Black Mirror

December 1, 2017

Leah

What can I say, I am a sucker for good British sci-fi series, and this one offers everything that I like about the genre. And it has an exceptional premise:

Charlie Brooker explained the series' title to The Guardian: "If technology is a drug – and it does feel like a drug – then what, precisely, are the side effects? This area – between delight and discomfort – is where Black Mirror, my new drama series, is set. The 'black mirror' of the title is the one you'll find on every wall, on every desk, in the palm of every hand: the cold, shiny screen of a TV, a monitor, a smartphone."

The first two series of the programme were produced by Zeppotron, for Endemol. An Endemol press release described the series as "a hybrid of The Twilight Zone and Tales of the Unexpected which taps into our contemporary unease about our modern world", with the stories having a "techno-paranoia" feel. Channel 4 describes the first episode as "a twisted parable for the Twitter age". "Black Mirror" series 1 had a limited DVD release for PAL / Region 2 on 27 February 2012. This was followed by a DVD release of series 2, also PAL for region 2 only.

According to Brooker (speaking to SFX), the production team considered giving the series a linking theme or presenter, but ultimately it was decided not to do so: "There were discussions. Do we set them all in the same street? Do we have some characters who appear in each episode, a bit Three Colours: Blue/White/Red style? We did think about having a character who introduces them, Tales from the Crypt style, or like Rod Serling or Alfred Hitchcock or Roald Dahl, because most anthology shows did have that... but the more we thought about it, we thought it was a bit weird."

Netflix picked up the series after the first two seasons, and it hasn't lost anything from the transition.

Check it out.