In 2023, a favourite trope of Hollywood sci-fi, particularly the rise of a nefarious expertise that threatens the very existence of the human race, appears much less and fewer like a fantasy. We’ve already unwittingly been changed into denizens of the sheer nightmare-scape wrought by the rise of social media — the absurd terminus of which was envisioned by writers Michael Schur and Rashida Jones in “Black Mirror” season 3’s premiere episode “Nosedive.” And now, AI has gone from the priority of teachers and psychedelic-fuelled podcast friends to what looks as if a real risk to tradition as we all know it.
Which is why we completely want a brand new season of “Black Mirror” to remind us that our relentlessly constructive tech overlords are solely giving us half the story. And fortunately, Netflix has us coated. “Black Mirror” season 6 is about to debut someday in June (an actual date remains to be TBA) and guarantees to ship one more array of deeply unsettling and endlessly entertaining glimpses right into a dystopian, tech-ruled future. That is, except sequence creator Charlie Brooker adopted by along with his ambition to “revisit [his] comic skill set” and write “scripts aimed at making himself laugh.”
Whatever the case, the sci-fi anthology sequence, which moved to Netflix for its third season, has as soon as once more packed its episodes with some stellar expertise, with everybody from up-and-comer Zazie Beetz (“Bullet Train,” “Atlanta”) to Salma Hayek displaying up this time round. Whether it finally ends up making you chortle or cry, “Black Mirror” season 6 is certain to make you suppose — a welcome improvement in an age the place expertise threatens to do all our pondering for us.