New season from today: “Black Mirror” grows beyond itself

In the first episode more than 13 years ago, the British Prime Minister should have sex with a pig on television to free a princess from the clutches of kidnappers. This is how “Black Mirror” started in public law Channel 4 in the United Kingdom.

In the meantime, the series that stories tells from our high-tech world or exaggerates an early tech hell is at home at the Netflix streaming service.

Season seven will be released on this Thursday and will be again in millions of people worldwide in the coming days and weeks. Six new episodes come this time.

The sixth season (with five episodes) was released almost two years ago (June 15, 2023), before that it was a good four years break, the fifth season had come out in June 2019 and had three episodes.

“Black Mirror” is a special series project. It is an anthology series. This means that the individual episodes always show different scenarios, but do not build on each other in terms of content.

However, the films or a kind of leitmotif are common to the films. It is always about the (negative) effects of technology and media on society and people. The head and author of the series is Charlie Brooker (54).

The series is known and popular that the stories about complex topics such as social media, artificial intelligence or virtual reality often take a surprising turn.

The title “Black Mirror” (Black Spiegel) means what we all know from everyday life: the dark shiny shiny screen of a smartphone, computer or television.

The six new episodes have the titles “Ordinary People”, “Bête Noire”, “Eulogy”, “Toys”, “Hotel Reverie” and “USS Callister – Welcome to Infinity”.

For the first time, an earlier episode continues in the series

The last episode is a special feature because it builds on episode one of the fourth season, which “USS Callister” with several Emmy’s award-winning sci-fi sequence. So the season breaks with a previously brazen law.

“We continued for the first time in the story of” Black Mirror “,” says author Brooker. Otherwise, he announced a mix of different genres and styles for the new season – as has been common.

The seventh season has a more thoughtful, almost nostalgic tone, as Brooker admitted in the “Guardian”. “Technology is more used this time to revive things or bring back to the present.” So there is a lot more past than the future.

“There is a little less dystopia,” says Creator Charlie Brooker

“There is probably more social criticism and more emotional episodes,” said Brooker. “This does not mean that we do not go to disturbing places or generate goosebumps, but people expect surprises at” Black Mirror “, so you can’t always offer them exactly what they want. I would say there is a little less dystopia.”

The episode “Eulogy”, for example, immerses Paul Giamatti in his memories, while literally entering photos for decades; The gaslighting parabola “Bête Noire” forces Siena Kelly to deal with young people.

The stars that play in the new season include Awkwafina, Asim Chaudhry, Peter Capaldi, Will Poulter, Cristin Milioti and Jimmi Simpson.

Celebrities such as Miley Cyrus, Andrew Scott, Josh Hartnett and Salma Hayek were already there in previous seasons.