Black Mirror is, without a doubt, one of the darkest, most existentially unsettling shows to grace the small screen. Created by mad satirist Charlie Brooker, the British anthology series has only produced seven episodes thus far (if you include the Jon-Hamm-starring Christmas special, that is), but each serves as a powerful punch to the solar plexus, a horrifying and prescient look at our dystopian near-future. Our own Josh Kurp described it as “part sci-fi, part dark comedy, part horror, part the world is f*cked.” I made the massive mistake of binge-watching both seasons of Black Mirror last year and wasn’t able to look another human being in the face for at least three days; if you haven’t seen it yet, I highly suggest you intersperse each episode with a straight-through viewing of The Muppets Take Manhattan.
We reported earlier this year that the series had been picked up by Netflix for another season, which is fantastic news for me and terrible news for my therapist. This time, the show will comprise 12 episodes, which, for those of you who are too scared to do math right now, is approximately four times the amount of episodes in its first two seasons. That means you’ll have to spend at least four times as many nights staring at your ceiling, fretting about the state of the world, wondering if your iPhone is trying to kill you. Prepare yourself!
Today, The Wrap broke additional news about the next season: Mackenzie Davis and Gugu Mbatha-Raw have both signed on to star in an episode. Owen Harris (of Kill Your Friends) is set to direct, but plot details are, naturally, under wraps. So let’s talk about these actresses instead! Davis is currently starring on AMC’s Halt And Catch Fire, a show about what will the planet will do if Donald Trump becomes president, and played an ultra-chill NASA employee in The Martian. Mbatha-Raw is a star on the rise in her own right: Last year, the gorgeous Brit played the hell out of a depressed pop star in Beyond the Lights, got her period-drama on in Belle, and, uh, was in Jupiter Ascending. She’s currently playing Will Smith’s wife in Concussion, and will take on the role of the feather duster in Bill Condon’s Beauty and the Beast.
All of which is to say: Neither actress has yet taken part in anything quite as dark or dystopian as Black Mirror. Someone should probably tell them about the Muppets thing?
