Netflix Didn’t Change Black Mirror, Its Creators Did

Charlie Brooker created Black Mirror for Channel 4 in the U.K. before it was snapped up by Netflix for streaming. The first two seasons (plus one special) were extremely dark, and Brooker admitted during a chat at SXSW Sydney that the general lightening of tone once the show was produced by Netflix was a “criticism” that he got frequently.

“It’s gone to Netflix and suddenly everything’s sunny and happy and everyone has wonderful teeth, and it’s full of Hollywood stars and it’s lost that edge,” he said during the panel. But the change wasn’t because of the streamer—The Guardian reports that Brooker was the one who pushed the change in tone on the show.

“I was aware we’re going on a global platform now, so we’ve got to make these stories a bit more international. And I wanted to mix it up a bit, as in not just keep doing bleak-a-thons,” he said to the audience. “San Junipero,” arguably the kindest of the episodes and one that many cite as their favorite, was also one of Brooker’s favorites to write. “I just did that off my own back,” he said.

Brooker said that “[San Junipero] is probably one of the most meaningful ones we’ve done.It was the first positive one that I’d done because, up until that point, every Black Mirror was about someone’s in a trap and they don’t get out of it. And in [San Junipero] it was two people are in a trap and that’s fine. It seemed that that resonated with a lot of people.”

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