The first trailer for the upcoming season of Black Mirror should lay to rest any fears that our fears of growing increasingly alienated by technology and the prejudices of others would go unaddressed in the new batch of episodes. The same series whose dystopian vision continues to resonate with our present has also become the source of one of the few bright spots, thanks to the season three episode “San Junipero.” Watching Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Mackenzie Davis fall in love in a futuristic, neon-soaked landscape offered a surprising amount of comfort for viewers, which is something that hasn’t escaped the attention of the show. In fact, creator Charlie Brooker and executive producer Annabel Jones are teasing some kind of extension of that VR love affair in season four, which, despite said beacon, isn’t about to let up on the more frightening aspects of the show.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Brooker says he intended to blow up the conception of Black Mirror as this terrifying techno-nightmare with the introduction of Kelly (Mbatha-Raw) and Yorkie (Mackenzie Davis). After omitting one scene that might have been too sad for the episode, Brooker says he “kept thinking about how that felt like a whole world in and of itself.” Which is why he and Jones “almost might do it in a completely different form if we were doing a straight sequel, if that makes sense. Maybe not even as a normal episode.” But Brooker also noted that he didn’t think “we’d revisit those characters. That felt like such a story and we wouldn’t want to open it up again,” so they might just stick to the Easter eggs they teased elsewhere in the interview. And, just like in real life, don’t count on many more happy endings on the horizon, because, Brooker says, “when something like that lands really well — and people love or hate all the episodes — but since that one resonated so much, you don’t want to hit the same bell again, even though it’s tempting. We have to be unpredictable with the show.”