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Black Mirror creator not working on more Black Mirror, since life is Black Mirror

Instead, Charlie Brooker is leaning on his comedy skills, because who couldn't use a laugh?

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, generational studies. Credentials
  • Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year"​ award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
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Gael Cooper

Well before the appearance of the coronavirus outbreak, the British anthology series Black Mirror was taking realistic events and characters and twisting them into a recognizable-but-disturbing world. With the pandemic, though, show creator Charlie Brooker says he's not working on new episodes, because... well, just look around.

"At the moment, I don't know what stomach there would be for stories about societies falling apart, so I'm not working away on one of those," Brooker told Radio Times this week. "I'm sort of keen to revisit my comic skill set, so I've been writing scripts aimed at making myself laugh."

4

In a season 4 episode, Black Mirror featured an overly invested fan of a Star Trek-like show.

 Jonathan Prime/Netflix

Black Mirror, which airs in the US on Netflix, has produced five seasons so far, as well as the interactive film Bandersnatch. Its Twilight Zone-esque episodes often start off realistic and include some twist on technology that turns the characters' worlds into a disaster. Brooker's quarantine comedy special, with the working title of Antiviral Wipe, will air in the UK on May 14.