Why Black Mirror Season 6 Suffered An Incredible Amount Of Delays
In April 2023, Netflix dropped quite the haunting trailer on YouTube, captioning it, "You've been wondering. You've been waiting. You've been warned." This was to promote the highly-anticipated and long-awaited sixth season of "Black Mirror," which hasn't seen a new episode since 2019. Why was there such a delay in bringing back this Emmy-winning satirical series?
There are several reasons for the four-year delay, one of which had to do with licensing issues. After "Black Mirror" Season 5, show creator Charlie Brooker and producer Annabel Jones launched the production company Broke and Bones, leaving behind their old home, House of Tomorrow, which operated under Endemol Shine Group (later acquired by Banijay Group).
At that time, Brooker and Jones were in talks for a hefty deal with Netflix. Still, despite "Black Mirror" being released on the streaming platform since its shift from the UK's Channel 4 in 2016, nothing new could be produced since Banijay maintained the rights to the show. Eventually, a deal was struck with Banijay, which granted Netflix permission to move forward with more "Black Mirror."
Charlie Brooker needed to step away from Black Mirror during the pandemic
Another reason for the delay of "Black Mirror" Season 6 was the COVID-19 pandemic, though for a different reason than other projects. While many shows halted production through 2021 for the safety of cast and crew, Charlie Brooker intentionally paused the writing of fresh "Black Mirror" content because he feared its concept wasn't exactly what the world needed.
In a May 2020 interview with Radio Times, Brooker said, "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. I'm sort of keen to revisit my comic skill set, so I've been writing scripts aimed at making myself laugh."
Time away from "Black Mirror" allowed Brooker to take a step back and realize that he'd grown bored with the show's original structure. He told Sunday Times that Season 6 will see a bit of a reset and avoid overdone plotlines, such as virtual reality nightmares and evil apps: "I didn't want to be just hitting the same premises over and over again."