It’s not often that a show keeps its creative juices flowing for 14 years, but Black Mirror is doing just that by subtly altering its contemporary timeframe. Once startlingly prescient, it would be almost unfair to expect the same degree of biting social commentary from creator Charlie Brooker in an era where technology is moving at the pace of Moore’s Law on methamphetamine. And so, what was previously a foretelling of how humans will abuse tech in the near-ish future is now forecasting eras of gloom that may be months away. 

This seventh season splits neatly into two narrative modes, one imbuing fresh stories with a heavy dollop of dystopian dread, and the other providing callback fun for long-term viewers with direct sequels or overt references to past episodes, in particular its feature-length return to the USS Callister (arguably Black Mirror’s finest hour). In a show that’s previously hinged on the shock of the new, these throwback episodes raise a few valid questions. Has this era-defining series become a legacy act? In a world that grows more like Black Mirror every day, is self-referentiality a sign of a satire in decline? And when shows like Severance and Mythic Quest have forged new paths on the foundations laid by Brooker, does he have every right to lay back and bask in the Golden Globe glow of his greatest hits? 

Those questions loom over season premiere ‘Common People’, a delicate two-hander between Chris O’Dowd and Rashida Jones which satirises the gig economy before exploding in a crescendo of heartbreaking misery, strumming its ‘tech is bad’ tune without veering into repetition or parody. This slice of domestic drama continues the Black Mirror tradition of front-loading each season with its strongest entry, deftly balancing the human story of a couple dealing with terminal illness and a palpable disgust towards the exploitation of privatised healthcare. It may be one of the most evocative portraits of ‘just about managing’ families in a mainstream series. 

On the polar end of the spectrum is ‘USS Callister: Into Infinity’, a direct sequel to Brooker’s original ode to Star Trek and its toxic-male power fantasies. Awash with Spielbergian action sequences, geographically stunning outdoor scenes and the return of an A-list cast who’ve since moved onto larger projects, a blockbuster budget brings this goofy joke about online gaming to life in a knowledgeable manner that only Mythic Quest has been able to capture. Set a few months after the original episode, it follows the AI crew of the USS Callister as they negotiate their way through the MMORPG created by their now-dead tormentor, cramming each scene with well observed jokes about modern gaming’s pernicious cash-grab techniques and a few clumsy gestures towards the hot potato of generative AI. While it’s not a patch on the original’s verve and pacing, revisiting the phenomenal chemistry of this cast is a warm hug. 

In between these bookends is the usual grab-bag of ideas that vary from good to great: ‘Bête Noire’ is a mischievous dark comedy with a star-making turn from Siena Kelly; ‘Hotel Reverie’ combines AI and classic British romance movies to intriguing effect but quickly overburdens itself with narrative baggage; ‘Plaything’, the follow-up to ‘Bandersnatch’, is an aimless story about generative AI that nonetheless conjures an exquisitely grimy depiction of games journalism in the 90s; and ‘Eulogy’ is a quiet highlight of the season, a lamentation on grief and regret that will almost certainly give Paul Giamatti a Golden Globe nomination when award season rolls around. 

If the bulk of this article reads more like a retrospective than a review, then that’s because Black Mirror is in the process of gazing proudly at the mantlepiece of its achievements. Like the AI trapped aboard the USS Callister, Brooker’s latest carnival of tech-paranoia is an echo of existing creations, with even its original stories bearing the thematic and semiotic resonance of the classics (you could get paralytic if you took a shot for every ‘Bandersnatch’ and ‘San Junipero’ reference dotted throughout each story). 

Which brings us back to the burning question, what exactly is Black Mirror nowadays? The answer is, as it has always been, whatever Brooker wants it to be. As he grows older, so too is his show becoming concerned with aging characters poring over the lives they’ve lived and the mistakes they’ve made. No matter the episode, characters wrestle with the importance of nostalgia versus the reality of decades gone by, of misplaced memories and a culture where fiction is the only escape from our broken reality. As with Black Mirror itself, these damaged people are feeling their way through the baggage of their past and, if they’re lucky, they’ll find a way forward. It’s an approach that won’t lead to the punchy nihilism of the series' heyday, but it has created a handful of entertaining, bittersweet stories that are perhaps more reflective than any that have gone before them. 

Black Mirror is available now on Netflix; main picture: Cristin Milioti in USS Callister: Into Infinity.