The first few seasons sorta did this in some capacity. I remember the intensely British early episodes mostly all included a social critique of some kind. A lot of the times that critique was sorta liberal in nature, but at least it was present. Early Black Mirror was almost like a Twilight Zone for gen z and millennials.
But wow did it have a sharp decline, especially after Netflix got it. Season five and Bandersnatch were especially terrible. I'm not even sure if the show has been renewed. If it ends up getting cancelled, I would hazard a guess that maybe it wasn't covid but those last two releases that did it in.
Imagine if Black Mirror retained the quality of episodes like Fifteen Million Merits all the way through its run. In this thread let's come up with actually good Black Mirror episode concepts. I always get a kick out of people doing the whole "wot if ur mum ran on batteries" bit.
US: we don't negotiate with terrorists! (Not true but it's the line in every film) UK: we don't negotiate with terror...oh shit, it's the fictional royal family? Time to get weird with a pig. Also we don't have the royals' fingerprints on file so this random guy's finger is probably the princess', no time for any forensic analysis.
I taught the episode in a class centered around how we define and make judgements about art, with the episode's premise servicing as a kind of "test case" for the limits of creative expression.