Charlie Brooker, Annabel Jones Touch and Terrify with ‘Black Mirror’

Awards Daily TV talks to Black Mirror executive producers Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones about their white-hot Netflix anthology series.

Sometimes, as an interviewer, I talk to someone so incredibly fun and engaging that the English language completely fails to relay the experience properly. You dream for moments like that. Yet, they happen few and very far between. Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones, the brains behind Netflix’s incredibly Emmy®-worthy Black Mirror, gave me exactly such moments.

For the uninitiated, Black Mirror brings back the allure of such classic anthology series as The Twilight Zone or Night Gallery. The unique, modern spin becomes how it examines our current culture and, most effectively, how technology insects with human frailty.

Ironically, technology isn’t really where Charlie Brooker starts with story ideas.

“It starts from thinking, ‘Wouldn’t it be crazy if…’ and then we’ll discuss it and discuss it and discuss it,” Brooker explained. “My aim is to get to a point where I’ve appalled or upset Annabel with the description of what I’m talking about yet amused myself. That’s generally the aim. That’s when we know we’ve got a good Black Mirror idea.”

With Season 3, Black Mirror offers a lot more than “good” ideas. The terrifying “Shut Up and Dance.” The thrilling crime procedural “Hated in the Nation.” The brilliant obsession of “Nosedive.” The raw and powerful emotions of “San Junipero.” Season 3’s episodes, like much of the series itself, uses technology to smartly accentuate and elevate real human emotions. The finished product provides visceral thrills that rival the great Alfred Hitchcock and Rod Serling in their power.

So you can imagine my surprise when talking to Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones became such an incredible blast. Particularly when Annabel wondered why they were speaking to me after discovering I was only a 4.1 on the Uber user scale. I have no idea why, but it upsets me intensely. Shades of “Nosedive,” of course…

Have a listen and enjoy this as much as I did.