When I was a kid, I’d stay up until the wee hours whenever New York’s local station WPIX would run a marathon of The Twilight Zone.
I believe Black Mirror to be its worthy successor, a dynamite, scary, and occasionally even beautiful vision playing out the consequences that technology can bring about.
Like any anthology series, there are bound to be winners and losers, hits and misses, which is part of the fun of the endeavor. Each story begins anew.
As an obsessive cataloguer of pop culture (see: the best 1,000 albums ever for an I can’t believe someone actually did this example), I automatically classify Black Mirror episodes as I wolf down a new season each time one is released on Netflix.
So with the exciting news that Black Mirror has been renewed for an eighth season (via Deadline), this is a fun time to run down where every episode stands from my super subjective standpoint.
I had very strong opinions about the seventh season overall, but the headline is that it includes two incredible episodes (“Common People” and “Plaything”) that outclassed anything Black Mirror had delivered in years. Here’s hoping that 15 years into the Black Mirror era, the show will continue mirroring the ever more bonkers AI- and tech-driven world that we inhabit.
And with that, here’s a ranking of all 34 editions (including “Bandersnatch”!) of Black Mirror that have been reflected on us thus far.
The freaking incredible Top 10 – each is a stone cold television classic
1. “White Christmas” – brilliant, sinister, and includes Jon Hamm’s second best role ever
2. “USS Callister” – thrilling, nostalgic, world-building, and fun as hell
3. “Fifteen Million Merits” – the best pure sci fi + pure satire episode
4. “Hang the DJ” – at heart a gorgeous love story for the AI age
5. “San Junipero” – at heart a gorgeous love story dripping with ‘80s nostalgia
6. “Nosedive” – the episode I most wish would become its own full blown series
7. “White Bear” – the creepiest and most effective Black Mirror episode to date
8. “Common People” – so human, so moving, and so sad – Chris O’Dowd and Rashida Jones will break your heart
9. “Be Right Back” – released 10 months before the outstanding movie Her, the two share much in common
10. “The Entire History of You” – technology and memory weaponized into pure menace
Also outstanding, not quite Top 10
11. “Plaything” – viva la thronglets!
12. “Metalhead” – the reason that robot dogs freak me the [REDACTED] out
13. “Bandersnatch” – it’s technically a movie, and a super innovative interactive one at that, and so we’re placing it here, okay? The ‘80s vibes in this one alone are epic
Very good
14. “Hated in the Nation” – the one with the robot bees; effective and creepy
15. “Joan Is Awful” – nastily fun satire playing with the implications of AI
16. “Shut Up and Dance” – pulse pounding, harrowing, with one of the most kick-in-the-teeth twist endings you’ll ever see
17. “Striking Vipers” – a story involving dudes playing video games somehow becomes a moving love story
Good, well above average television
18. “Loch Henry” – Black Mirror shelves the sci fi for true crime in the Scottish countryside
19. “Crocodile” – effective on its pure menace vibes
20. “Playtest” – I dug this nasty riff on augmented reality far more the second time I revisited it
21. “USS Callister: Into Infinity” – a fun return to the world of “USS Callister,” but I was hoping for more, if I’m honest
Pretty good, with some problems
22. “Demon 79” – takes a big swing and doesn’t quite get there, but I appreciate the ambitions (and late ‘70s British vibes)
23. “The National Anthem” – the first episode of Season 1 a.k.a. the one you tell people not to start with when they check out Black Mirror for the first time
24. “Black Museum” – a weird sort of meta edition of Black Mirror, but has its charms
25. “The Waldo Moment” – A mashup of technology and politics, which has all kinds of unsettling real world implications
26. “Beyond the Sea” – I disliked this one more than most, but there are great pieces, especially its stellar cast (Aaron Paul, Josh Hartnett, Kate Mara)
Kinda not all that remarkable or memorable, really
27. “Mazey Day” – it’s kind of more like a really good Supernatural episode?
28. “Hotel Reverie” – the idea – the ability to literally step into the world of classic films – is really fun, but the execution turned out to be mostly meh
29. “Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too” – Miley Cyrus is good in this one, playing a pop star, but overall this one is kind of Sillyville
30. “Eulogy” – despite the always great Paul Giamatti starring in this one, it’s equal parts sad and nostalgic while mostly neglecting to be interesting or entertaining
31. “Smithereens” – I watched the episode in 2019, and after reading the description of it while writing this piece I still can’t recall a single thing about it
Could live without
32. “Bête Noire” – a riff on workplace bullying that doesn’t seem to go anywhere until its out-of-nowhere weird ending
33. “Men Against Fire” – it’s about the dehumanization of war with an Ender’s Game-ish element, a worthy attempt but it’s just not that good, frankly
34. “Arkangle” – the single Black Mirror episode that I actively dislike – it’s an afterschool special from tech-driven hell
Find out where Black Mirror landed on the best 100 TV shows ever.