TV

The New ‘Black Mirror’ Trailers Are Eerie and Relevant As Ever

The show will hit the ground running by tackling overprotective parents and the subjectivity of memory in the face of traumatic events.
Black Mirror Season
By  · Published on November 27th, 2017

The show will hit the ground running by tackling overprotective parents and the subjectivity of memory in the face of traumatic events.

Black Mirror preps a comeback with some new trailers that dropped over the weekend. Fans of Netflix’s macabre tech-based anthology series can rest assured that all this new footage is still as effortlessly creepy as before.

The first trailer, which was released on Saturday, put the Jodie Foster-directed “Arkangel” in the spotlight. As with what makes most of Black Mirror undeniably uncanny, the episode will take a very real fear — having their child turn up missing — and create a heightened allegorical narrative about what it means to keep children “safe.” Starring Rosemarie DeWitt, Brenna Harding and Owen Teague, “Arkangel” already seems primed to tackle good parenting gone bad while keeping with the show’s deeply human issues of morality.

This episode is probably the biggest draw of the season due in part to Foster’s involvement. Foster, who has built up a considerable directorial resume in recent years, continues a relationship with Netflix as a director. Her work on shows such as House of Cards and Orange is the New Black has been highly praised, among her other efforts on the big screen like The Beaver and Money Monster. Black Mirror brings Foster into the science-fiction genre, but considering the show’s realism-based premise, she already has a great head start.

“Crocodile” is the focus of the second Black Mirror trailer and is possibly even more elusive in plot than the one for “Arkangel.” Kiran Sonia Sawar seems to be going around requesting access to people’s memories of a particularly horrible encounter — an accident of some sort. Sawar’s character emphasizes that each individual owns their memories in emotional and impressionistic ways, and instead prefers to access recollections using an unnamed machine. “I don’t care what you do in your own time,” Sawar says in voiceover. “Private stuff is private stuff.” This leads me to believe that the machine will somehow reveal more indiscretions than Sawar’s character is specifically looking for, and people are understandably afraid. But honestly, that line could mean anything and that’s what makes it so enticing and unsettling. The trailer ends with a chilling partial shot of Andrea Riseborough per a rearview mirror.

From the looks of it, we can expect short trailers for each of the six episodes in Black Mirror‘s upcoming fourth season in a relatively short period of time, and that is thoroughly exciting. The released footage might be less than a minute long each, but it’s gotten me hooked. Black Mirror is basically the new Twilight Zone with its the ability to draw minds into heightened and horrific narratives that have a grounding in reality and provide ample social commentary. Black Mirror is set to return to Netflix sometime in 2018.

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Sheryl Oh often finds herself fascinated (and let's be real, a little obsessed) with actors and their onscreen accomplishments, developing Film School Rejects' Filmographies column as a passion project. She's not very good at Twitter but find her at @sherhorowitz anyway. (She/Her)