The seventh season of Black Mirror is, relatively speaking, quite good. I say this as a longtime skeptic of creator Charlie Brooker’s high-tech Twilight Zone—an anthology series that, in my estimation, has produced more emotionally manipulative nightmare fuel than trenchant insight into where all these so-called innovations are leading us. But the show has been on an upswing since veering into camp with its fifth season, a three-episode nadir that produced not a single compelling story. Scattered but often intriguing, Season 6 marked both an improvement on its predecessor and a departure from the series’ typically grim, ironic, dystopian science fiction.
Now streaming on Netflix, Season 7 marks a return to form, in that most of its six episodes are premised on some near-future technological phenomenon. Yet it retains the previous season’s mix of tones and genres—not just effectively saving viewers who are already marinating in the AI dread of the present from an anxiety spiral, but also teasing out subtler kinds of responses to the relentless march of progress. The unifying themes are memory and history, the haunting influence our personal and collective pasts might have on the future. The prevailing mood is wistfulness. From a sequel to the fan favorite “USS Callister” to a disarmingly poetic take on artificial intelligence in Hollywood that is probably the best Black Mirror episode since the latter Season 4 standout, the new batch offers plenty of highlights. Even the weaker installments have something to recommend them, but for those whose patience with the show is limited, here’s a worst-to-best ranking of the seventh season with mini-reviews to help prioritize your viewing.
6. Episode 4, “Plaything”
A vintage cyberpunk tale nested within a near-future crime procedural, “Plaything” opens in the year 2034, when a convenience store owner calls the cops on a wild-haired man (Peter Capaldi’s Cameron) who tries to steal a beverage. It…
