Black Mirror, a British science fiction anthology series, already has three series’ plus a Christmas special (which stars Jon Hamm), but it was the third series that really caught people’s attention. Each episode is a different standalone story featuring different actors and directors. They are all set in the near future or an alternative version of our present and most of them have dystopian themes.
“San Junipero”, an episode from series three, earned the show its first Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Television Movie and Outstanding Writing for a Limited Series. The episode was about a town that is actually a simulated reality populated by the “uploaded” consciousness’ of elderly, deceased and disabled people. There, they are able to live without the limits of their physical bodies holding them back.
Fans have been eagerly awaiting the fourth series and now we finally have a trailer. In the trailer, an episode entitled “Arkangel”—which is directed by Jodie Foster— Rosemary Dewitt stars as a mother whose daughter goes missing for a short period of time and is thankfully found unharmed. Dewitt’s character decides she doesn’t want to risk that happening again and takes her daughter to be be implanted with what may or may not be a tracking device of some kind.
The episode looks like it will touch on the paranoia parents experience when it comes to the safety of their young children. How do you let your child be independent in a world where anything can happen at any moment? According to the trailer, “the key to good parenting is control”. Sounds like an extreme, technology-driven version of helicopter parenting.
There’s no release date for the new season of Black Mirror yet, but hopefully it’s soon. Watch the trailer for “Arkangel” below:
