In 2023, a favorite trope of Hollywood sci-fi, namely the rise of a nefarious technology that threatens the very existence of the human race, seems less and less like a fantasy. We’ve already unwittingly been turned 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 concern of academics and psychedelic-fuelled podcast guests to what seems like a genuine threat to culture as we know it.
Which is why we absolutely need a new season of “Black Mirror” to remind us that our relentlessly positive tech overlords are only giving us half the story. And luckily, Netflix has us covered. “Black Mirror” season 6 is set to debut sometime in June (an exact date is still TBA) and promises to deliver yet another array of deeply unsettling and endlessly entertaining glimpses into a dystopian, tech-ruled future. That is, unless series creator Charlie Brooker followed through with his ambition to “revisit [his] comic skill set” and write “scripts aimed at making himself laugh.”
Whatever the case, the sci-fi anthology series, which moved to Netflix for its third season, has once again packed its episodes with some stellar talent, with everyone from up-and-comer Zazie Beetz (“Bullet Train,” “Atlanta”) to Salma Hayek showing up this time around. Whether it ends up making you laugh or cry, “Black Mirror” season 6 is sure to make you think — a welcome development in an age where technology threatens to do all our thinking for us.