'Black Mirror': The Evolution in Season 3
Warning: This post contains mild spoilers for two new Season 3 Black Mirror episodes, “San Junipero” and “Nosedive.”
Over the course of two seasons and six episodes (seven if you count the feature-length Christmas special starring Jon Hamm), Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror has become the gold standard for dystopic, darkly comic portraits of the near and far future. Imagining such outlandish-but-then-again-maybe-not scenarios as England’s prime minister being forced to engage in sexual relations with a farm animal or a cartoon bear that becomes a legitimate political candidate, the series — which originated in England, but becomes an official Netflix series during its third season, premiering Oct. 21 — repeatedly and ingeniously comments on the way technology is shaping our lives, and not for the better.
When Yahoo TV spoke with Hayley Atwell — who starred in one of the most memorable Black Mirror episodes to date, “Be Right Back” — she put into words the anxiety that the title invokes: “When I was talking about Black Mirror recently, I pointed to every phone and every screen that was around, and they were black mirrors. There’s something horrifying about the fact that we’re surrounded by black mirrors every day. Metaphorically speaking, they are reflecting the dark side of technology.”
Related: ‘Black Mirror’ Season 3 Premiere Date Set at Netflix — Get Details
So it’s interesting to note that the two episodes of the new season that premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival Monday night may be the show’s most hopeful installments so far. “San Junipero,” directed by Owen Harris and starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Mackenzie Davis, is an intensely emotional drama, while “Nosedive,” starring Bryce Dallas Howard and helmed by Joe Wright (Atonement, Pride & Prejudice), is a screwball road comedy in the tradition of Bringing Up Baby and Planes, Trains and Automobiles.
Don’t take that to mean that the series has lost its dark edge; there are still plenty of dystopic elements in these two hour-long episodes. But it perhaps illustrates how Brooker may be allowing Black Mirror’s tonal qualities to evolve as the series enters its third year. Speaking about “San Junipero” and “Nosedive” with Yahoo TV in Toronto, the creator explains: “I was conscious of thinking, ‘We don’t want to be the show where every single time you know exactly which way it’s going.’ So if we can wrong-foot people by occasionally letting some sunshine in, great. That means we’re not being one-note or too predictable.”
And these two episodes certainly defy predictability. “San Junipero” opens in a pitch-perfect re-creation of a neon-soaked 1980s strip of nightclubs, the kind that dotted the California coastal landscape during the Reagan era. Against this backdrop, Davis’s wallflower locks eyes with Mbatha-Raw’s party girl, and the two share an instant connection. Because this is Black Mirror we’re talking about, it’s inevitably revealed that this world isn’t exactly what it appears on the surface. But what’s lurking beneath isn’t necessarily something sinister, either.
In fact, for the first time, audience members may come away from a Black Mirror episode thinking that the insidious march of technology has an upside, especially thanks to the half-ironic, half-awesome use of a classic ‘80s pop song in the closing moments. “Hopefully it puts them in an interesting scenario,” Brooker says. His producing partner, Annabel Jones, adds, “It is a bittersweet ending. It’s not suddenly there are roses in the garden.”
The downsides of living in the world imagined by “Nosedive” are more readily apparent. In this meticulously designed near-future, which resembles a Crate & Barrel catalogue come to life, ordinary people like our heroine, Lacey (Howard), are required to walk around giving each other instant likability ratings on their mobile — think Yelp, but for people. (Or, for hardcore Community fans, think MeowMeowBeenz.) Drop below a certain likability level, and you’re separated from the shiny, happy herd.
That’s what happens to poor Lacey after a series of unfortunate events en route to the wedding of a best friend sends her rating — and mind — plunging into the yawning abyss of anger. It’s a terrific showcase for Howard’s screwball comedy skills and displays the deft comic touch of its writers, Parks and Recreation’s Mike Schur and Rashida Jones. Brooker says that he knew Jones was a fan of Black Mirror, and he reached out to her to help shape this particular episode, which started out in a very different comic vein. “It was originally closer to Brewster’s Millions, a story about a guy who had to protect his reputation, but then we thought it was maybe too much like ‘The National Anthem’ episode with the prime minister. We got in touch with Rashida, she got in touch with Mike, and it just started to evolve from there.”
Evolution is the right word for these two episodes of Black Mirror: It’s still the cult show you know and love, but changing and challenging its typically dark vision in different and exciting ways.
Black Mirror Season 3 premieres Oct. 21 on Netflix.
