Last year the prospect of a global lockdown as the result of a virus seemed to befit the work of Black Mirror’s creator, Charlie Brooker. Yet six weeks into a countrywide closure, the societal impact of Covid-19 is anything but fictional.
Brooker, whose work on the dystopian series has brought with it critical acclaim, believes that his work has in fact prepared him for the current reality in which we live. He notes: “Because I’ve really always expected something like this to come along, I think maybe I’m not going through quite the level of psychological adjustment as some other people.
“If you’ve spent years anticipating the worst, oddly, when the worst happens, you can stop worrying about that possibly happening because it has. So I’m dealing with this on a personal level far better than I would have anticipated.”
The show's plots rely upon the use of current technology to create futuristic, though not entirely unfeasible scenarios. Brooker has recently revealed that following the shows first series on Channel 4, he had not planned on writing another, feeling that there was not sufficient appetite for it at the time.
In spite of the nature of his work, Brooker remains optimistic. He notes that: “If you look at what happens in classic dystopian fiction – where everyone turns on each other immediately – so far that hasn’t happened. It’s not to say it won’t. But I pivoted quite early to an optimistic view that this is terrible but, at the end of it, there’s a possibility that we’ll have the stomach to realign society a little.
“Is this forcing our hands to address financial inequality and climate change? You hope that’s the outcome, rather than that it makes psychotic strongman politicians more secure.”
It is believed that Brooker’s most recent series of Black Mirror will be his last, but much like the plots of his series, you never know.
In the meantime, a special edition of his series Screenwipe, titled Antiviral Wipe, will grace our screens on 14 May.
