Netflix’s hit technology anthology Black Mirror will return to the streamer for a seventh season.
Variety broke the news of Black Mirror’s renewal, with the show recently seeing a successful sixth season on Netflix. The dystopian anthology, named for the sleek void of an inactive screen, originally debuted on the UK’s Channel 4 in 2011. Black Mirror found a new audience and gangbuster success when Netflix acquired it in 2016. Despite the four-year hiatus between Seasons 5 and 6, the latest installment still retained a massive audience for the streamer.
Season 6 episodes included “Beyond the Sea” with Aaron Paul and Kate Mara and “Joan is Awful,” which featured Salma Hayek and a tongue-in-cheek parody streaming service called Streamberry. The anthological nature of Black Mirror allows for a revolving door of both on-screen and behind-the-scenes talent, with other Season 6 appearances including Zazie Beetz, Annie Murphy, Myha’la Herrold, and Anjana Vasan. It’s too early to tell whether Black Mirror’s Season 6 popularity will translate into any major award season nominations, but the series has previously earned Emmys for episodes such as “San Junipero,” Star Trek-inspired “USS Callister,” and the interactive special Black Mirror: Bandersnatch.
Variety delved into the logistics behind Black Mirror‘s lengthy Season 5 to 6 hiatus, citing a shuffle in production company personnel as part of the delay (the COVID-19 pandemic obviously put a halt on a majority of the film and television industry during this period as well). The apparent resolution of this technical hiccup means that the wait between Seasons 6 and 7 should be less drastic. However, the announcement of Black Mirror‘s seventh season is still too fresh to warrant any updates on what topics or celebrities will be featured in its next installment.
Black Mirror’s anthological skewing of topics ranging from artificial intelligence to digital voyeurism proved extremely fresh to audiences during its early seasons, and the series has maintained strong audience engagement despite the bevy of likeminded shows that have sprung up in its wake. However, Black Mirror’s prolonged stretch in the spotlight has since helped birth parodies such as the satirical version of the show featured in Futurama’s Season 11 premiere or CollegeHumor’s Bad Internet web series.
