“Black Mirror is back, baby!” Or at least, that’s what someone might say if they’d been watching it regularly. I wasn’t. I used to keep up with it, but the release dates started getting longer, and the show slowly faded from my mind. Still, its return felt timely. The new season is full of that same eerie, sharp-edged social commentary, and it seems to align perfectly with my own uneasiness around where technology is headed.
The season dives headfirst into tech anxiety, not in a distant or dystopian way but in a way that feels like it’s reflecting a version of our world we’re already living in. The speculative aspect feels less “what if” and more “when.”
The second-most emotional episode of the season, “Common People,” starts off with a seemingly familiar premise. A husband learns his wife is dying, and a nurse tells him there’s nothing to be done— unless he agrees to a new medical procedure involving advanced technology. He says yes. Of course he does. The treatment keeps her alive, but soon she starts blurting out ads during conversations. In order to stop it, he has to upgrade the service, which comes with a new price tag. It turns into a pay-to-survive system, like a streaming service, but for basic human dignity. Eventually, he starts live-streaming for donations, performing ridiculous stunts to afford the next payment. The whole thing sounds absurd until you realize that the line between this and our current healthcare system is paper-thin.
“Bête Noire” plays with the Mandela Effect in a way that is both playful and unsettling. A woman is confronted by a childhood peer who seems to be rewriting reality. What begins as déjà vu turns into something more dangerous. We learn that the main character was somewhat of a bully, and her former victim has returned with a vengeance, armed with technology that allows her to rewrite events, twist outcomes and disrupt what everyone else believes to be true. The concept is fascinating, but what stood out to me most was how believable it felt. The idea of reality being editable through code is no longer a stretch. It feels like a question of access.
“Hotel Reverie” was one of the strongest episodes. It focuses on AI’s potential to replace actors entirely. Issa Rae stars in a film remake where her performance is dropped into a simulation of the original movie. Most of the other roles are played by AI, and the twist is that one of them begins to gain awareness. It’s the kind of plot that feels too big to fit into 60 minutes, but somehow it works. What really stayed with me was the implication— if AI gains sentience, do we treat it like software or like something alive? I used to think AI becoming self-aware was more science fiction than reality. Lately, I’m not so sure. This episode did a good job showing just how complicated the question is.
“Plaything” picks up some of those same themes, but takes them further. It imagines a world where AI becomes so advanced that it can’t just simulate humanity— it can merge with it. This episode was less memorable to me, partly because the visuals leaned into surreal, acid-trip territory, but the core idea still struck a nerve. A collective AI consciousness that fuses with individuals is a strange concept but not completely unthinkable. It left me wondering how far off we really are from that kind of fusion, and what would be lost in the process.
Then there’s “Eulogy,” the one that hit me hardest. A man is asked to use a new piece of technology to revisit and preserve memories shared with a friend who has just passed away. It’s framed as a way to honor her, but it quickly becomes more about him. As the memories play out, we start to see how much we edit ourselves in retrospect. Technology becomes the tool that reveals that distortion. The episode is quiet, emotional and morally complicated. I didn’t know whether I should sympathize with the main character or hold him accountable. That tension carried through to the ending, which felt honest and sad in the best way.
Finally, “USS Callister: Into Infinity” returns to a familiar world, following up on the original “USS Callister.” Jesse Plemons and Cristin Milioti are both excellent again, and this episode continues to explore questions around control and digital identity. The characters may have escaped one tyrant, but freedom in this new space is just as fragile. The episode reminded me why the show works so well when it sticks to its core question: what does it mean to be human in a world where technology reshapes the answer every year?
This season didn’t have the same cultural flash as early “Black Mirror,” but it felt more grounded. It wasn’t trying to shock as much as it was trying to warn. And what makes that warning land is how little distance there is between the show’s fiction and our reality.
