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Charlie Brooker said Black Mirror isn't really about tech. It's about us --- how we get greedy, show off, and mess things up with our own inventions. Season 7 hit Netflix with six wildly different episodes that felt like a full-circle moment.
No more werewolves or horror tangents; Brooker's putting people back in the spotlight. Whether it's a twisted Star Trek homage or a love story shattered by cloud storage, this season holds up a mirror to our own flaws.
The gadgets? They're just tools. The real horror show, it turns out, is staring right back at us.
We return to basics in Black Mirror Season 7
After dabbling in interactive formats like Bandersnatch and launching a horror spin-off called Red Mirror, creator Charlie Brooker told The Hollywood Reporter he wanted Season 7 to return to its classic Black Mirror roots.
Here's his formula:
"Human beings and then some form of miraculous technology is introduced into their lives that upends it."
He delivered.
The opener, "Common People," starring Chris O'Dowd and Rashida Jones, shows how quickly humans trade love and ethics for survival in a subscription-based world. A brain tumor diagnosis becomes the gateway to a healthcare nightmare and exposes capitalism's brutal cost of staying alive.
Imagine "San Junipero" rewritten during a failed Silicon Valley pitch!
"Eulogy" features Paul Giamatti dissecting memory and regret through a device that’s both a blessing and a curse. If Season 6’s "Loch Henry" critiqued society’s voyeurism, this episode reveals how we lie to ourselves privately.
Why are humans scarier than tech?
Black Mirror Season 7 makes one thing crystal clear: Charlie Brooker was never really talking about technology. Sure, the gadgets dazzle --- they can upload minds, resurrect old films, or rewrite history like editing a document.
The chills come when people get their hands on it!
Take Black Mirror's "Bête Noire." On the surface, it's a workplace drama with poisoned cookies and hacked emails. Dig deeper, though, and it’s about office jealousy, the nagging fear you’re not good enough, and how easily trust vanishes when facts can be faked with a click.
Then there’s "Plaything." It twists 90s video game nostalgia into something downright terrifying. And it's not even the graphics, but because of the people clinging to those pixelated memories like lifelines.
Even "USS Callister: Into Infinity" shifts tone. It starts as a cheesy space adventure but spirals into dread. Why? The digital crew lives in constant fear, not from glitches but because the humans who made them never stopped to ask: What happens when code that feels pain gets treated like disposable code?
The machines aren’t the monsters. We are.
The most hopeful (or bleak) ending yet
Brooker teased that the ending in Season 7 captures what's ahead. Depending on your perspective, it can be taken as hopeful or horrifying. The show holds up a mirror (pun intended) from which we CANNOT look away!
Critics at Elle applauded this season's return to "nightmarish philosophizing" about tech. But what stands out is how human these stories feel.
Giamatti grapples with memory, Emma Corrin shines in a surreal hotel, and O'Dowd cracks under corporate pressure. The sci-fi elements fade into the background, leaving only emotions. Black Mirror Season 7 reminds us that the darkness comes from our own reflection staring back.
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