Worst to Best
Black Mirror

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14 Arkangel (4.3)

An interesting plot with many facets sees an over-protective mother chip her daughter's mind to follow her every movement via computer. Many issues are touched upon, including the psychological damage that can be caused by filtering a child from the full nature of the world around them, as well as issues of privacy in an age of extreme social media.
     Pre-publicity for the fourth series ran back to May 2017, and having Jodie Foster as director on this episode was one of the biggest headlines. There's a great sense of style to her work, in particular a passage-of-time scene that involves the daughter aging as she repeatedly passes a neighbour's barking dog. There's much to say on this episode, as it literally removes the concept of the Male Gaze, but does so through the filter of another female character.

13 Loch Henry (6.2)

This is the sixth season episode that most resembles a traditional Black Mirror episode... other than the small fact that it has no real Black Mirror elements at all.
      Set in the present day? Check. In the UK? Check. Genuinely quite disturbing in parts, the only thing holding this one back is that a real life murder mystery could have been done under the banner of many other programmes - something that it makes pains to point out, even if it does gently satirise said convention.
      Lastly, hearing people putting on accents can be something of an irritant, as it takes away the realism when accents sound obviously fake. But while I thought the lady playing the mother in this went a bit too "Balamory" in places, I was generally convinced that I was watching Scottish actors. Yet Twatter lit up with actual Scottish people deriding the "Scottish" accents on show as completely absurd, and, while they may have exaggerated for effect, they would be more aware of what they're talking about than me...

12 San Junipero (3.4)

Having San Junipero only scrape into the top ten (and directly below a traditionally far less popular episode) saw The Anorak Zone get a bit of flack on Twitter when this article was first launched... now this fan favourite has fallen even further out of the top ten, will it get even worse? However, I hope that justification for this, at least, is given, so that you may not agree with the placing, but you can at least understand my reason why.
     San Junipero is arguably the most atypical Black Mirror episode ever made. A series with a bleak, blackly-comic outlook where the karmic balance is always open to question, this was the only story until Hang The DJ to feature a truly happy ending.
     It's easy to assume, with his cynical on-screen persona, that Charlie Brooker lacks genuine emotion, but this is his warmest and most sincere episode. The man who was partly responsible for television such as Screen Wipe, Brass Eye and Nathan Barley is nowhere to be found here, a sometimes heart-breaking yet charming tale of a relationship in a virtual afterlife between two women.
     As both women face (and experience) death in real life, then there's a bittersweet feel to events, but it lacks the dark, ironic edges that normally make up a Black Mirror experience. San Junipero is a tale that champions both love and a homosexual relationship, and is justly lauded. Yet in praising an episode where everything, after a fashion, works out well in the end, you have to ask yourself... have you switched on the wrong series by accident?

11 Demon 79 (6.5)

You can make an argument that not a single one of the season six episodes is truly Black Mirror. At a stretch, you might even suggest there hasn't been a pure Black Mirror episode since 2017.
      So, back to the Charlie Brooker quotes from The Radio Times (and taken from a Q & A at the BFI): "This season I started out doing some with a very different take – a Red Mirror film, and almost like a crime and horror-led sister label, so to speak."
      While this story of a demon demanding sacrifices or the world will end very definitely isn't a Black Mirror episode, it at least gets a pass, in that it's the only one of the "not really" episodes to go out under a different label. Opening with Black Mirror presenting "a Red Mirror film", it at least has the decency to set out its stall from the outset, ensuring you're at least given a get out from the "is-it-or-isn't-it?" questions.
      So why does this one rank so high? Is it the chemistry between Anjana Vasan as lead character Needa and Paapa Essiedu as the Boney M-inspired Demon? Maybe it's the quite intriguing plot, with some funny lines? Or maybe it's just overrated because it's an episode that features Sapphire & Steel playing on someone's television (albeit in May 1979, two months before it actually began.) Whatever it is, this edition has something, even if there's the nagging feeling that "something" won't extend to repeat views, and that it won't hold such a high place in this ranking for long...

10 The Waldo
Moment (2.3)

The concept of an urban, technology-based take on the anthology format is a good one, though ultimately has a limited lifespan. It perhaps explains why the series went to Netflix after this instalment (barring one Christmas special) as already, just half a dozen episodes in, the ideas appear to be repeating themselves, at least thematically.
     It's not that The Waldo Moment is actually a bad episode. In fact, it's a very good one. If you can get past the concept of a foul-mouthed cartoon bear having mainstream crossover appeal with the public, then the story is well told and well-acted. In isolation it's actually a great and underrated piece of television, it's just that in the context of the series it did feel like the show was treading over old ground.
     What has helped push the episode further up the rankings is how unwittingly prescient it has become in depicting a political candidate who engaged the electorate via negativity and abuse. What seemed at the time a slightly flat episode has become elevated into something more, and, rewatched with fresh eyes, it's an instalment that has aged well. Although by someway the least of the Channel 4 episodes, it still fits comfortably in the top ten here. Perhaps the only disappointment is that the YouTube video "A dog farting the theme tune to Happy Days" is entirely fictional.


9 Shut Up and
Dance (3.3)

Shut Up and Dance received mixed critical reviews, whereby a final twist - thematically similar to that of the earlier White Bear - left viewers feeling troubled with the episode's content. It contains strong lead performances from Alex Lawther as Kenny, a young boy blackmailed when filmed via his internet webcam, and Jerome Flynn as Hector, another blackmail victim who he's forced to team up with. Co-written by William Bridges - here credited as "Will" - it's astonishing to think that such a dark, distressing episode was written by the same team behind USS Callister.
     The episode drops a little due to the ending, but not in the way one might think: having hard-hitting, line-crossing twists is what Black Mirror has been all about from its very inception. What harms is that said twist is then spelt out to the viewers via a phone call after having already been heavily implied... although Black Mirror could never perhaps be accused of being subtle, it seems as if the Netflix audience wasn't credited with the intelligence to work it out. There's also the unexplained plot twist of how, in their enforced "fight to the death", slightly built 5'7 Kenny somehow manages to kill a six foot man.
     Yet the main reason it ranks so relatively low in this list is because nothing that happens in the episode follows the series' self-imposed "future shocks" remit. The entirety of Shut Up and Dance could conceivably take place now, with no future technology or SF element involved. As a result it's a strong, gripping thriller with a devastating final twist... but it's hardly an episode of Black Mirror at all.

8 The National
Anthem (1.1)

The concept that someone would kidnap a member of the Royal Family and blackmail the Prime Minister into having sex with a pig on live TV is a far-fetched idea, but made scarily plausible in this opening episode. Brooker's media-savvy is on show from the outset, as he depicts the various activity that would engineer such a situation, not least the all-important polls. Sadly, it may have been too much for some viewers, the undeniable "shock value" off-putting... while "opening nights" always attract a spike in viewing figures, a quarter of the 2 million that tuned in to this debut had deserted the programme by the second week.
     It's now, of course, impossible to discuss this episode without referring to the fact that a real UK Prime Minister was later accused of penetrating a dead pig's mouth as part of an initiation ceremony. Brought to the press four years after this episode aired, the charges were denied, but brought retroactive attention to a controversial instalment.