Open Culture

Black Mirror Predicts Our Technological Dystopia — Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #156

Your Pretty Much Pop team Mark Linsenmayer, Lawrence Ware, Sarahlyn Bruck, and Al Baker talk about Charlie Brooker’s British anthology TV series that began in 2011 and recently released its sixth season.

How has this show evolved from satirical science fiction to something more often just horror studies that study human nature? We talk about our favorite episodes and what does and doesn’t work. Does the show have to be so dark to make its point? Does it always have a point, or is some of it just fun?

To refresh yourself or learn more about these individual episode names that we keep dropping, check out the Wikipedia article listing all the episodes. A Guardian article rates how well ten of the episodes predicted the future, and a Vulture article ranks every single episode.

We mention philosopher Charles Mills talking about a Black Mirror episode on another podcast.

Follow us @law_writes, @sarahlynbruck, @ixisnox, @MarkLinsenmayer.

Hear more Pretty Much Pop, including recent episodes on Barbie and Indiana Jones. Support the show and hear bonus talking for this and nearly every other episode at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by choosing a paid subscription through Apple Podcasts. This podcast is part of the Partially Examined Life podcast network. Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast is the first podcast curated by Open Culture. Browse all Pretty Much Pop posts.

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