Black Mirror has an uncanny knack for premonition. Apps that ask you to "rate" everyone you meet; social-media startups bringing the dead back to life; alleged political-porcine dalliances - all real-world storylines seemingly ripped from its darkly comic take on technology. After achieving cult status on Channel 4, the show was catapulted into the global zeitgeist by Netflix in 2014. Now, like so many of the most daring TV shows, Black Mirror is going Netflix-only, with six new episodes starting on October 21.
As a writer, Charlie Brooker digs up our dystopian fears, but he is just as addicted to tech as the rest of us. "The other day, there I am in my garden with my kids, pushing one of them on a swing and I'm trying to check my phone," he says. "My son is two and he wants daddy to push him, and I'm like, 'Stop it, I've got to look at this GIF!'"
WIRED sat down with Brooker and Black Mirror executive producer Annabel Jones to talk Silicon Valley, luddism, and what Twitter has done to our brains.
WIRED: Black Mirror is obsessed with how technology is changing our lives, for better or worse. Is there an irony in your signing up with Netflix?
Charlie Brooker: There's definitely something fitting. There's all sorts of fucking weird, wall-bending odd stuff that you could do. Somebody watching an episode of Black Mirror who's also watched House of Cards, you could show them a different scene.
How is working with Netflix different from working with traditional TV?
CB: I'd say it's not hugely different. Practically, there are a couple of liberating things. One is you don't feel beholden to ratings. Often in broadcast television you worry that maybe there's going to be a football match on the other side. It feels like you get one shot to make an impression.
Annabel Jones: Even though TV networks in America admired Black Mirror, they wouldn't have commissioned it because it's a very unusual show. When Netflix finally picked it up in 2014 we had a lovely gestation period. It's a very word of mouth show - people want to talk about it.
Netflix gives you a global audience. How do you think it will be received?
CB: [Earlier seasons] went down quite well in places like Spain. China seemed to pirate us a lot.
AJ: The themes resonated with people. We thought it was a very British show, but actually everyone around the world was experiencing technology at the same speed we were, and so it dramatised things that no other shows were at that time.
CB: And a prime minister fucking a pig is amusing in any nationality, evidently.
How did that episode go down, particularly in America?
CB: I'd say the reaction of Americans was the most divided. It's not like they're appalled by it, it's just they think it's ridiculous - which it is. Others just go with it. You tend to find that people overseas think I'm like the Unabomber - this angry anti-technology person shaking his fist at the internet, which I'm not.
In this series, two episodes are set on America's West Coast. Was it a conscious choice to place your characters closer to Silicon Valley?
CB: There wasn't ever a thought about placing it near Silicon Valley or immersing characters in that environment. We try not to look at the tech pages and go: "VR is a thing, what can we do about that?" With [series two episode] "Be Right Back", where Domhnall Gleeson dies and Hayley Atwell brings him back from his social media profile, there was going to be a beat where you realise what a money-making scheme it is. There was a point where she runs out of credit and has to top it up. I think that was even shot, but it felt a bit weird. I always shy away from that side of things.
** “The National Anthem" (S1:Ep1) **: The UK Prime Minister is compelled to have sex with a pig on TV. In the real world, David Cameron laughs nervously...
** “Be Right Back" (S2:Ep1)**: A social-media manages to raise the dead; Facebook has enabled "legacy" logins for relatives of deceased users
** "The Waldo Moment" (S2:Ep3) **: A foul-mouthed cartoon bear ascends to political power - still, it's not quite as outlandish as Donald Trump…
AJ: The show tends to tap into fears we have about the modern world. And technology just happens to be the big driver of that. Take [series one episode] "National Anthem": it dramatises the shifting powers of big institutions, so police and government suddenly feel powerless, and social media is driving the narrative. That's a very global theme, rather than being a specific tech company theme.
What are you trying to achieve when you start writing an episode?
CB: My take is probably different to the average viewer. I try to look at it as quite a popcorn show that's a bit like Alfred Hitchcock Presents or Tales of the Unexpected. In my head I'm writing something mainstream and schlocky.
AJ: You want this to be fun and thrilling and scary. Once the scripts come out, we try to make it as grounded as possible.
CB: Something like "Be Right Back" is a ghost story, really.
AJ: There's also the theme of a discrepancy between your online persona and who you actually are.
CB: Yes, and she's lucky in that. His online persona is a bit bland when he comes back and that's the problem. But she could've got a fucking maniac. Or nothing but hot takes. It'd be insufferable. She'd bludgeon him to death.
One of the episodes in the new series is quite touching. Are you going soft?
CB: That was the first one written for this season, so I was thinking: what are people going to expect? I've also become a bit more confident about writing. One thing people said about the show was that they liked it, but it was so fucking depressing: every week a guy finds an app that kills him. I thought, what's a more hopeful take?
The show often takes technology to its logical conclusion, so what happens when VR becomes better than actual reality?
CB: Ten years from now it will just be 13-year-old boys committing war atrocities while getting sucked off in VR. It'll be that, constantly. Getting sucked off and shooting. And we'll go: "What the fuck is happening to this generation?"
You're often accused of being a bit of a luddite. How obsessed with technology are you?
CB: I participate in social media to a degree, but I don't really use Facebook any more. I've stepped back from things like Twitter for the same reason I stopped writing columns - I just felt like there was so much fucking yap going on. I'm playing No Man's Sky at the moment and there's an idea for the second season that's sprung from a procedurally generated universe. It's hilarious to me that people are moaning about the game: "Oh, it's a bit boring, this infinite universe…" Fifty quid to fly around an infinite fucking universe and it's still not good enough for them?
AJ: I find it increasingly hard to engage with social media when making this show. Once I'm in, I'm so sucked in. I feel as if I'm sacrificing my life a little bit too much. What was that lovely line in "Be Right Back"?
CB: She says it's a thief.
AJ: I feel it's a bit like that with my time. I think we both love technology and we both embrace it. The technology in the show always tries to be as seductive as possible and also as simple as possible. The reason we've embraced technology so much in our lives is because it makes life easier, and it is like a drug.
CB: With "Be Right Back" I was thinking a lot about how authentic people are on social media. I found myself being inauthentic on there and it reminded me of writing columns for a newspaper. It's gamified; you are rewarded for being entertaining on a very surreptitious level, in a way that affects absolutely everyone. And if they say it doesn't, they're lying. So the contrast is turned up. It's a bit like a pub near closing time, where it's all a bit emotional.
AJ: It's so emphatic. Everything has to be: "This is one of the best articles I've ever read!" And you go: "Really? Is it really the best?"
CB: "You've won the internet!"
The notion of turning up the contrast is interesting. What effect do you think that's had on politics?
CB: If you look at Corbyn or Trump, it feels like a side effect of being encouraged to heighten our own opinions. There's never been a point in human history when this many thoughts were being publicly expressed. It reminds me of being a columnist: if you wrote something, you had to stick by it. It was humiliating to change your mind because it's a public U-turn. Now everyone's committing everything in print in some way, it's harder to roll back. It feels like no one can retreat.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
