Amna: "Black mirror," a
streaming series phenomenon, has
just started its sixth and
possibly final season.
The sci-fi anthology is a social
satire playing with society's
deepest fears about our
increasingly digital lives.
Special correspondent Malcolm
brabant caught up with the
show's creator, Charlie Brooker,
in London for our arts and
culture series, canvas.
>> You want to watch the gap?
>> Can't really do another true
crime.
Reporter: From humble beginnings
as a cult series in Britain,
creator Charlie Brooker's
unusual world view has become
global must-watch TV.
A former television critic,
Brooker identified a gap in the
market for his blend of
nightmarish drama and dark
humor.
For those of us who have not
seen black mirror, can you give
us an idea?
>> It is an anthology show.
Each episode is standalone.
It was inspired by shows like
the twilight zone.
The focus is intended to be
technology or modern society.
There's a sort of strand of
satire running through it.
Media satire.
It's not always about
technology, but predominantly
that's what it's become sort of
known for.
Reporter: And it's very dark.
>> It's very dark.
The show has a reputation for
being extremely bleak and like a
warning.
>> Some major breaking news now
here on ukn.
And in the last few minutes,
it's been confirmed that
Susanna, duchess of Beaumont,
has been kidnaped.
Reporter: In this first ever
episode, aired in 2011, Brooker
pushed viewers' tolerance to the
limits with the ransom demand.
The British prime minister had
to perform a very public,
obscene act to secure the
release of the princess.
>> I don't go into these things
often with a very like thinking
here's the one message I want
people to take from this,
because I kind of think what
people take from it is up to
them.
And there's something about that
hunger or that desire to see
people in lofty positions
brought down and humiliated.
Reporter: How important is
comedy in highlighting real
truths?
>> Most satire us are
often
disappointed optimists who wish
the world was better and are
trying to point out flaws.
Reporter: Artificial
intelligence and deepfake are in
the season's opener.
The life of an ordinary woman
called Joan is wrecked by
surveillance technology that
converts her existence into a TV
soap opera.
>> What even is this show?
>> We are watching it.
>> We are not watching "Joan is
awful."
Reporter: How concerned are you
about artificial intelligence
and its potential power?
>> I think with things like
A.I., I'm a worrier by trade, so
I do tend to catastrophize.
So I could quite easily picture
a world in which, you know,
we're essentially in the matrix.
Reporter: But do you feel that
artificial intelligence could
perhaps destroy us as a species?
>> It could.
But all sorts of things could.
The thing that will destroy us
as a species is us, like, will
destroy ourselves as a species
with nuclear weapons or
something like that.
Probably, before maybe
artificial intelligence would
talk us out of that.
♪♪
>> The man is lost.
>> Aaron Paul and Josh Hartnett
play two astronauts.
They are physically up in space
because human survival is a
thing that's being tested in
this mission.
To keep them sane they can
, effectively project that
consciousness of they spend most
of their time on Earth in these
sort of robotic avatars.
This was slightly pandemic
inspired because it is partly
the ultimate working from home,
and it's about isolation and
human connection and things like
that.
Terrible things happen in this
story.
>> How's the new home?
>> Oh, still settling in, but
it is good.
We're out of the city, which I
like.
>> It's riffing on authentic
human connection.
Loneliness.
His wife complains at one point
that she misses her husband,
even though he's there on some
level.
>> Hey.
>> You scared me.
>> And then there's a sort of
threat of violence throughout
it.
It's quite deliberate that you
see men doing terrible acts of
violence throughout it that are
being handed on.
Reporter: Many of your shows
seem to be rather like
individual morality plays.
Is it that, or is it just
entertainment?
>> The answer is in a way, both,
because certainly when when when
trying to think about an
episode, what constitutes an
episode?
I'm looking for a hook that's
quite popcorn, which is often
quite darkly comic in nature.
I'm a great consumer of true
crime documentaries.
But I'm aware that it's a bit
grubby, that what I'm doing is
rubbernecking.
>> This guy had been abducting
people.
>> So that's what your
documentary's about?
>> The details are so awful.
It is irresistible.
I love it.
>> It's about two young
filmmakers who make a film about
an incident that happened in the
past and get more than they
bargained for.
And it ends on quite a sort of
bitter and sour note.
In my head, my concern was that
people would see this as a, as a
slightly dry and detached media
satire.
And actually, it's been
interesting that people, I
thought I was writing a real
dark comedy and a lot of people
have been like, the reaction is
people are horrified, which is
maybe something that I lose
sight of.
Reporter: Brooker explores the
moral maze of celebrity culture
in the story of a young actress
pursued by Paparazzi after she
kills a man in a hit and run.
>> She got kicked off a movie
set two weeks ago, flew home,
and no one's seen her since.
Not home.
Nowhere.
>> So everybody is just cool
with leaving her alone then?
>> Nick's offering 30k for the
first photo of her.
Reporter: Do you like society,
or do you dislike it?
>> Do I like society?
Reporter: Because you're so
critical of so many parts of it.
>> Am I?
I mean, I'm in society.
There's something to do with
comedy.
You always have the slight get
out of jail free card.
You can sort of stand back and
go, I was only joking.
Do I like society?
That is an extremely
black-and-white question.
What choices do we have?
Are we to have a society where
we have absolute chaos and which