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.

  • Melon [she/her,they/them]
    ·
    4 years ago

    The main writer for the show, Charlie Brooker, admitted after Bandersnatch that he was literally out of ideas to make for Black Mirror and was wanting to end it all. He felt obliged to march on into season 5 because of the enthusiasm and generous budgets that Netflix producers had.

    • StLangoustine [any]
      ·
      4 years ago

      Can't he just adapt short stories by other writers? Seems like an obvious thing to do.

        • StLangoustine [any]
          ·
          4 years ago

          The first part of the anthology, involving Dr. Peter Dawson, was based on the short story "The Pain Addict" authored by magician Penn Jillette early in his career.

          To be honest Penn Jillette was not high on the list of writers whose stories I'd mine for ideas...

          • Melon [she/her,they/them]
            ·
            4 years ago

            Yeah Charlie Brooker isn't the most selective writer ever. At least he didn't try to make that an entire episode.