If the television that is british “Black Mirror” first debuted last year, it received in watchers having its techno “Twilight Zone” vibes. Here had been a dark, ultramodern anthology series that harnessed most of our technical anxieties and spun them into twisted parables in the relationship between guy and device. But within the last two seasons — as well as its extremely popular 2nd life on Netflix — the show’s cult appeal has shown much much deeper than its digital gimmickry. Its tales are grounded near to home, into the really not too distant future. The end result is a person drama (and sometimes, satire) that seems significantly more visceral, immediate and human being than your traditional nightmare that is dystopian.

On Friday, Oct. 21, “Black Mirror” returns after almost couple of years with six brand brand new sci-fi situations. The show has left the British network Channel 4 and gone directly to Netflix’s global streaming platform, where it plays with an expanded budget, an extended episode run (six per season instead of the original three) and a trove of new technological inspirations, including augmented reality games and Twitter death threats for its third season. The show’s creator, Charlie Brooker, and his longtime collaborator Annabel Jones talked about getting the audience to take a leap of faith, watching tech companies seemingly jump on their fictional ideas and their construction of one of the show’s most iconic episodes — “Be Right Back,” in which a grieving woman’s dead husband is resurrected in the form of a new artificial intelligence product that scans the deceased’s phone records and social feeds to mimic his voice (and eventually, his physical presence) in a phone conversation earlier this month. Continue reading →