Summary
- Black Mirror season 7 needs to return to its roots to reclaim its former success.
- The show should focus on societal reflections through technology, not just individual struggles.
- The upcoming season promises a return to dystopian, relevant sci-fi elements with new and familiar faces.
The upcoming Black Mirror season 7 is the show’s best chance to address some of its recent issues, and return to the roots that made it successful in the first place. Since moving to Netflix, the sci-fi anthology has struggled to impress fans, many of whom feel it has lost its original edge.
Season 6 of Black Mirror was somewhat of a mixed bag. Subjectively, it wasn’t as underwhelming as season 5, but it also didn’t hit as hard as the earlier entries. Now, less than two years later, Charlie Brooker’s dystopian series is returning, and there’s clearly a lot riding on it — something the Black Mirror season 7 trailer makes clear.
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Black Mirror Season 7 Teases Familiar Elements
New Trailer Promises Return To Show’s Roots
There’s a lot for Black Mirror fans to take in from the first official trailer of the upcoming seventh season. The trailer promises plenty of dystopian yet dangerously relevant sci-fi elements, from AI overstepping its limits to augmented reality warping perception – plus some spaceships and cyborgs too. Based on social media reactions, fans seem to agree that this seems like the most exciting Black Mirror season in years for a number of different reasons.
The trailer offered glimpses of several new cast additions, including Peter Capaldi, Awkwafina, Emma Corrin, Paul Giamatti, Issa Rae, Milanka Brooks, and Rashida Jones, among many others. But the biggest highlight was the return of Cristin Milioti’s Nanette Cole and her crew in a long-awaited sequel to USS Callister. This marks the first time the show has ever revisited a previous story. The new trailer also confirmed another familiar face: Will Poulter’s Colin Ritman from Bandersnatch, the show’s interactive special.
Was Black Mirror Season 6 Good?
The Problem With Recent Seasons
|
Series |
Black Mirror |
|---|---|
|
Platform |
Netflix |
|
Upcoming Season |
7 |
|
No. of Upcoming Episodes |
6 |
|
Release Date |
April 10, 2025 |
|
Creator |
Charlie Brooker |
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what went wrong in an otherwise ambitious Black Mirror season 6. But one possible factor is how the stories became more isolated, rather than reflections on how technology shapes society. The show has always thrived on these bigger-picture ideas, so much so that real-world dystopian events often get called Black Mirror episodes. Even with Charlie Brooker still in charge, the shift in tone has been noticeable since Netflix took over. But now, season 7 is a chance to bring back what made the show great, even if it takes some extra effort.
Black Mirror episodes have always held high standards. Brooker has consistently delivered creative, thought-provoking ideas, with strong execution and top-tier performances. Most debates about the show come down to personal preference rather than flaws in writing or concept quality. However, season 6 had some major misfires, like Mazey Day, for example, which holds the lowest IMDb rating in the show’s history at 5.3.
Brooker had aimed to refresh and reset Black Mirror by focusing more on horror and period settings. At the time, the show’s creator felt that the dystopian sci-fi space had become crowded since Black Mirror’s 2011 debut. While his efforts to reinvent the series were admirable, they didn’t quite land. Season 7 is a chance to take a step back, and this could actually benefit the show. Even Brooker seems to agree, as he mentioned in an interview with Netflix’s Tudum:
The new season is a little bit OG Black Mirror. 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. There’s definitely some disturbing content in it.
How Black Mirror Season 7 Can Revive Its Themes
Showrunners Should Learn From Older Seasons
The early seasons of Black Mirror stood out by showing how tech could lead to society’s downfall. Each story was mostly set in near-future dystopias that were shaped by dangerous innovations. This allowed for a broader perspective beyond just the protagonist’s struggles. Season 3 had some great episodes, like “Nosedive”, which imagined a world run by a social rating system, and “San Junipero”, which introduced a groundbreaking afterlife simulation. In contrast, the recent seasons felt different, as they focused more on individuals rather than society as a whole.
Throughout every season, Black Mirror has always focused on individual characters, but the show’s strength came from how their worlds were shaped by technology. Season 6 lost that edge. The only episode that somewhat captured this was “Joan Is Awful”, where AI-generated content threatened to take over people’s lives, though that idea was quickly shut down. Meanwhile, “Demon 79” technically showed the end of the world, but since it was left ambiguous, possibly existing only in Nida’s mind, it didn’t carry the same weight.
When Is Black Mirror Season 7 Coming?
Essentially, what made Black Mirror powerful was its eerie reflection of a future that felt just around the corner and disturbingly close to reality. Now, in 2025, with real-world tech already feeling dystopian and AI becoming more and more indispensable to our daily lives, the upcoming stories need to lean into that and make the sci-fi show great again. Black Mirror season 7 will premiere on Thursday, April 10, 2025, exclusively on Netflix. The season will consist of six episodes, all releasing on the same day.