Charlie Brooker: Fans tell me Black Mirror was better before we cast Americans

https://www.standard.co.uk/showbiz/celebrity-news/fans-americans-netflix-charlie-brooker-emma-corrin-b1244110.html

36 comments

  1. I mean, maybe that’s true, but I don’t think there’s a causal connection here. It was better before the premise was run into the ground.

  2. Brooker:

    >“I think if you think too much about the audience, you go a bit mad. It gets in the way, I think because you feel like you’re faking it somehow or you’re forcing it. Sometimes I’ve written things that are in a different kind of tone. One of the first times I did that was when… all the episodes had been, every episode had been bleak and horrible and had a bleak, horrible ending, and then the show was going to Netflix.”

    >“Also, sometimes people say to me, ‘I prefer it when it didn’t have Americans in it and everyone had bad teeth, and then it ended, and the worst thing ever happened to them, and then they died. Can you do that please? And Netflix never said, ‘Could you make this a bit more jolly and American?’ I was just thinking, if I just did nothing but down endings, A, that’s really predictable and B, I’ll get very bored.”

    >”So the first episode I wrote for Netflix was called San Junipero. It was an upbeat ending, an upbeat tone. And I think that one, I suppose it was writing for me. I was about to say, ‘Was that something I would have naturally gone to? Was I thinking about the audience?’ Actually, no I wasn’t. I was sort of experimenting and thinking ‘Can I write an optimistic story. What happens if I do that?’ It was terrifying. It was one of our most popular (episodes) ever that we’ve done.”

  3. Nah, was better when the idea/stories were fresh, now each one I watch seems to have far too many recycled elements in it.

  4. No, it’s just one of those things that’s better as a limited series. Its first episode is still its most memorable for tons of people. Over the years they went on to have enough great episodes to fill about one season. That was the only problem. Tons of ideas that just didn’t hold up next to the better ones.

  5. Blac mirror straight up sucks now. None of the stories are grounded, new or has any sense, “what if” like the older episodes. I remember when each episode was an exploration of a certain technology relevant today, taken to an extreme to explore the possibilities and potential ramifications of it.

    Now it’s just… WhAt If I bUiLt A tHiNg In My ClOsEt ThAt LeT mE cHaNgE rEaLiTy.

  6. I watched season 7 after missing a few seasons. Apart from episode 1 I think they all had happy endings. Felt very unnatural to me. I thought Black Mirrors whole thing was bleak endings?

  7. I think it was more that they were working with a much more limited budget with Channel 4. Honestly, some of those early episodes are awesome because they had to do a lot with very little.

  8. Some of the best episodes have American actors in it so this statement is total bollucks

  9. I do not understand the reaction to Black Mirror in this thread

    The latest series was excellent, with a hard-hitting first episode grounded in the reality of growing enshittification, a brilliant turn from Peter Capaldi and a beautiful story with Emma Corin

    Just feels like a weird fad to shit on something popular

  10. It definitely was better before they cast Americans regularly, especially more famous American Hollywood actors. Anyone who watches British tv shows will know they are miles better than American TV shows. Less cliches, less dramatic, less corny, better and more believable writing…. Just better all round.

  11. You know what gets engagement? Division, so let’s just run with that angle, ad infinitum.

  12. I mean, yes, but not because of the American actors.

  13. When people tell me San Junipero is their favorite episode, I pretend I don’t watch the show so I don’t have to talk to them.

  14. Being American had nothing to do with the bad stories that were told

  15. He needs to do more Karl Pilkington ideas.

    Get me Clive Warren!

  16. I think it’s more accurate to say it was better when it was smaller.

    I’m not sure it’s better either way as I like the scale of what bigger budgets brought.

  17. **I low-key hate how** British entertainment gets huge and then brings in Americans. Kingsman. 28 Weeks Later. Black Mirror. And being worse off for it.

    Just let it be British.

  19. I’d argue that White Christmas is one of the best episodes, and that looks like the first time an American was cast in a leading role

  22. The Americas were better before they cast Europeans,

  23. It just kinda feels like the show mostly forgot the premise.

    Before it was about potential horrors that can happen being in a world so invested in and reliant in technology.

    The last season had an episode where a lady who was bullied as a teenager had a machine that can change the universe to whatever she wanted. That’s just a super villain with a pretend machine, that’s not really saying anything about our current culture and where it’s going, relating to technology. That’s not what black mirror is supposed to be.

  24. Earlier black mirror tended to end on incredibly bleak notes.

    6 million merits still haunts me. Waldo practically predicted where politics would go over the next 10 years. The episodes ended on incredibly dark notes that left me and my friends wanting to turn off the TV and just talk for a long while, rather than look at screens.

    While the bite hasn’t gone completely in the new ones, I feel that bleakness has instead been replaced with a twilight zone / outer limits style parable ending with a quasi moral to wrap it all up.

    The exception, funnily enough, is some episodes that are still very UK focused. Like Metalhead or Shut up and dance

  25. Penn Jillette has a story credit for giving Charlie the idea about a doctor addicted to pain, and he said that Charlie told him that he ran out of ideas after the 1st season.

    That probably has more to do with it than the casting.

  26. Being from the UK, I remember the shock of the first series (particularly the first episode that I watched with my mother 😬 – we did not know what it was about), obviously the shock element is going to wear off over time. Having said that, I still really enjoy it and it’s the only reason I renew my Netflix subscription when a new series drops.

  27. That’s not true though. Look at the best regarded episodes. Well distributed among seasons. Brits just mad.

  28. Just make more Cunk, Charlie, that’s all we want

  30. Black Mirror was better when the writing was better, end of story lol

  31. All good things (should) come to an end. That’s what happened not because of American casting

  32. Cool story, mate. No need to say that if you don’t want to cast American actors in your future projects 🙄

  33. Black Mirror was cool when it felt like a fantasy dystopian world. Now we’re living in one, the appeal isn’t really what it was.

  34. I like a lot of the new ones as well as the old ones

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