10 Shows Black Mirror Fans Are Guaranteed To Love

Anyone, who knows what love is, would understand…

Assuming that the device you are reading this on hasn’t already sent your life spiraling into some sort of dystopian nightmare, and that you haven’t been living under a rock for the past few years, you will probably already know and love Charlie Brooker’s darkly addictive series Black Mirror.

However, with early seasons of the show being comparatively short and the most recent helping having just finished, it’s also probable that you now have a Black Mirror sized hole in your life that needs filling.

Luckily, there are a number of other shows, from all time classics to little known cult gems, that also explore the darker side of reality and should help to satiate your appetite.

Here’s our list of ten shows that fans of Black Mirror need to try…

 

1. The Twilight Zone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1o-3SYPRMY

“Do do do doo do do dooo do…”.

An obvious choice, but also a true classic, this long running series of self contained stories in which viewers explore the ‘dimension of imagination’ was clearly a huge influence on Black Mirror and laid the template for a slew of other shows with similar anthology formats.

Featuring one of the most iconic opening themes in television history, it’s a pop culture icon in its own right and presents one off tales exploring the darker fringes of sci-fi, supernatural horror and extraordinary occurrences that melt the mundane into something decidedly more uncanny.

Track down the episodes ‘Living Doll’, ‘Enough Time at last’ and ‘The Monsters are due on Maple Street’ to jangle your nerves with some Brooker-esque blurring of the boundaries.

 

2. Inside No.9

A modern take on the anthology show from The League of Gentlemen writers Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith, this black-as-pitch comedy series presents self contained stories, linked only by the number 9. Incorporating elements of horror and tinged with the darkly surreal humor you would expect from  Pemberton and Shearsmith, the show features a number of familiar faces from British TV and has received praise for the quality of both the writing and acting.

 

3. One Step Beyond

Often overshadowed by its more popular contemporary The Twilight Zone, One Step Beyond was another series that made skin crawl and bladders loosen.

While it’s considerably dated now, and doesn’t quite have the same bite as some of the better Twilight Zone episodes, One Step Beyond is nonetheless an interesting example of the anthology genre and an artifact of different television age.

Echoing Black Mirror’s penchant for pushing the familiar into darker places, OSB deviated from The Twilight Zone by presenting ostensibly true tales of supernatural or paranormal occurrences, leaving the viewer all the more unsettled by exploring the possibility that these incidents could be true.

For a taster of the show’s content try the episode ‘The Clown’ available, as many episodes are, on YouTube. Coulrophobes, you have been warned..

4. Tales of the Unexpected

While many are only familiar with the work of Roald Dahl from his classic children’s books like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Matilda, even they will be aware that part of the appeal in these sugary tales is the sense of something mildly sinister lurking beneath surface.

This darker side to Dahl, who contributed to a number of anthology shows, was fully realized in his collections of tales for adults. Heavily influenced by the works of Saki (another writer whom any Black Mirror fan should look up) his stories of cruelty and wonder were most memorably adapted for television in the series ‘Tales of the Unexpected’, so named because of the delicious twists in the tale that were hallmark of Dahl’s superb writing.

 

5. The Outer Limits

Lauded by Stephen King as “the best program of its type ever to run on network TV”, The Outer Limits is another close relation of The Twilight Zone and featured one-off stories of the weird and horrific.

More firmly rooted in the Sci-Fi genre from Season two onward, The Outer Limits had two successful runs on our screens (from 1963-65 and later in a revival from 1995-2002) and was famous for its often-parodied opening, featuring the lines ‘There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling the transmission.’

Often featuring twist endings, the show earned plaudits for the quality of its writing and was even involved in a successful lawsuit against James Cameron, with the decorated director admitting that elements from two episodes of the Outer Limits had directly influenced his own sci-fi masterwork The Terminator.

 

6. Monkey Dust

As you watch a forlorn and rain-soaked man ascending the staircase of a dilapidated building to the haunting strains of ‘Lovely Head’ by Goldfrapp, and then begin to explain to his wife exactly where he’s been for the past two days, you begin to realize that Monkey Dust may not be your conventional cartoon show.

Oscillating between the madcap and the melancholy, this British satirical cartoon show ran for three series between 2003 and 2005. Despite being cut short by the tragic death of creator Harry Thompson, it became a cult favourite for its gallows humor and loaded jabs at taboo topics. The pork-related antics of Black Mirror’s ‘The National Anthem’ would not have seemed out of place in this 2D danse macabre.

 

7. Alfred Hitchcock Presents

Often mentioned in lists of the 100 greatest TV shows of all time and nominated for various Emmys, this anthology show produced and presented by the master of suspense himself is another worthwhile pursuit that will help fill the Brooker-shaped void in your life.

In an interesting parallel to Black Mirror the show was accompanied by a number of literary anthologies – a step that Brooker also plans to take with anthologies of stories to accompany Black Mirror, expected in early 2018.

 

8. Way Out

Another show featuring Roald Dahl, though this time only as the show’s introductory narrator (only one episode being based on an actual Dahl story) ‘Way Out’ ran for just fourteen episodes. Featuring a different short story each week in a format that will be familiar to lovers of Black Mirror, episodes of the show were for many years difficult to track down, though luckily a number of episodes are now available on Youtube for your delectation.

 

9. Brass Eye

Hugely controversial when it first aired and still undeniably divisive today, this mock current affairs programme, styled to parody British shock journalism shows like the BBC’s Panorama, originally aired on Channel Four in the UK. The Daily Mail called it ‘unspeakably sick’ – which, if you’re familiar with the Mail’s output, is the highest compliment they could give.

Brainchild of the one-off man-mental and sometime Brooker collaborator Chris Morris, the show eviscerates the media’s presentation of issues with the same acerbic wit that Black Mirror fans have come to expect.

 

10. The Stone Tape

While encyclopedias aren’t exactly the first place you might look when trying to discover a TV show, anything that gains the title of “arguably the most creepy drama ever seen on television” in the Encyclopedia of TV Science Fiction, must be worth a glance to Black Mirror fans.

A one off TV play, first broadcast on British television in 1972, The Stone Tape was written by Nigel Kneale and follows a group of scientists investigating a purportedly haunted Victorian Mansion. The premise behind the story, that the walls of the house had somehow recorded events from the past and that this may explain the supposed existence of ghosts, is now given credence in some circles and is referred to as ‘The Stone Tape Theory’, whilst the show itself was a major influence on horror classic ‘Poltergeist’.

Whether it lives up to the encyclopedia’s claims is for you to decide, but with a genuinely atmospheric mix of sci-fi and horror, it certainly an enjoyable watch and strikes just the right notes for Black Mirror fans.

 

Bonus Round

If our ten suggestions still aren’t enough to tide you over until Black Mirror returns, then slake your thirst for all things Brooker by checking out some of his earlier TV work, such as the critically acclaimed Dead Set, a five part show centred around a zombie outbreak during a series of reality show Big Brother.

Alternatively, if you like the fear a little closer to home, search out Brooker’s surgically sharp dissection of the media’s hidden agendas in How TV Ruined your Life and Screenwipe, shows littered with observations so pointedly on the nose it’ll make you think you are living in an episode of Black Mirror already.

Finally, from the same spring of vitriolic satire as Black Mirror, Nathan Barley deals with a world gone mad in which the main character’s criticism of pop culture eventually leads him to become the centre of it, the show explores a nightmare scenario in which screaming against the absurdity of it all, only results in people tuning in to listen. Bleakly hilarious and cuttingly observant, Black Mirror fans will love it.