‘Black Mirror’ Will Return for a Fifth Season

The 'Black Mirror' logo (Photo: Netflix)

Streaming service Netflix announced that the popular dystopian science fiction anthology Black Mirror will be back for a fifth season. 

The series, which has featured high-caliber British acting talent of almost every stripe, explores issues of technology and its unanticipated effects on modern society. Each episode is a standalone story, and can be watched in pretty much any order – though the series’ creators have been hinting that some (or all?) of them may exist within a larger shared universe.

Basically, Black Mirror is like a modern, more tecnosavvy version of The Twilight Zone, but if all the social media apps, dating services, home security systems and online game shows turned out to be basically terrible and/or threating to us, all the time.  (It’s honestly a fascinating series, and if you haven’t checked it out yet, you should.)

Black Mirror originally aired on UK network Channel 4 for its first two seasons, before creator Charlie Brooker brought it to Netflix in the hopes of increasing its global audience. Its critically acclaimed third season – which saw episode “San Junipero” nab two Emmys – was an instant hit. The fourth season dropped late in 2017 and featured episodes that tackled everything from a Star Trek-style space adventure (“U.S.S. Callister”) to a black and white horror film (“Metalhead”).

Word of the series’ renewal came via the official Black Mirror Twitter account, which dropped a cryptic video featuring clips from many previous episodes and a tag line that was basically a shout out to Season 2. (The fantastic Hayley Atwell and Domhnall Gleeson-starring tale “Be Right Back”.)

Watch for yourselves below:

The future will be brighter than ever. pic.twitter.com/slVeg3VPd7

— Black Mirror (@blackmirror) March 5, 2018

The video offers no new information at all about Season 5, nor does it even hint at a premiere date. If you’ve watched any portion of Black Mirror at all, you’ll know this isn’t at all surprising, but nevertheless it’s hard not to just want to know.

 On the plus side, at least the series is coming back – if only to give us more nightmares about the potential futures of intelligent robotics in our lifetimes.

Any other Black Mirror fans out there? Let’s discuss.


Lacy Baugher

Lacy's love of British TV is embarrassingly extensive, but primarily centers around evangelizing all things Doctor Who, and watching as many period dramas as possible.

Digital media type by day, she also has a fairly useless degree in British medieval literature, and dearly loves to talk about dream poetry, liminality, and the medieval religious vision. (Sadly, that opportunity presents itself very infrequently.) York apologist, Ninth Doctor enthusiast, and unabashed Ravenclaw. Say hi on Threads or Blue Sky at @LacyMB. 

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