All Five New Black Mirror Episodes, Ranked

(SPOT.ph) The world has seen some bizarre events unfold since the last season of Black Mirror aired in 2019. In the past three years alone, we’ve seen a global pandemic and lockdown, the proliferation of A.I. use among the most casual of Internet users, and the world population hitting a peak of 8 billion humans and rising. However, between all the momentary distractions of viral TikTok dances and Pete Davidson girlfriends, it hasn’t been lost on us that the 2020s have felt like some insane writer’s speculative fiction being played out on a worldwide scale.

It’s come to the point where even the creators of the near-future dystopian anthology series Black Mirror have questioned what purpose their show serves in this brave new world. Yet, here we are in 2023 with the long-awaited sixth season of Black Mirror, whose five episodes attempt to explore the freewill of modern day individuals in technological and cultural systems much larger than themselves.

With standalone episodes tackling a variety of conceits, such as an A.I.-driven streaming service, replicant astronauts, and an apocalyptic prophecy, we got you covered with a breakdown of which episodes are skippable and which ones are a must-watch.

Also read: Extraction 2, Black Mirror, The Witcher Season 3 + More Exciting Titles Coming to Netflix This June

Here are all Black Mirror season six episodes ranked worst to best:

Episode 4: "Mazey Day"

The fourth episode revolves around a famous actress Mazey Day (Clara Rugaard), who’s seemingly gone missing due to a drug addiction, and one former paparazzi photographer’s attempts to track her down. For the shortest episode of the season, “Mazey Day” does take a while to become interesting, with neither of its main characters being compelling enough to sustain the action until the very end. The episode does take a wild turn—even for long-time Black Mirror fans—but it’s simply too little, too late to make the episode all that worthwhile.

Episode 5: "Demon 79"

The final episode of the new season is, simply put, entertaining in short bursts. It’s one of those Black Mirror episodes that are more supernatural in nature, with a story that centers around a reserved sales assistant who winds up in a pact with a demon to kill three people in three days or the world will end. As you can imagine, the sequences in which the protagonist has to actually summon the nerve to murder someone provide some twisted fun, with the occasional ‘70s horror flair and a charming rapport established between her (Anjana Vasan) and her demon (Paapa Essiedu). 

The story does lose some steam in the stitching of these sequences and it doesn’t have that memorable hook commonly associated with the anthology series, but the episode is worth watching, especially for those looking for some light horror.

Episode 2: "Loch Henry"

“Loch Henry” is perhaps the most straightforward episode of the series, with its focus simply on a documentary crew’s reopening of a seemingly resolved murder investigation. Most of the episode plays like you’re watching the behind-the-scenes of one of those disturbing documentaries you’d find on Netflix, which the episode takes some minor jabs at. It may be a bit too simplistic and predictable for audiences, but where the episode really shines is in—no joke—its incredibly rushed ending. The episode just zooms through its climax and resolution, which oddly makes the jarring emotional impact even more tragic. It even hits you with an uncynical yet melancholic final beat, which is one of the hardest tones to pull off in a tragedy. We’ll be thinking of that last note for a while.

Episode 1: "Joan is Awful"

The sixth season kicks off with a bang through “Joan is Awful,” which initially seems like your classic Black Mirror episode with its unique spin on modern technology. The premiere episode’s story revolves around a woman who unknowingly licensed her whole life to a streaming service that churns out daily real-time episodes on a fictionalized version of her via DeepFaking and CGI. It’s charmingly nonsensical with Schitt’s Creek’s Annie Murphy and Salma Hayek-Pinault clearly just having fun with their meta roles. This is the type of episode you had in mind when you heard, “Black Mirror’s back,” but it—unsurprisingly—has a couple twists that’ll turn your expectations on its head.

For non-regular Black Mirror fans looking to get into the series now, you can picture this episode as like the film The Worst Person in the World devolving into The Truman Show then Inception. That’s definitely a neat jumping off point.

Episode 3: "Beyond the Sea"

For the best episode of the sixth season, we’ll go all-in on the third episode “Beyond the Sea,” starring Aaron Paul, Kate Mara, and Josh Hartnett. “Beyond the Sea” is the longest episode of the new season, but its actively able to keep up its intrigue and momentum all throughout. The story centers on two astronauts who are out on a multi-year space voyage. Thing is, they can "return" to Earth at any time by sending their consciousness back to lifelike replicants of their bodies that remain at home with their families.

The episode plays out like a classic speculative fiction short story you’d read from H. G. Wells or Arthur C. Clarke. It’s got some interesting layers to it; humans trying to maintain control while not within their own bodies, domestic struggles, marital intrigue, all that jazz. The only knock against it would be that it doesn't make the audience squeam enough, to be honest.

Also read: Top 10 Most Disturbing Black Mirror Episodes