According to creator Charlie Brooker, Black Mirror fans may have more reason to be scared this season.
Known for its bleak and dystopian views of the present and future, usually centered around the dangers and pitfalls of modern technology, Black Mirror has often been praised for its twisted visions of things to come. While terrifying in its way, including the bizarre juxtaposition of human nature and the technological gothic, Black Mirror season 6 will lean into its horror elements more than past seasons.
According to RadioTimes, during a recent Q&A session at a preview for the upcoming episode “Beyond the Sea,” Charlie Brooker spoke about his Black Mirror season 6 plans. “This season I started out doing some with a very different take – a Red Mirror film, and almost like a crime and horror-led sister label, so to speak," Brooker said. "And in doing that, I thought, ‘I’ll shake up what I think a Black Mirror episode is.'” This includes several episodes set in the past, including “Beyond the Sea,” which takes place in an alternative 1969 universe.
However, Brooker says Black Mirror season 6 won't all be scary, promising that the first episode of the five due this season, “Joan Is Awful,” will be different. Brooker says, “This season overall, we’ve also got probably one of our most overtly comic ones that we’ve ever done, which is Joan Is Awful. But certainly, there’s quite a lot of horror." Starring Annie Murphy and Salma Hayek Pinault, the episode is a parody of streaming services in the form of a Streamberry, a send-up of Netflix, where Murphy's character Joan discovers she is the subject of a streaming series.
Other Black Mirror season 6 episodes, while perhaps not as comic, promise to be filled with new horror elements, according to Brooker. “I started out and thought, 'I'm going to write some under the label Red Mirror for a while', that was where my mind was going," Brooker said. "It’s just the way they fell, it’s just the way they came out was really unpleasant."
Black Mirror has multiple seasons under its belt. However, Brooker says responses to the last season hinted that the latest episodes were a bit lighter and more frothy than past seasons, to which the creator responded, "I was aware at the back of my head, some people had said, ‘The last season was a bit frothy, wasn’t it?’ or ‘A bit too cheerful’ – well, f**k you."
Black Mirror season 6 debuts on Netflix on June 15, 2023.
Source: RadioTimes