In a Interview 2013 with Games Radar Discussing the second season of “Black Mirror”, creator Charlie Brooker revealed how his program had almost borrowed the framing device for the 1960s’ anthology program “The Twilight Zone”. Like the showrunner Rod Serling would speak directly to the camera at the beginning and the end of each episode, Brooker almost did the same for each episode of season 1 of “Black Mirror”.

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The main argument on this subject was that it would have helped relieve most of the concerns of the network. Brooker explained that studios are often reluctant to make anthology shows in part because there are no recurring characters for which the public hangs on, as there would be any other type of television series. The closest thing “Black Mirror” could do – At least until he started playing with suites in season 7 – had to throw a recurring character of the narrator type.

“Rod Serling was the unifying character, in a way,” said Brooker about “the twilight zone”. He mentioned how Alfred Hitchcock and Roald Dahl do the same thing with their anthology seriesWith similar fun results. In the end, however, Brooker did not have the impression that it would be a good choice. “If I did, it would simply be strange!” he argued. “And then if we invented a character, why are they there?” Brooker obviously has great respect for “The Twilight Zone”, but it was an element on which he was simply not interested in giving his own turn.

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A great reason why Brooker abandoned the idea is that he had found another method to maintain the network at ease: he had cut the number of episodes. “At the start, we thought we were going to do eight episodes per season,” he said. “Then it became obvious that it was easier to make three – we did not have the budget and the time to make it eight, basically. And once it was summed up with three episodes, it was less necessary to have that.” The show would eventually extend to seasons of six episodes, but it was only after being bought by Netflix and gave a massive increase in the budget. Brooker explained more:

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“What I felt quite strongly is that really, when you think of” The Twilight Zone “, you don’t really think of Rod Serling … with” stories from the unexpected “that you might think of Roald Dahl, but this is not the quality you remember. You say things,” go a bit “Twilight zone “‘ Because the show itself has become the character you listened to for each week. Even if you did not know what you were going to get, you knew that it would have a certain tone … The intention was that, let’s hope it is one thing where people would see a strange technological history that they would go, “ooh, it’s a bit”Black mirror!‘”

Indeed, this is exactly what Charlie Brooker achieved during the first seasons of the series. When his Channel 4 race has ended, With his 2014 Christmas Special “White Christmas”, “ Viewers had been trained to prepare before starting a new episode. They knew that they could expect a cool speculative premise, a dark touch and an end of reflection. These are the real call cards of the show; When it comes to making a strong and lasting impression on pop culture, “Black Mirror” did not need a narrator to remove it.

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