Black Mirror moving away from sci-fi into horror is the worst thing the show can do

Why lose what makes it special?

10 months ago

Black Mirror is in crisis. If I was Supernanny Jo Frost, I’d utter her immortal, viral words: “You guys are in a crisis, I’m on my way.” This once great show is crumbling before our eyes, and there’s one big, glaring reason for it. The show is leaning into horror and moving away from the sci-fi themes that made it so untouchable when it debuted over a decade ago, and it’s doing so intentionally. Yet the pay off, from critics and fans alike, has never been lower. Here’s why I believe Black Mirror moving towards horror will be the final nail in its coffin.

First of all: I love horror

I just feel like before I make another point I must stress to you that my vendetta with the show’s genre shift is not with the genre itself. Horror is one of the biggest loves of my life, one of the obsessions that has lived in me since my childhood. I actually rarely watch anything that isn’t dancing around the edge of or fully consumed by the horror genre. From films to TV, it’s where my passion has always been. I always struggle to call myself an expert in film, but would say with my full chest that I’m an expert when it comes to horror. I live and breathe it, and have written about it often in my career.

I’m saying all this because you’d think knowing what I’ve just said that I’d be practically salivating when Charlie Brooker speaks about Black Mirror taking a spookier and supernatural shift. The issue isn’t necessarily Black Mirror doing horror – it’s that historically this show is just not very good at it.

Black Mirror horror episodes are mid tier at best

Before season six of Black Mirror made the full Red Mirror jump into the supernatural, the show has tried many times to scare us. Playtest, White Bear and Metalhead I would lump as sci-fi horror, and them aside it’s not like Black Mirror was sunshine and rainbows. This show is dark and disturbing, but it isn’t horror. With season six, that changed. Mazey Day and Demon 79 leaned fully into horror, with the former being a hidden twist reveal and the second being branded as Red Mirror from the off.

The dismal Mazey Day

The thing is, the werewolf twist in Mazey Day flops. Why? Because we spend the episode brimming with intrigue and the pay off is “Oh, she’s a werewolf.” Everyone knows werewolf lore, what werewolves do. Instantly, an episode from a show known for its originality becomes pastiche, lives inside horror tropes we know. How can this compare to watching something twisty and ambitious with its tech scope like USS Callister, or even the lighthearted Joan Is Awful? It just can’t.

It’s bizarre how Black Mirror never fully smashes the horror beats it goes for considering that Charlie Brooker is accomplished in the genre. For my money, his 2008 limited series Dead Set is one of the greatest zombie apocalypse stories ever told. And yet everything feels off here. It feels like the end of the line.

Horror anthology is hard to maintain – and we’re not short of it

Black Mirror is such a pop culture phenomenon because there’s really nothing else like it on TV. Do you know what there’s shitloads of? Horror anthologies. From Shudder, to dark series’ on Netflix and of course to American Horror Story – a horror anthology so neverending and dominating that we needed a spin off of episodic horror tales called American Horror Stories… This is an oversaturated market. I suppose Black Mirror would end up most comparable to something like the excellent Inside No 9 – a show I love deeply, but even as a huge fan have to say we are watching it rapidly decrease in quality as it plods on.

Right now, if we think of season six, we’ve seen Black Mirror hit its stride when it does what it’s great at and what it’s unique for. The standout episodes in this batch were Joan Is Awful and Beyond The Sea with ease, two wholly original stories set in both the present / near-future and the past that manage to weave in disturbing content and horrifying murder alongside the technology and sci-fi we love this show for. Where it floundered and dropped the ball was at the end of the season. If the show is committing to its move to this vibe, we’re in for a garbage time.

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