I am a huge Black Mirror fan and have been since the first series. So when I heard Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones, the creators of Black Mirror would be doing a talk at the O2, I couldn’t but my ticket fast enough.
It was well worth the shlep to North Greenwich!
For those of you who don’t know, Black Mirror is an anthology of the weird and wonderful, and usually dire and depressing. I’ve often described it to prospective viewers as the British Twilight Zone. And it’s true that Charlie Brooker was inspired by Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone and others, like Hammer Horror.
Black Mirror's episodes almost all revolve around a similar theme. Here’s a powerful piece of technology which has the potential to do incredible things. Now, let’s see how normal people cope with it.
Spoiler alert, usually not well.
From technology which allows you to record and replay your memories, to various types of fully immersive VR and the ability to live on after death, these stories are all set in a near future and while are very much speculative fiction, feel disturbingly true to our lives now.
As a matter of fact, several of Charlie Booker’s nightmares as seen in Nosedive, The Waldo Moment and National Anthem have come true in real life...
I’d go into that more, but I actually have a whole post planned around that subject so check back soon.
Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones have been working together for 17 years now and describe themselves as having a ‘healthy disdain’ for each other. All in jest, of course, though it seems they embody that classic relationship between the level-headed and practice Annabel verses the creative, video game playing when supposed to be writing Charlie.
Now, the hard question... favourite Black Mirror episode? Charlie Booker eventually landed on White Bear and San Junipero.
I personally simply can’t choose between my top five of USS Callister, Nosedive, White Christmas, Hated in the Nation and San Junipero. And while I do love White Bear - it's in top ten, it gave me nightmares! As did Playtest which still haunts me.
If you have a favourite, let us know! Maybe we can do a poll of the top three.
The two have now created a book called Inside Black Mirror which is an incredible companion to the show as it goes through many of the episodes with interviews from the cast and crew about their thoughts, impressions and what they went through to create it!
Well worth the read for any fan and you can find it here.
And of course, the pair were asked - when is the next Black Mirror series coming out? By they were entirely silent on that. Boo!
This talk was hosted and streamed by the Guardian so if you want to watch it, the link is here!
And of course, since then Bandersnatch came to Netflix which is probably what Charlie Brooker was trying to hint out before being shut down.