Every day, the world seems to be slipping further and further into dystopia, with President Donald Trump placing tariffs on islands inhabited by penguins and the country’s head of Medicare and Medicaid touting AI-first health care. In case you needed an even higher dose of Orwellian anxiety in your life, though, Black Mirror has finally returned for season 7 with six brand-new episodes.
(Spoiler alert: This piece contains minor spoilers for Black Mirror, season 7.)
In its new season, the anthology series about our, shall we say, complicated relationship with technology takes on AI sentience, subscription pricing models, lost loves, high school grudges, and the privatization of health care. It’s also got plenty of action, romance, and a heaping helping of tech-era terror.
As with any anthology series, Black Mirror has plenty of hits, and also its share of misses, and season 7 is no exception, which only makes it more perfect for ranking. Here is WIRED’s ranking of every episode from Black Mirror season 7.
6. “Hotel Reverie” (Episode 3)
The unfortunate nadir of the new season comes halfway through, with the feature-length “Hotel Reverie,” an ode of sorts to ’40s Hollywood classics like Casablanca. Issa Rae plays a Hollywood star, Brandy, who agrees to participate in a reimagining of Hotel Reverie, one of her favorite old movies, using technology that turns the original black-and-white film into a virtual AI-infused experience in order to film the remake in just 90 minutes. Emma Corrin plays the ill-fated old Hollywood starlet Dorothy Chambers, who co-starred in the picture. The beats of the story are all meant to play out the same like the original, but when things begin to go off course, Dorothy develops an awareness of her artificiality and the two begin to fall for each other.
The episode aims for that “San Junipero” magic, but its romance feels more hollow, and its premise strains credulity. To put it simply: It’s not clear why anyone would want to remake a movie this way, and it’s even less clear why anyone would watch it. As a back door to a story about closeted sexuality in the ’40s, the episode feels contrived, and so does the romance. Rae and Corrin try their best to bring some spark but can’t sell it in the end.
5. “Common People” (Episode 1)
“Common People” is a familiar kind of Black Mirror episode, identifying a couple of clear social ills related to class and technology, then playing out its sci-fi premise to explore those issues in a heightened way. A fine approach, except when it feels pat and obvious, which “Common People” does. Chris O’Dowd and Rashida Jones play a couple struggling to make ends meet. When Jones ends up in a coma with a brain tumor, O’Dowd is offered the chance to save her with an incredible new technology from startup Rivermind. Surgeons replace the cancerous area of the brain with synthetic tissue, and the parts of Jones’ memory and personality contained in that section of brain tissue are beamed to her via the cloud. With a hefty monthly subscription fee, of course.
O’Down and Jones are both excellent and affecting in the episode, as is Tracee Ellis Ross as the frustratingly uncaring rep for Rivermind. The problem is that the moment the monthly subscription idea is introduced, it’s immediately clear where the story is heading. The existential dilemma of having your life tied to the whims of a subscription service is upsetting and hits close to home. But when the message is clear in the first five minutes, sitting through the next 40 isn’t exactly enjoyable.
4. “Plaything” (Episode 4)
Set in the same universe as “Bandersnatch,” the interactive Black Mirror special from 2018, “Plaything” stars Peter Capaldi as Cameron Walker, a man booked for murdering someone and stuffing him in a suitcase. During his interrogation, Walker shares the story of his younger days, in the ’90s, when he was a video game critic. He’s given an early preview of a game of sorts, created by Will Poulter’s Colin Ritman from “Bandersnatch.” It’s a Tamagotchi-inspired game called Thronglets, which involves taking care of little digital creatures. Only, as Ritman explains, they’re actually a form of digital life. When an LSD trip makes Walker think he can communicate with the Thronglets, he maniacally devotes his life to helping them grow, prosper, and evolve. It’s a fairly simple episode, told largely in narrated flashbacks, and is certainly too exposition-heavy to be truly elegant, like the best of Black Mirror. That said, the premise is a fun one, and the twists and turns in Walker’s tale lead up to a hell of an ending.
3. “Bête Noire” (Episode 2)
“Bête Noire” might be the most outright surprising episode of season 7. Maria, played by Siena Kelly, works as a researcher at a chocolate company whose life seems to go haywire with the arrival of a new coworker. Verity, played by Rosy McEwen, went to school with Maria, though they were in very different social spheres. Maria was popular; Verity, far from it. Already a bit freaked out by this person from her past showing up, Maria starts to feel like the reality around her is slipping. People around her are not remembering things the way she does, leading to apparent mistakes at work, and she begins to suspect Verity is to blame.
It’s an odd episode. Much of it doesn’t even feel particularly like Black Mirror, and it seems to be spinning its wheels in the first half. But as the nature of what’s going on gets more extreme—emails that appear altered, security camera footage that has been doctored—the fun of the episode emerges. The twists and turns all lead up to a perfectly shocking and hilarious final scene.
2. “Eulogy” (Episode 5)
“Eulogy” is easily the most affecting episode of the season. Paul Giamatti stars as a man who learns that his ex-girlfriend has died. He receives a package from the woman’s family containing a device that allows him to enter into old photographs of his, to resurface his memories of her as part of a eulogy project. The trouble is, in his anger over their breakup, he blotted out any photos of her face, and now he can’t really remember it. He enters into photo after photo, tracing the story of the relationship while trying desperately to bring the image of her face back. Giamatti is fantastic, bringing a gravitas to the role of a man sorting through the facts of his own life and what he did and did not understand about the woman he loved. Also a little too exposition-heavy at times, “Eulogy” is nonetheless a beautiful story about regrets, miscommunications, and the way love stays in our hearts even as memories fade.
1. “USS Callister: Into Infinity” (Episode 6)
When I saw that Black Mirror was doing a sequel to one of its biggest and most-beloved episodes, I was wary. For an anthology show, that didn’t seem like the best idea. I was wrong. “USS Callister: Into Infinity” succeeds, first and foremost, like its predecessor, by just being a great science-fiction adventure. Set in the aftermath of the original “USS Callister,” Cristin Milioti’s Nanette Cole is still leading the ship’s crew of sentient digital clones through the perilous worlds of the online multiplayer game Infinity. The trouble is, they’re not actual tagged players, meaning they need to rob players of their in-game credits to stay alive. But players begin to notice something is off, and that gets back to James Walton, the CEO of Callister Inc., played by Jimmi Simpson. He and the real-world Nanette team up to help the in-game crew survive, while trying to hide the evidence of the illegal cloning tech.
The plot gets wilder from there, maintaining the sense of humor of the original episode while throwing in even more action and even bigger twists. Though it’s not the most emotionally affecting episode this season, it’s certainly the most entertaining, making a raucous meal out of its nearly 90-minute running time. Better still, the ending only has me more excited to see if they make a third one.
