'Black Mirror' Season 6 On Hold Due To The Real World Being A Constant Waking Nightmare

Since we're already living in an endless, real-life Black Mirror episode, it's probably a good time for Black Mirror to take an extended vacation. Charlie Brooker, the show's creator, gets that, and that's why the inevitable Black Mirror season 6 is on hold for now. Brooker revealed in a new interview that since society appears to be collapsing all around us on a daily basis, audiences might not be in the mood to watch such a bleak show.

When will we see Black Mirror season 6? According to Charlie Brooker, not for a while. The series creator appeared on UK's Radio Times recently and revealed that it seems foolhardy to release such a dark show in these uncertain times. "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 any [Black Mirror episodes]," Brooker said. "I'm sort of keen to revisit my comic skill set, so I've been writing scripts aimed at making myself laugh."

To be clear: the world wasn't exactly in tip-top shape when Black Mirror first debuted back in 2011, but it's safe to say things have gotten progressively, and steadily, worse as the years ticked on. And, oddly enough, real-life began to mirror the show in uncomfortable ways. Many point to the Black Mirror episode "The Waldo Moment" – in which a crude cartoon character wins an election to public office – as a prediction of the election of Donald Trump.

"Waldo was loosely based on the British politician Boris Johnson, who's kind of a quasi-Trump," Brooker said back in 2016. "He was one of the guys behind Brexit and also quite a clown. He appeared on comedy-panel shows here in the U.K. and was known as a sort of an oaf — which inoculated him from criticism, weirdly. There was a feeling that politicians were all bland robots parroting the same platitudes, and suddenly now you've got colorful characters springing up. Here was an entertainer coming along and taking advantage of that and becoming a lightning rod...You think, how the fuck did we end up here?" 

Another illustration of how real life has mirrored the show: Johnson is now the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. So, uh...maybe Brooker is justified in wanting to let Black Mirror take some time off for now.