The near future is a terrible place (according to this series)

BarcelonaIf current events aren't dystopian enough yet, Netflix premieres a new season of Black Mirror, the mirror of a near future that, if the series is any indication, will be terrifying. Fourteen years after becoming a worldwide phenomenon, the fiction created by Charlie Brooker premieres its seventh season, an installment that comes with a novelty compared to the previous ones: for the first time, it includes an episode that is a sequel to a story told in a previous season.

Brooker has already announced that the seventh will not be the last season of the series and that he is still eager to make new episodes. "The format has a certain degree of freedom. This season we made a sequel for the first time. Now we are looking at old episodes and thinking: "How could we revisit this idea?" As long as it is interesting, I am allowed to do it and people keep watching it, I would like to continue making the series," he explained in an interview on The Hollywood ReporterFor fans of the fiction, the British author has revealed that the new installment is a return to the series' beginnings. "They're all science fiction stories, but horrific things definitely happen, but perhaps not as obviously as in horror movies. There's definitely some disturbing content," he said of the new episodes.

As is usual with Black Mirror, all the chapters move within the framework of science fiction, but are closely linked to universal emotions, such as the fear of losing a loved one, the consequences of feeling rejected and loneliness.

How many episodes will the new season of 'Black Mirror' have?

The new season consists of a total of six episodes, all of which will be released at once, as Netflix typically does. The opening episode is Common people, starring Rashida Jones, Chris O'Dowd, and Tracee Ellis Ross. The first two play Amanda and Mike, a couple who are having the time of their lives when a medical emergency forces them to reconsider many things. A health scare for Amanda will lead Mike to hire a revolutionary technological system that promises to keep his wife alive. Obviously, a promise of this magnitude implies a significant financial expense.

The second episode is Black Beast, in which a nutritionist reunites with a former schoolmate she mistrusts. The third is titled Hotel Reverie and stars a Hollywood actress who gets trapped in a remake immersive experience of an old-fashioned romantic movie. In Plaything, the fourth chapter, Peter Capaldi is shown as an eccentric loner obsessed with a 90s video game and who is arrested as a suspect in a criminal case. In this episode, well-known actors from the universe of Black Mirror, as Will Poulter, who appeared in Bandersnatch, the interactive special of the series. In Eulogy, the fifth episode, Paul Giamatti is a lonely man who uses an innovative technological system that allows him to literally enter photographs from his past. This way, he will revisit a particularly painful moment in his life.

The episode that closes the seventh season is USS Callister: into Infinity, continuation ofUSS Callister, the episode that kicked off the fourth season. In the original story, a programmer with social issues solved his frustrations by creating digital clones of his coworkers, which he put into a video game; it was a tribute to a series similar to Star Trek. In the sequel, with the programmer dead, the clones remain trapped in an infinite virtual universe where they must fight for survival against the game's 30 million players. Cristin Milioti, now with a rising career thanks to The Penguin, reprises her role as Nanette Cole, who becomes the captain of the game's spaceship.