Netflix Drops New Black Mirror Content on December 28
It doesn’t matter if you made the naughty or nice list in 2018. As long as you pay your monthly subscription fee, Netflix has you covered. The streaming giant has announced they’re giving their subscribers a holiday surprise tomorrow (December 28) when they drop a feature-length Black Mirror special titled Black Mirror: Bandersnatch. Netflix also released a new trailer to go along with the announcement. Check it out below:
For my money, Bandersnatch is the best kind of trailer. It’s intriguing, unsettling, and draws you into the mystery without revealing anything too spoilery. So, what do we know? First, the title, Bandersnatch, is the name of a character in Lewis Carroll’s 1872 novel, Through the Looking-Glass. We also know the story takes place in the 80s and revolves around the video game industry and a programmer who either loses his grip on reality or gets sucked into a virtual world. Which, based on the title, makes perfect sense. Best of all, the trailer is scored to Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s classic song, Relax.
If you’ve never watched Black Mirror, you can start with Bandersnatch. It’s an anthology series so you can jump in at any point. But let me get you up to speed anyway. Black Mirror is a horror/mystery/sci-fi show that launched in the U.K. in 2011. The program explores our relationship with technology, and how it affects our morals, twists our values, and warps society. Think of it as a sci-fi version of The Twilight Zone. Most episodes are dark, violent, and deeply disturbing and feature a degree of misanthropy that would make the Coen brothers squeal with delight. In recent seasons, however, Black Mirror surprised fans with episodes that paint humanity in a positive light.
In its early years, Black Mirror only released three episodes a season, and it developed a small but devoted fan base across the pond. The show’s extraordinary word of mouth helped it develop a large cult following which exploded once Netflix picked up the series and distributed it to a global audience. More recent episodes like San Junipero and USS Callister helped transform Black Mirror into a pop culture phenomenon.
While we still don’t have an official date for season five, we do know that Black Mirror will deliver a “choose-your-own-adventure,” style episode. This means that at some point in the program a viewer may select which path the story branches off into. There’s a chance the Bandersnatch may be that episode but I wouldn’t bet on it. Such a feature will garner Netflix plenty of buzz and I suspect the company will flaunt this new option before it reaches their viewers’ black mirrors. That being said, this program is such a mind-f#<k that I wouldn’t put anything past them.
Here’s Netflix’s official synopsis for Black Mirror: Bandersnatch:
In 1984, a young programmer begins to question reality as he adapts a sprawling fantasy novel into a video game and soon faces a mind-mangling challenge.
Black Mirror: Bandersnatch arrives tomorrow on Netflix.