Television Review

BLACK MIRROR, 6x1 — ‘Joan is Awful’

A tech executive discovers her life is being adapted into a drama by a streaming service, where she’s played by Salma Hayek…

Back in 2020 during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Black Mirror’s synonymous status with technological dystopia came to a head. A Radio Times interview with its creator, Charlie Brooker, found him acknowledging the bleak reality around him (a world that seemed to be satirizing itself with how dystopian-adjacent it could take things), saying “I don’t know what stomach there would be for stories about societies falling apart, so I’m not working away on one of those.”

Three years later, however, with coronavirus having lulled, and with newer technological developments and trends having reared their heads, Brooker appears to have changed his mind. Black Mirror returns for a sixth series with the freshest and weirdest coat of paint in its 12-year history.

Such a long history means Black Mirror has come to be seen through many vantage points, with audiences trying to box it into a category that defines what…