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Dec 13, 2023

'Black Mirror' Creator on Netflix's Reaction to Their Fake Streaming Service

That's so meta. We still don’t know much about the new season of Black Mirror ,

That's so meta.

We still don't know much about the new season of Black Mirror, since Netflix will keep details under wraps until the batch of episodes drop. But we do know that one of the episodes – or movies, as they advertised on the trailer and posters – will be extremely metalinguistic. It's an episode that takes place on… Netflix.

In an interview to Empire, series creator and writer Charlie Brooker revealed that he had quite a bit of fun with creating the onscreen streaming platform called "Streamberry." In the episode, called "Joan is Awful," a woman discovers an entire series has been made highlighting her worst secrets, and she is played by Salma Hayek (Magic Mike's Last Dance). Brooker revealed that he received virtually no pushback from Netflix executives when pitching the idea of the platform within the platform:

"We just said, 'We’ve got this streaming platform called 'Streamberry' in this episode… can we make it look like Netflix?' They went away and came back quite quickly — weirdly quickly — and said, 'Yeah, okay.' There wasn't any resistance to it, that I could tell. Which is a bit disappointing, because it would be good to be able to say 'I just did it anyway, because I’m an anarchist!' But no. That episode is quite meta and weird anyway. It's one thing me watching it in the edit, but the thought that people are going to be watching it on the Netflix platform itself ? That's quite bonkers."

RELATED: More Sinister Stories Arrive in New 'Black Mirror' Season 6 Posters

Season 6 of Black Mirror is set to subvert the Black Mirror formula – and we’ll only find out exactly what that means when the episodes premiere. Aside from the meta-episode, we’ll also get to see a sci-fi story set in a space station, a horror-thriller in the late 70s, a kidnapping gone wrong adventure and a paparazzi satire. As always, episodes will comment on our relationship with technology, how it was able to both improve and worsen our lives and how society could be looking like in the not-too-distant future.

The new season of Black Mirror has episodes featuring Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad), Zazie Beetz (Joker), Annie Murphy (Schitt's Creek), Josh Hartnett (Penny Dreadful), Michael Cera (Barbie), John Hannah (Transplant), Kate Mara (Class of '09), Anjana Vasan (Spider-Man: Far From Home) and Paapa Essiedu (I May Destroy You).

Netflix premieres Season 6 of Black Mirror on June 15. You can watch the trailer below:

Erick Massoto is a Brazilian writer who's always loved film and TV and is obsessed with making lists. Started writing reviews when he was a teenager, so he has heard that he "hates every movie" for a long time now.