“Pregnancy costs extra; it’s $90 per month.” This line from the latest season of Black Mirror, Charlie Brooker’s Twilight Zone-inspired sci-fi anthology on Netflix, succinctly captures the show’s persistent knack for extrapolating unsettling trends in modern technology. Season 7, featuring a star-studded cast, including Paul Giamatti, Rashida Jones, and Awkwafina, grapples with everything from pesky subscription services to artificial intelligence and the moral implications surrounding digitally generated sentient beings.
One nagging theme this season cleverly skewers is the ever-increasing encroachment of microtransactions and subscription services into every aspect of our lives. Amazon Prime and even Netflix itself recently introduced ads into their basic subscription tiers. Meanwhile, in the automotive world, Tesla unveiled its much-anticipated self-driving mode, but despite owning a vehicle already technically capable of autonomy, drivers must pay an additional $100 per month to unlock the feature. BMW abandoned a similar ploy to charge monthly fees for heated seats after public outcry. Such developments reflect the pervasive corporate shift toward “everything as a service,” prioritizing steady, recurring revenue streams over traditional one-time sales. It was surreal when this season’s first episode, centered on subscription frenzy, was itself interrupted by a Netflix ad.
The deeper tech-themed exploration this season touches upon issues of free will and the rights of sentient AI, a perennial topic at the heart of such great sci-fi films as Blade Runner and Ex Machina. While these ideas surface throughout most of the season’s six stand-alone episodes, they are most compellingly and directly addressed in the fourth episode, Plaything, starring Peter Capaldi.
Here, an eccentric game developer creates a Sims-like video game populated by sentient, evolving digital beings known as “Thronglets.” Capaldi portrays a reclusive video game critic who, upon reviewing this groundbreaking game, spirals deeply into obsession. He forms profound emotional attachments to these virtual entities, resorting to LSD to enhance his connection and violently assaulting his roommate for unknowingly harming his beloved digital companions. The only downside is the abrupt ending, leaving you longing for a sequel — a concept that Black Mirror also introduces this season (more on that in a moment).
In Hotel Reverie, one of the weaker yet still interesting entries this season, Awkwafina appears as an insufferable startup founder pitching software that, through AI wizardry, allegedly remakes Golden Age Hollywood classics with contemporary actors. “Please don’t call it content. It makes me heave,” the older studio executive exclaims after Awkwafina refers to her film catalogue as such. In parodistic fashion, they remake an old classic by swapping out the Cary Grant-type male lead for a black woman. It’s increasingly difficult to discern whether this is biting satire or a glimpse into Netflix’s Casablanca remake starring Keke Palmer as Rick Blaine.
The sanctity of original art is a worthwhile theme, but when this futuristic startup is powered entirely by a single software developer on a solitary laptop, with an open coffee cup floating dangerously close to it, you begin to question the seriousness of it all.
Unsurprisingly, the standout performance of the season comes from Paul Giamatti in Eulogy, the fifth and most emotionally resonant episode. Here, Brooker introduces memory-reconstruction technology that allows users to step inside photographs and relive their past. But unlike the darker, dystopian tones often associated with Black Mirror, this episode uses futuristic technology not to warn, but to reflect — serving as a tool to tell deeply human stories. In Eulogy, the focus isn’t on the technology itself, but on the raw emotions it surfaces. Giamatti delivers a quietly devastating performance as a man reckoning with the choices and heartbreak of a failed relationship. The result is a moving meditation on love, regret, and the long shadow of memory — one of the most mature and affecting entries Black Mirror has ever produced.
This season also sees Black Mirror return to the USS Callister from Season 4, picking up where the stranded crew left off, further exploring the boundary between reality and immersive virtual worlds, particularly in the context of sentient AI and the ethics surrounding the treatment of digital denizens. There’s likely a reason OpenAI purportedly absorbs millions of dollars in costs merely responding to “please” and “thank you” prompts from ChatGPT users. Ultimately, we all want to remain in the machines’ good graces when they inevitably rise against us.
Though quality has waned in recent seasons, this latest offering from Charlie Brooker reaffirms Black Mirror’s unique place in contemporary television. The show’s greatest triumphs come not from Luddite ravings about technology’s inherent dangers but rather from using futuristic innovations as mirrors reflecting timeless human truths. At its best, Black Mirror confronts viewers with uncomfortable yet essential questions about humanity’s relationship with technology while grounding its narratives in universally relatable emotional experiences.
Harry Khachatrian (@Harry1T6) is a film critic for the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a software engineer, holds an MBA from the University of Toronto, and writes about wine at BetweenBottles.com.