Gugu Mbatha-Raw (left) and Mackenzie Davis in the season three episode San Junipero. Photo/Suppled
Gugu Mbatha-Raw (left) and Mackenzie Davis in the season three episode San Junipero. Photo/Suppled
Charlie Brooker's dark sci-fi anthology series Black Mirror is set to return to Netflix later this year. To help you prepare ourselves for another batch of chilling techno-parables, here's everything we know so far about the fourth season:
It will (probably) be out on Netflix this spring
Netflix have notyet announced a release date for the fourth season, but as work is already underway we can probably expect the new six-episode series to land in late 2017. The third season was launched in October, so another autumn release looks likely.
Jodie Foster's episode is about a mother and daughter
The Oscar-winning Silence of the Lambs star is on board to direct an episode of the new series. According to Brooker, it has "the tone of an indie movie, an indie drama. There's a mother and daughter relationship in it."
Speaking to The Telegraph, Brooker explained how Foster became invovled with the project. "Netflix got in touch with her. She's done episodes of Orange Is The New Black before, and they spoke to her and sent her our script, and within a week of that we were were Skypeing. It was a bit odd, to be Skyping with Jodie Foster - but I did a good job of hiding my delight."
Jodie Foster is one of the director's for this season of Black Mirror. Photo/AP
It will include the most "comic" episode yet - and a trip to Iceland
Season three had a broader range than the first two pitch-black instalments, with episodes set in America and the UK including a love story (San Junipero) and a police procedural (Hated in the Nation).
The new series looks set to show even more variety, in terms of genre and location. "We're carrying that forward [into season four], so we've got some strikingly different tones and looks... One [episode]'s shooting in Iceland, which hasn't been announced yet," Brooker revealed to The Telegraph.
"We've got one that's overtly comic, much more overtly comic than anything we've done. It's got fairly mainstream comic elements, but also some really unpleasant stuff that happens. I haven't even seen the rough cut of it yet."
We shouldn't expect another San Junipero
The Eighties-inspired love story San Junipero proved a hit with fans, inspiring speculation in tabloids and online forums that there might be a sequel in the works - particularly as it ended on an uncharacteristically upbeat note.
But Brooker says he would be reluctant to return to the story. "I'm terrified of San Junipero in a way, because I think we sort of captured lightening in a bottle there," he explained. "You try and think, okay, that went really well, what else can we do? But you've got to then immediately put everything you think of out of your mind, because you can't really do the same thing again."
