Yahoo Movies Black Mirror: Will series 5 contain sequels to previous episodes?
Some folks with a degree of patience and self-control might still be taking a casual stroll through the latest six episodes of Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror on Netflix. Some, like me, greedily wolfed all six episodes of series 4 down within days of them landing at the end of December. Now, our thoughts are already turning to the idea of Black Mirror series 5.
Black Mirror Series 5
There’s reason to be hopeful. Although nothing is confirmed yet, executive producer Annabel Jones makes it sound like the creators would be more than happy to return. Speaking to the Hollywood Reporter, she said “We love making the show. It’s an utter privilege to be able to curate six films. It’s the stuff of dreams. So we would love to do more and hopefully there will be a conversation with Netflix, but at the moment we’re just wanting everyone to hopefully enjoy season four.” Mission accomplished.
There might be some groans that the quality is slipping, but most fans have been more than satisfied with the fourth series. ‘USS Callister’ seems to have gone down a storm, and there are already talks of a spin-off, and I’m convinced that ‘Arkangel’ will eventually be remembered as one of the best episodes in the entire show. From space epics to black-and-white action-packed episodes, Black Mirror shows little signs of getting stale.
Sequel episodes
But what if Black Mirror series 5 decided to deliberately look backwards? There has been a lot of talk recently about all Black Mirror episodes taking place in a shared universe. But what we haven’t yet had is a proper sequel episode. We haven’t revisited any characters or previous stories. These episodes have all been conceived as standalones. When series 5 does get the green light, could we see our first sequel episode?
Most excitingly, Charlie Brooker has already referred to this, and it may well be a possibility in the future. When asked about revisiting past characters and story lines by The Independent, Brooker said “We nearly have. I’ve got an idea for a sequel to ‘White Bear‘”.
‘White Bear’
If you don’t remember ‘White Bear’ (and I’d have to ask you how you could possibly forget it), it was the one where a young woman was followed by a gaggle of gawking people all filming her every move on their phones. Then she was hunted and shot at, before an incredibly dark twist revealed why she was having to endure this nightmare. It is, for my money, the very best of Black Mirror, and a sequel would be a highly enticing prospect.
Brooker says that budget restrictions meant that the episode didn’t turn out quite as originally written. He said “It was more a zombie apocalypse type thing about a journalist and this signal bouncing about the globe… So there was an extra step in ‘White Bear’ that we didn’t get a chance to do because it was too complicated – it had her finding messages that she’d left herself on previous run-throughs because the wiping thing was starting to not function. So I sometimes think we could do that.”
In the interview, Brooker also hints at further ideas for both the episode ‘Be Right Back’ and ‘Hated in the Nation’. Could series 5 see our first Black Mirror sequel episodes?
