Charlie Brooker has smashed to smithereens the Black Mirror he invented in 2011. The future has caught up with his disturbing, disruptive and eerily prescient anthology on the darker side of technology. And by the time the sixth season was released on Netflix on 15 June after four years, the chasm between innovation and imagination had become a sliver. Crypto, deepfakes, artificial intelligence, ChatGPT, and the pandemic had all become a part of the local lexicon.
Today, everyone is weighing in on whether ChatGPT will lead to the extinction or elevation of humanity. Apple’s brand new Vision Pro 3D headset allows users to capture “magical” photos and “relive those cherished moments like never before”— straight out of Black Mirror’s The Entire History of You (season one). Scientists have developed artificial bees in the form of tiny drones to assist in pollination. In Hated in the World (season three), drone bees become assassins, targeting haters on social media. And less than two months ago, the New York Police Department announced that it was bringing back its reviled robot dogs, which it had recalled following citizen protests. Fans will remember Metalheads from season four.
We are already living in Brooker’s dystopia. So this time around, the British writer and producer, who created the popular mockumentary Cunk on Earth (2022) holds the black mirror to ourselves. He looks back— and the past is grim.
Fans who reduced the series to a commentary on tech will be sorely disappointed. Only two of the five episodes have anything to do with the unintended consequences of tech that is the hallmark of Black Mirror.
But then, Brooker does not hate technology.
“Humans are weak is the story, rather than technology is evil, because I love tech,” he told Esquire, a view he reiterated multiple times as Black Mirror became bleaker and bleaker with every season. “Technology is never the villain in the show, it’s always a human frailty or weakness that leads to calamity,” he had said in 2016.
The result is an unusual but still uneasy anthology of human existence.
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Commentary on content creation, consumption
Every Black Mirror series usually has an overarching narrative that captures the zeitgeist of its time—whether our quest for agelessness and immortality or social media perfection and popularity. Content creation is a running theme in three of the latest episodes. How entertainment and news are packaged and consumed by an audience forever unsatiated.
The first and standout episode, Joan is Awful, exemplifies this even as it takes a dump—both literally and metaphorically—on Streamberry, a platform similar to Netflix.
A rather boring woman whose only crime is self-absorption, played by Schitt’s Creek’s Annie Murphy, returns home from work and settles onto her couch with her soon-to-be-husband, only to find that her every mundane action and transgression of the day is now streaming on Streamberry. And she’s being played by Salma Hayek, who is herself.
It’s the only episode closest to the original Black Mirror format. A futuristic quantum computer-powered AI generates personalised content tailor-made for its subscribers. The plot is also a nod to realistic-looking ‘deepfakes’ of Hollywood stars such as Tom Cruise, Keanu Reeves and Hayek herself.
In Joan is Awful, the ever-evolving algorithm has perfected the formula for TV success so that it becomes you.
“When we focused on their [the characters’] more weak or selfish or craven moments, it confirmed their innermost fears and put them in a state of mesmerised horror…which really drives engagement. They literally can’t look away,” said Streamberry CEO Mona Javadi. Word of advice: Read the terms and conditions.
Brooker’s takedown of content creation and consumption continues in the second episode, Loch Henry, and the fourth episode, Mazey Day, which falls in the horror genre.
There’s no mind-blowing tech revelation in Loch Henry. The focus is on our obsession with true crime—real-life tragedies that are slickly packaged and retold. A genre that Netflix has popularised but is also increasingly getting flack for. A case in point is Netflix’s 2022 true crime docuseries, Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, which simply rolled in the gory crimes of the serial killer without insight or introspection. True crime can be cruel to the victims, often leaving them as damaged as the predators the genre profiles.
And that’s what happens in Loch Henry as it follows two young filmmakers, Davis (Samuel Blenkin) and his American girlfriend Pia (Myha’la Herrold), to the desolate but stunning highlands of Scotland. The location parallels the stark but scenic settings of Nordic noir on OTT shows like Bordertown (2016), The Chestnut Man (2021) and The Valhalla Murders (2019). Human depravity is not the milieu of cities, but can unfold in the most serene places on earth.
The young couple are on their way to make an environmental film on a man who protects eggs, and stop at Davis’ hometown to meet his mum. But when Pia learns of the bloody history of the town, she wants to make a tasteful true-crime documentary, the kind that Streamberry publishes. The deeper they dig, the more Davis’ safe world unravels. Ultimately, he sacrifices everything for a story that briefly satiates the viewer, and revives true crime tourism in his hometown.
Which then begs the question: how far will we go, and how deep will we dig to get to the story? For the paparazzi, nothing is sacred, and Mazey Day—set in 2006—hammers this point with little finesse in every scene. However, there is nothing more that Brooker can say or show to elicit more horror. Not after 1997, when TV channels across the world aired visuals of paps gathering around a dying Princess Diana in Paris, clicking photos.
The goth-funk Muse song Supermassive Black Hole sets the tone as the paparazzi try to find out why troubled actor Mazey Day (Clara Rugaard) suddenly drops out from the face of the earth. The clicking and flashing of the cameras never stop; not even the light dies out of a star.
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Brooker shows you the black mirror
When the series first premiered on Channel 4 in what now seems to be a simpler time, Brooker described the black mirror as the screen on the walk, on every desk and in the palm of every hand. “…the cold, shiny screen of a TV, a monitor, a smartphone.” But before it powers up, you see a reflection of yourself.
Technology only brings out the beast lurking within us, as seen in season six’s third episode, the space opera tragedy, Beyond The Sea—starring Aaron Paul, Josh Hartnett and Kate Mara. It’s set in an alternate 1960s, where Paul and Hartnett are two astronauts deep in space, but can plug into their earthly bodies to be with their families and carry on with normal life—raising their kids, going to the movies, washing dishes. But soon, their idyllic life comes crashing down, and baser instincts take over.
The final episode, Demon 79, doesn’t seem to fit in the canon of Black Mirror’s episodes. Written by British-Pakistani comedian Bisha K. Ali of Ms Marvel fame and Brooker, it follows the life of an Indian saleswoman Nida (Anjana Vasan) in England and her relationship with the demon Gaap (Paapa Essiedu). She is an outsider, her brown skin an anomaly in this White part of the world. Despite the weighty central theme of Demon 79—can a few lives be sacrificed for the greater good, and can a good person be convinced to do evil—it offers comic relief. And a path down musical memory lane with songs like Boney M’s Rasputin and Maa Baker, and Bright Eyes by Art Garfunkel. It doesn’t nag at the viewer, but simply reaffirms what we know of human nature.
Though there is a strain of disquiet in all five episodes, none jolt the viewer out of complacency. For that, step away from personalised content. Read the news.
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)