Black Mirror is a British science fiction series, and the best way to explain it is the title itself. Charlie Brooker said it: if technology is a drug, and it feels like one, then what are the side effects? The black mirror is the screen you are looking at right now.
Every episode is a different story, with different actors, in a near future. Not two hundred years from now. Sometimes it looks like next Tuesday. The theme never changes: the dark side of people, amplified by the gadgets we are already carrying.
Like good whisky, this is a small series. Three episodes per season, fourteen in six years. In 2016 Netflix bet on a new season of six. The production quality is not television quality; most science fiction films cannot reach it. John Hamm carries the Christmas special, ninety minutes long, which is one of the best science fiction episodes ever filmed.
There are no spaceships here. No black holes, no epic sagas. The special effects are the minimum, because they are not needed: this is a trip into the dark side of being human, powered by devices that do not exist yet and feel terrifyingly close.
The last season talks about social media, the internet of things, virtual reality, euthanasia, mind manipulation, artificial intelligence and big data. You do not need to know what any of those words mean. Watch an episode and you will understand the danger behind each technology that will be part of your life in a few years.
If you have not watched it yet, I have just given you a gift. This series is already part of the history of television.
Keep reading: Altered Carbon, Maniac and what cyberpunk actually means.
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