“Black Mirror” Season 4 will launch on Netflix Dec. 29, the streaming service has announced.
The series, which won 2017 Emmy Awards for television movie and television movie writing (for the Season 3 installment “San Junipero”), returns with six new episodes just in time to be eligible for the winter awards cycle.
The six episodes of “Black Mirror” Season 4 include starring vehicles for talent such as Rosemarie Dewitt, Jesse Plemons and Aldis Hodge, and also boasts an episode directed by Jodie Foster.
“Arkangel,” the episode starring Dewitt and directed by Foster, follows a single mother and her daughter (Brenna Harding) over the course of several years as the daughter matures. In keeping with Foster’s grounded, indie movie style, this is very much a character study, although the element of near-future technology that is prevalent in all episodes of “Black Mirror” comes into play here, too, involving a new kind of surveillance tool.
“Black Museum,” which stars Douglas Hodge, Letitia Wright, Babs Olusanmokun and Aldis Hodge, is set at a crime museum that showcases a number of high-tech items. The story follows a young woman (Wright) who visits the museum and learns about a few of the specific attractions, allowing the episode to actually tell multiple, shorter stories within. “Black Museum” is directed by Colm McCarthy.
“Crocodile,” which stars Andrea Riseborough, Andrew Gower and Kiran Sonia Sawar, and is directed by John Hillcoat, is a thriller that follows a woman who fears something from her past will come to light and ruin her life — due to a new device that can access a person’s memories.
“Hang the DJ” follows two characters who live in a world where everyone is paired up using an advanced dating system. Starring Georgina Campbell, Joe Cole and George Blagden, “Hang the DJ” is directed by Tim Van Patten.
“Metalhead” is a story about survival in a futuristic, seemingly post-apocalyptic world in which one specific kind of technology threatens humanity. It stars Maxine Peake, Jake Davies and Clint Dyer. Director David Slade tells the story completely in black and white.
“USS Callister” is a feature length episode, during which much of the story is set in space, directed by Toby Haynes and starring Plemons, Cristin Milioti, Jimmi Simpson and Michaela Coel.
Since they are standalone stories, they can be watched in any order, although “Black Museum” is sprinkled with details that mean more if you have already seen the other stories.
Earlier this year creators Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones told Variety the fourth season of the anthology format would embrace even more genres but that the theme of how changing technology influences and affects human behavior would still be at the core.
“They look at it and think, ‘I could see myself using that technology, I could see myself embracing that,’ and then getting hooked in as we all do, to the sexiness of technology and the ease,” Jones said of the audience.
And Brooker noted that, while the season covers “new ground,” the show’s roots are still firmly planted in the dystopian, with some very dark turns to come.
“This year we have almost deliberately exaggerated the differences between the episodes,” he said, running through the new lineup. “‘U.S.S. Callister‘ is a space romp. ‘Arkagel’ is an indie mother-daughter relationship drama. ‘Crocodile’ is a bleak, dark, paranoid, techno-noir thriller. ‘Hang the DJ’ is a rom-com…ish – it’s playful. ‘Metalhead’ is really nasty, brutal, survival-horror. And then you have ‘Black Museum,’ which is Stephen King-esque campfire horror tale telling.”
Watch the full season trailer for “Black Mirror” Season 4 below:
