Netflix announced the return of Black Mirror for its seventh season this Thursday, ending a two-year hiatus for the acclaimed anthology series. Creator Charlie Brooker promises a return to the show’s roots with six new episodes, including two feature-length installments.
The new season marks a significant shift toward what Brooker described as “OG Black Mirror” during Netflix’s Geeked Week festival in September. “It’s back to basics in many ways. They’re all sci-fi stories — there’s definitely some horrifying things that occur, but maybe not in an overt horror-movie way,” Brooker said.
Season 7 explores themes ranging from retro gaming obsession to a character who immerses himself in photographic memories to escape emotional pain.
For the first time in the series’ history, Black Mirror will feature a direct sequel to a previous episode — specifically revisiting the USS Callister storyline from Season 4.
“Fans of the show will recognize the cast of a certain spaceship from one of our episodes reappearing,” Brooker explained. “Normally, I kill off all the characters at the end of an episode, [but] I kept some of ’em alive. I’m growing as a human.”
The new collection balances tonal variety while maintaining the show’s signature technological unease. “Some of them are deeply unpleasant, some are quite funny, and some are emotional,” Brooker noted of the upcoming episodes.
Season 7 arrives at a time when audiences have shown renewed interest in workplace dystopias and technological cautionary tales, following the success of series like Apple TV+’s Severance.
