The Hypothetical ‘Black Mirror’ Episode About The Pandemic Would Have Been ‘Incredibly Violent’

Charlie Brooker could have made a Black Mirror episode about the pandemic, but instead, he’s wishing Death to 2020, a cathartic response to this train-wreck and sh*t-show of a year. But, hypothetically speaking, what would the COVID episode of the Netflix dystopian series look like Brooker recently answered this very question.

“A weird thing I’ve noticed, and this is maybe just me — and you wouldn’t tell this from Black Mirror — but I’ve always been a very paranoid and worried person who is neurotically concerned that the worst thing possible is about to happen,” he said during a virtual panel for Death of 2020. “And oddly, when this happened, I think on some levels I pivoted to a strange kind of almost optimism, in a way. Because that dread and anxiety of something terrible happening, once something terrible is happening it’s suddenly a real and going concern and you’re not worrying about some great unknown, you’re dealing with an actual situation.” He then laid out his Black Mirror pandemic episode:

If I’d been writing the Black Mirror version of a pandemic unfolding across the panic, it would have been incredibly violent and incredibly — like, society would have collapsed into dust in a thrilling opening credits scene. And actually, generally speaking at the moment thus far… your neighbor is more likely to help you with something than they are to fight you for a bottle of water.”

Hm, no thanks. Samuel L. Jackson saying “f*ck you” to 2020 is a better use of everyone’s time.