching. It’s goofy, prescient, and allows Murphy and Hayek to have an absolute ball. But there’s a pervasive feeling of “what else?” once the credits roll. “Netflix is evil” and “people aren’t content” is great, but Black Mirror becomes truly special when it takes it one step forward. Neither the optimism nor the humiliation of “Joan is Awful” are surprising or introspective enough.

The second episode “Loch Henry” is a critique of the true crime obsession that has taken over pop culture. Film students Davis and Pia travel to Davis’s small Scottish hometown that’s become abandoned since a series of gruesome murders decades prior. They decided to make a documentary about the events to help promote some dark tourism and launch their careers. The twist can be seen from a million miles away, but “Loch Henry” still gets one great Black Mirror gut punch at the end. 

“Joan is Awful” and “Loch Henry” work together as a pair. Both are indictments on content culture and the vapid way we will watch anything at the expense of empathy. But this is an idea Black Mirror has been thinking about since its first season. “Fifteen Million Merits” was also about putting content obsession above basic dignity, but did so in a wholly original world. Brooker is struggling to convey the same ideas in a way fresher than he did at the beginning. The result are episodes that are incredibly watchable (I have no doubt there will be plentiful memes about “Joan is Awful” in particular), but feel like less than Brooker is capable of. 

If Season 6 has one shining star, it is “Beyond the Sea.” The 1969-alternate-future space episode depicts astronauts Cliff (Aaron Paul) and David (Josh Hartnett) drifting above the Earth while being able to awaken their consciousnesses in robot replicas that live out their normal lives when they aren’t needed. A Manson family-esque act of violence thrusts David into isolation, and the two begin to share Cliff’s body. The feature-length episode is enthralling and horrifying in all the best ways. It’s less a warning about the perils of technology and more of a speculative space dream imagined by Brooker. 

“Beyond the Sea” shows that Black Mirror still has some great episodes left ahead. It reminded me why I love this show so much; why I continue to call it one of my favorite shows on TV, despite being less than impressed with its most recent offerings. When I watched “Beyond the Sea,” I saw what Rod Serling could’ve done with The Twilight Zone if he had the resources of a 2023 streaming show. It’s a well-told, concise story with moments that will stick with the viewer long after their binge session. It is a great sci-fi horror written by someone with a true love of the cultural products of the 1960s, but who has always imagined a darker turn.

One of Black Mirror’s best episodes is then followed by one of its worst, the bizarre “Mazey Day.” This is the part of the season when Brooker is trying to stretch what he can make under the name of Black Mirror—“Mazey Day” is a stretch too far. While it starts off as a decent mid-2000s period piece about paparazzi depravity and the dehumanization of celebrities, the episode spins the wheels of its premise until it decides to throw the whole bike away and just start running through the woods on one foot. I won’t spoil the twist, but as it started to dawn on me, I let out an audible “you can’t be serious.” It’s one of Black Mirror’s greatest missteps.

The final episode of Season 6, “Demon 79,” is much harder to parse. This is the only one that identifies itself differently, under the banner of “Red Mirror.” The episode actually has almost nothing to do with technology at all. It’s about an Indian shopgirl who unleashes a demon and must kill three people to prevent the apocalypse. “Demon 79” is set in England in 1979 during the rise of Thatcherism as a new Conservative and fascist politician is running for MP. Also the demon looks like one of the members of Boney M. in full disco dress.

I really want to like “Demon 79.” Brooker and Co. are trying to pay homage to late ‘70s horror while also delivering some great critiques of Britain during this time, and the fascist and racist ideologies that slowly infected the population. But it just doesn’t come together. The ‘70s horror aesthetics are dropped shortly into the episode; the political criticism is solid, but isn’t consistent throughout. While Anjana Vasan and Paapa Essiedu are both excellent and manage to jump between comedy and horror in a thoroughly entertaining way, “Demon 79” is riddled with missed opportunities. It left me wondering what a “Red Mirror” episode even is, and what Brooker wants to say under this new category. 

That’s the entire problem with Season 6: the lack of visions for the future. Black Mirror could always twist what’s right around the corner in a way that felt both absurd and a little too possible. That uniquely-Brooker mix of humor and dread made the show feel unlike any other. Six seasons in, Black Mirror is now amongst the longest running Netflix series. Brooker has endless money, and the show will continue to be a major hit. But he’s become trapped in his ways. As the future becomes more embedded in the present with new technologies, maybe Black Mirror doesn’t have much more room to look beyond. The show has been asking us to confront our own reflections for too long; it’s time it turned the screen around toward itself.

All episodes of Black Mirror are now streaming on Netflix. 

Leila Jordan is a writer and former jigsaw puzzle world record holder. Her work has appeared in Paste Magazine, Gold Derby, TheWrap, FOX Digital, The Spool, and Awards Radar. To talk about all things movies, TV, and useless trivia you can find her @galaxyleila

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