“There is a nice warm spike
of surprise and joy...followed by
a massive wave of fear.” That’s
howBlack Mirror creator Charlie
Brooker describes how he felt
when his name was called—
twice!—at last month’s Emmys,
where his cult-favorite Netflix
anthology drama won an unex-
pected double victory (for best TV
movie and best writing for a TV
movie ) for 2016’s sublime fan-
tasy episode “San Junipero.” Yet
Brooker’s response—pleasant
surprise followed by crushing
terror—could also describe the
experience of watching hisTwi-light Zone-esque series, which typi-
cally introduces an exciting tech
invention or intriguing societal
advance that’s quickly followed
by a nightmarish examination of
how such progress could go terri-
bly wrong. (Brooker throws us a
happy ending once in a while, if
only to keep us off balance and
give us a break from installments
that are, as he puts it, “nihilisti-
cally horrible from beginning to
end.”) Season 4 offers six epi-
sodes that once again feel like a
collection of outliers. “All...are
intrinsicallyBlack Mirror and also
aren’t—they’re all different fromevery episode we’ve ever done,”
Brooker says. The most visually
striking of the bunch is a 76-minute
epic set in aStar Trek-like space-
ship titled “USS Callister,” which
stars Jesse Plemons (TV’sFa r g o).
“There’s certainly more to that
one than meets the eye,” Brooker
says in his characteristically vaguemanner when teasing his super-
secretive show. (He abruptly halts
plenty of sentences with “Actually,
I can’t tell you that.”) What we
can tell you is that there’s also an
“indie movie”-style drama called
“Arkangel” directed by Jodie Fos-
ter and starringMad Men’s Rose-
marie DeWitt that Brooker says is
“about a mother and a daughter
and a technological opportunity
that’s seized upon.” (He then
laughs wickedly.) Another is
“Metalhead” (pictured), featur-
ing a renegade robot, that’s “a
pared-down and brutal tale; if you
imagine every season like an
album, this is like a two-minute
punk single,” Brooker says. “Hang
the DJ” hasGame of Thrones direc-
tor Tim Van Patten helming a
twist on a dating story. “Croco-
dile” is a “taut thriller” whose title
has nothing to do with the story.
And then there’s “Black Museum,”
which Brooker describes as a
Simpsons “Treehouse of Horror”-
like trio of tales set in a crime
museum—and includes Easter-
egg references to every previous
Black Mirror episode. Perhaps the
biggest mystery of all, however, is
whether the series can replicate
the breakout success of “San Juni-
pero” or if that was an outlier too.
“It’s a bit daunting. It’s now a
higher bar to clear; you can only
fail from here,” Brooker quips.
“That’s just my characteristically
optimistic view on things.” And
we’d expect nothing less.Are you ready to be terrified, exhilarated, and shook beyond belief all over again? We are too!
CreatorCHARLIE BROOKER tells EW how he’s going to torment viewers in season 4.By James HibberdFIRST LOOKMaxine Peake in
“Metalhead”JONATHAN PRIME/NETFLIX