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Invariably, the production of an anthology series is going to garner comparisons to The Twilight Zone. Fair or not, that’s the way it goes. Even a series like The Outer Limits, in its own right an institution, can’t quite seem to stand outside the long and menacing shadow of the Rod Serling classic. That The Twilight Zone is still so popular—and effective—almost six decades down the line only makes things worse. Twilight Zone-esque gets thrown around as much as Hitchcockian, becoming a sort of shorthand for the genre or form. Is it fair? Not really. But clichés tend to be clichés for a reason. Critically, it’s a meaningless descriptor but culturally it paints an image. Hearing Twilight Zone-esque immediately tells you what you need to know—short works of horror or intrigue—without any pesky deadweight like subtlety or nuance.
Which is why it’s somewhat disheartening for me to hear the term being used to describe Black Mirror. The British series, with its new home on Netflix, is anthology series, sure, and is science fiction, okay, but that’s about where its similarity to The Twilight Zone begins and ends. Still, like so many anthology series that came before it—and like so many that paved the way for Serling’s masterpiece that have since been lost in the annals of history—Black Mirror will probably never quite step out of the shadow of its predecessor. Culturally speaking, it’s just too hard a label to shake off.
The latest season of the tech-nightmare series, its third, invites audiences to step back into the worlds either created or nurtured by Charlie Brooker, worlds that are as vast as space and as timeless as infin…goddammit. Lemme try that again. Brooker, the creator of Black Mirror, who also writes the bulk of its episodes, does a remarkable job about telling stories that exist between science and superstition which lie between the pit of man’s fears and…shit.
I guess as obnoxious and lazy as the comparisons might be, it’s also kind of, well, inevitable. Like the best episodes of The Twilight Zone before it, Black Mirror takes the issues of our day and examines them to their extremity. As ever, its focus is on technology and our relationships with it. That thematic limitation is what sets it most apart from The Twilight Zone, or, really, any other anthology that came before it. It’s framework, which may feel limiting at the outset, becomes both pressing and prescient—a reflection and a warning.
Black Mirror continues to work within this familiar framework, somehow finding new ways to horrify, provoke thought, and toy with your emotions—good god, the emotions. As with seasons past, the series can’t seem to stop itself from stomping across your feelings with an exuberance not unlike a child stomping on an ant hill. Brooker’s twisted visions are as pointed as a knife, and he’s not afraid to turn it, slowly, after thrusting it inside of you.
Twists have long been a staple in short works, be it literary or cinematic, but Brooker never manages to fall into the trap of having a twist for twists sake. Any shock or emotional-fuck-you that might come from the stories being told here are outgrowths of the narratives they exist within; they’re not out of nowhere surprises, they’re natural conclusions. There’s a kind of nihilism present in the stories Brooker tells that works as an existential time bomb just waiting to explode within your psyche. Even the happier stories (such as they are) can’t escape the bleakness—Black Mirror is the abyss that gazes back.
What’s so off-putting about that is that, as the name suggests, the face you see in the darkness is your own. Technology may be the framework, but humanity is the foundation. As ever, these are not tales that are designed to frighten us off of our technocapable world like some Nietzschean Luddite. That’s never been the point of Black Mirror, and that’s not the point here. Rather, Brooker uses technology in order to explore our hidden recesses, motivations, and desires. Any fear you might have had that this well had been sucked dry—especially after the mildly lackluster Christmas special last year—is quickly assuaged as Brooker brings you back into his darkness.
The six-episodes presented here in season three often surpass the standards set in previous seasons. The gamut of genre is run entirely here, from the classic noir story in “Hated in the Nation” to a sweet coming of age story in “San Junipero.” Even lesser episodes, such as “Shut Up and Dance,” manage to find the creep-factor and get under your skin—if the story itself doesn’t do you in, the premise will at least make you think. (Which, again, is not unlike The Twilight Zone.)
Though handling the bulk of the writing duties himself (except for “Nosedive,” which was co-written by Rashida Jones & Michael Schur and “Shut Up and Dance” which was co-written by William Bridges), Brooker has enlisted a series of fantastic directors to help him realize his dark visions. Joe Wright (Anna Karenina, Hanna) for instance takes the reigns on the Bryce Dallas Howard (Jurassic World) starring “Nosedive” while Penny Dreadful creator James Hawes guides “Hated in the Nation” to cinematic perfection. Even Dan Trachtenberg (10 Cloverfield Lane) joins in on the fun with “Playtest,” a mind-bending story that crawls inside your brain and refuses eviction.
All of which is to say that Black Mirror is back, and in a big, big way. Perhaps more than any similar anthology show in existence, Brooker’s creation has the potential to step outside the shadow of The Twilight Zone and create a new standard. That’s a difficult call to make from our vantage point. As I mentioned above, The Twilight Zone, or even The Outer Limits, has the benefit of decades of acclaim and momentum working on its side. And it’s possible that Brooker’s hot takes on technology will be rendered irrelevant in the years to come; it’s not that hard to envision a future where Black Mirror feels dated and obsolete.
Still, I imagine Serling thought the same thing about many of his tales, most of which are considered classics today, over a half century later. From where I’m sitting, Brooker has created some classics of his own, whose sheer weight and quality are indisputable. Whether or not Black Mirror can ever escape from the long and illustrious shadow of its forebears is immaterial. Perhaps the shadow is where it belongs, where it can better hide and lure its victims into its cold realm. If The Twilight Zone truly does exist in “the middle ground between light and shadow,” then Black Mirror serves to make the shadow just a little darker, and a little more foreboding. That in itself is an accomplishment, no matter how you want to compare it.
Black Mirror is now streaming on Netflix.
