Black Mirror Creator Halts Production For Next Season And Reboots Himself Into Comedy

The words dystopia, apocalypse, and endgame have become very relatable for everyone since the last few months. Until now the impact of these words was only induced and inferred from the movies and shows belonging to the sci-fi genre. But since the outbreak of coronavirus pandemic, we all have had a glimpse of how close the ‘end of the world’ can actually be!

On top of it, other natural disasters seemingly have conspired with covid-19 to strike simultaneously on humanity. Then arrived the nationwide anti-racial protests in several countries. Who would have the appetite for one more season of Charlie Brooker’s dystopian psycho-thriller drama ‘Black Mirror’ in such a situation? Isn’t the real world turning apocalyptic and dystopian already?

Five small seasons of Brooker’s genius anthology show ‘Black Mirror’ consists of standalone episodes depicting how the world could like if the dark side of humanity commingled with the dark side of technology. Each scintillating episode explores, from different viewpoints and timeframes, how fatal advancing futuristic technology can become for mankind. Very few of these storylines end on a positive note. The latest season was released in June 2019 with only three episodes featuring Anthony Macky, Andrew Scott, Topher Grace, and Miley Cyrus among several others. After the 5th season, the creators came out with the film Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, starring Fionn Whitehead and Will Poulter. The ‘user-interactive’ movie walks deep into a tech-driven psychological apocalypse of the participating characters. 

Well, it looks like Charlie Brooker understands that this isn’t a very good time to create more such episodes and has decided to halt production for the Netflix original series. In a recent interview with Radio Times, when asked about the upcoming season of Black Mirror, he said, “I’ve been busy, doing things. I don’t know what I can say about what I’m doing and not doing. At the moment, I don’t know what stomach there would be for stories about societies falling apart, so I’m not working away on one of those.”

Fans should not expect the sixth season of Black Mirror to turn up anytime soon, maybe never.

Charlie Brooker’s upcoming projects

If not Black Mirror, what is Brooker’s currently working on? He is working on something that is likely to be a relief from the ongoing real-life apocalypse. He said, “I’m sort of keen to revisit my comic skill set, so I’ve been writing scripts aimed at making myself laugh.” Before Black Mirror, Brooker was well-known as the writer of the comedy shows Brass Eye, The 11 O’Clock Show, and Nathan Barley. He is a television presenter, author, producer, satirist and social alongside being a writer and a showrunner.

He has already rebooted himself inMay as comic critic and host of the Wipe series by doing a lockdown special half-an-hour episode, Antiviral Wipe, to entertain fans during the quarantine. The episode aired on BBC Two on 14th May and consisted of the guest appearances of Diane Morgan and Barry Shitpeas.

Owing to the success of the special episode, BBC decided to retelecast Antiviral Wipe again for the viewers and is likely to do so again while Brooker continues revitalizing himself in the genre of comedy.