I don’t watch a lot of TV but wow, every episode in this season was incredible. Not always about technology but always in the background to what are ultimately stories about people. The ideas are not new, but the superb execution of each episode more than makes up for this deficiency.

Episodes:

1. Common People – paying a health subscription not to die along with the familiar enshittification we now all experience as services charge more and give less.
2. Bête Noire – probably my favourite episode of the season, full of logic holes but imagines technology that allows people to shift parallel universes for petty revenge.
3. Hotel Reverie – this is pretty standard Black Mirror fare about developing a relationship with a simulation. Still very enjoyable though.
4. Plaything – a computer game gains sentience and merges with humanity. Idea wise, it’s nothing new and was very predictable but the set dressing made all the difference! Set in early 2000s the nostalgia was strong. Seeing physical media, magazines and disk drives all in the style of Trainspotting was so cool. An office with a whole wall of TDR stuff and the closing Future Sound of London, “We Have Explosive” track was a perfect cherry on top.
5. Eulogy – using technology to collate memories for a funeral eulogy. Again pretty standard Black Mirror stuff but stylistically it was like an updated version of David Fincher’s Fight Club. Very depressing but very well done
6. USS Callister: Into Infinity – humorous, icky and tense mini movie length episode about cloned human consciousness inside a digital realm. Not my favourite but still pretty strong.