Premiering back in 2011, “Black Mirror” was an instant critical success and quickly pulled in a cult audience following its premiere on UK Channel 4.
The British anthology series offered bleak and sinister takes on technology and drew enough attention it led to Netflix acquiring it in 2014 and running the show from its third season onwards.
This has led to a divide in the fanbase with some preferring the pre-Netflix version and have labelled the more recent runs as having “lost its edge”. Others aren’t happy that the show is boasting some ‘sunnier’ and ‘happier’ episodes these days.
Speaking at the International Convention Centre SXSW (via The Guardian), Brooker disagreed with those claims of the show having lost its edge. Rather, he says, the only difference has been a desire to mix things up for international audiences which has led to more of a tonal shift:
“One of the criticisms we sometimes get is, ‘I prefer the show when it was British and everyone in it was miserable and everything smelled a little bit of s— and all the stories were horrible.
And then it’s gone to Netflix and suddenly everything’s sunny and happy and everyone has wonderful teeth, and it’s full of Hollywood stars and it’s lost that edge.
I was aware we’re going on a global platform now, so we’ve got to make these stories a bit more international. And I wanted to mix it up a bit, as in not just keep doing bleak-a-thons.”
Despite the claims, the critical reaction has certainly slipped with the first three seasons pulling in Metacritic scores in the 80s, whereas the most recent seasons dropped to just 66/100 and 68/100 respectively.
