If there's one thing that Black Mirror has taught us over the years, it's that technology always comes back. Like an algorithm that learns from its mistakes, Charlie Brooker's cult series seems to follow the same principle: after a sixth season that divided audiences and critics, the season 7 trailer revives some of the series' most beloved concepts, promising a return to the dystopian roots that made it famous.
It's almost poetic to see how a series that has made technological cyclicality one of its central themes is now revisiting its past, perhaps in search of that original spark that made it both disturbing and irresistible. From the trailer just released, it is clear that Black Mirror season 7, coming to Netflix the 10 April, will not only resume key concepts such as "consider the human brain a computer", but will also return to explore worlds already visited in other episodes of the past years. Which ones? I'll tell you right away.
The past that returns, technologically enhanced
Have you ever wondered what happened to the characters in “USS Callister” after their escape into the vastness of the web? The new season seems intent on answering that question, continuing the story of startup employees trapped by their boss in a Star Trek-inspired simulation. A sequel that many fans have been eagerly awaiting since the episode aired.
But the real surprise comes with the return to the world of "Bandersnatch" the experiment Interactive and Netflix launched in 2018, before abandoning interactive films entirely in 2024. A curious, almost meta-television move: to resume a format that the platform has publicly abandoned.
A stellar cast for digital nightmares
It is not surprising that for this return to the origins, brooker has recruited a top-notch cast. Paul giamatti, Issa Rae e Peter Capaldi are just some of the stars we'll see facing the series' usual moral and technological dilemmas.
The showrunner himself describes this season as “a bit like the first Black Mirror”, very much “back to basics in many ways”, which may reassure long-time fans, depending on their faith in Charlie’s ability to recapture the novelty and nastiness of the early British episodes.
Black Mirror Season 7, Expectations and Fears
The last time Black Mirror appeared on Netflix was in 2023, with a series of episodes of mixed quality. Season 7 could be different, but we'll have to wait until April 10 to find out for sure.
What we do know is that the themes dear to the series will continue to be central. And this is precisely the perennial charm of Black Mirror: its ability to show us, through a futuristic distortion, how we are already immersed in a present that we would once have considered dystopian.
