Summarize and humanize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in English
Are you ready to look back into the eye of your beholder? Black Mirror, created and largely written by Charlie Brooker, returns to Netflix with six new episodes of techno-fied Twilight Zone-like trips, fully integrated with our ability to rely on technology right up until it eats us alive. Another stellar lineup of stars appear in season 7, including Issa Rae, Paul Giamatti, Emma Corrin, Peter Capaldi, Awkwafina, and Tracee Ellis Ross. And in Black Mirror’s first sequel episode, Cristin Milioti, Jimmi Simpson, and Billy Magnussen climb back aboard the USS Callister. But first, let’s see what Rashida Jones and Chris O’Dowd’s characters are up to as they contract with a tech provider for wellness in their coverage area…
Opening Shot: The familiar titescape of Black Mirror emerges, complete with its unnerving shattered glass sound effect. As a phone alarm sounds, a couple untangles their feet in the bed. “Happy anniversary!”
The Gist: Amanda (Jones) and Mike (O’Dowd) are that married couple, and they are exceedingly normal. They enjoy each other, they go to their jobs (she’s a teacher, he’s a welder); they’ve been trying for a baby, but it might have to be a “happy accident.”
You could say Amanda and Mike are “Common People,” which happens to be the title of Black Mirror season 7’s sneaky scary first installment. In typical fashion for this series, the couple’s everyday lives quickly devolve into a nightmare scenario, and what’s so scary about it is how “common” parts of it feel to how we live in our collective everyday. Sure, at the elementary school where she teaches, Amanda gives a lesson about autonomous drone insects “that spread pollen the way organic bees used to.” An understood Black Mirror aside; the seamless technological benefits of near-future lives. But when a medical emergency makes Mike and Amanda seek the help of Rivermind, a mysterious healthcare startup, they’re soon caught in a doom loop that feels similar to trying to adjust your cable subscription, but with the terror of dying alone and penniless as a scalable add-on. “All you have to do is upgrade,” says Rivermind rep Gaynor (a brilliant Tracee Ellis Ross). “Only $800 a month…”
Gaynor’s corporate shilling double and triple speak is bewildering. “Plus is actually now Standard, but it’s still better than Common!” And yet, Amanda and Mike have no choice. Their livelihood, their very survival, is on the line. Even though the benefit offered by Rivermind’s tech is undermined by how much it takes – in “Common People,” Amanda becomes a walking, talking, breathing version of Google Adwords – as they are consumed, the tech itself seems to become the only thing that matters in their existence. They looked into the Black Mirror and saw only themselves. Which is kinda what we all do?
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Five years after it premiered, maybe Alex Garland’s Devs feels even more timely. But Black Mirror can align with other stabs at the question of where technology is taking humanity, whether we know it or not. Like Westworld. Or Brit Marling’s 2023 series A Murder at the End of the World, where Black Mirror co-star Emma Corrin played a sleuthing hacker up against murderous computing power.
Our Take: Black Mirror returns! Just in time, and with another round of feelgood vibes and technological funsies to assuage the existential fears that have gripped the public square! Oh shit, wait, it’s the opposite. Now we feel worse. Not about the anthology series on a technical level – it is deeply-realized science fiction, with top-notch writing, direction, and casting. But about what Black Mirror does when it cuts into us. When its stories show us outcomes that could exist at the nexus of tech and individual existence. The series does not need to set everything in some kind of imagined future space – it’s scarier when the tech is just a few tweaked versions away from our own civilization’s obsessions with AI, LLMs, and all things quantum computing. Black Mirror plays up the fear in a line like “While you’re in sleep mode, our servers are harnessing your spare processing capabilities,” and we love that. Yes! Great sci-fi! But it’s also not a line very far from something any of us might receive in a form email, one with an opt-in we would barely notice clicking. The “human battery” bit from The Matrix felt faraway scary in 1999. Black Mirror feels so close scary in 2025.
Sex and Skin: [Banner Ad Voice, during sex]: “Ride smooth with Thirst Trap Lube!”
Parting Shot: Parting shots of Black Mirror episodes are typically impactful. With respect to spoilers, we’ll just say that trend continues with season 7.
Sleeper Star: Black Mirror delights in messing with tone. When a lounge lizard crooner (Peter Hall) and his quavering keyboarding accompanist (Flo Lawrence) appear at Amanda and Mike’s anniversary destination, it made us think of Twin Peaks, and wonder what incongruous weirdness could occur.
Most Pilot-y Line: A stoner-type guy at Mike’s work is a superfan of a website called Dum Dummies. “Desperate people go on here, and then the audience pays them to do some dark shit.” How desperate must one be to, say, pry out a tooth and mukbang it?
Our Call: Stream It! Is Black Mirror warning us about what’s to come, or reflecting what’s already here? Either way, the anthology series is putting us in a new twilight zone with its season 7 tales of technology run amok and raw emotion as the timeless driver of the human condition.
Johnny Loftus (@johnnyloftus.bsky.social) is a Chicago-based writer. A veteran of the alternative weekly trenches, his work has also appeared in Entertainment Weekly, Pitchfork, The All Music Guide, and The Village Voice.
(function(d, s, id) {
var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
if (d.getElementById(id)) return;
js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;
js.src = “//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&appId=823934954307605&version=v2.8”;
fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);
}(document, ‘script’, ‘facebook-jssdk’));
