'Black Mirror' Season 7 Episodes: Ranking the Satisfying New Sci-Fi Entries

Eulogy is the closing episode of season 7, and if you ask me, it's a fitting place for this new installment of Black Mirror to end. As a man shoulder deep into my midlife crisis, watching Paul Giamatti's Phillip walk through the polaroids of his past cut right into me. He's a recluse who is coerced into revisiting a traumatizing period of his life through the use of immersive technology. This beautiful exploration of grief follows one man's hesitant journey toward closure; it shows how memories have a knack of skewing our perspective of personal history. Black Mirror often digs into the horrors of technology, but Eulogy is one of the shining exceptions to that rule.

Season 3's San Junipero followed two women, Kelly (Kelly Booth) and Yorkie (Mackenzie Davis), who found love in a magical place untethered to time or space. Hotel Reverie follows a similar path, albeit in a bittersweet manner. Here, we follow a Hollywood A-lister named Brandy (Issa Rae) who signs on to star in the remake of one of her favorite vintage movies. Instead of reporting to the set, she quickly learns that she'll be inserted into a program and starring alongside AI-powered avatars of the actors themselves. An unexpected bond forms between her and Dorothy (Emma Corrin), the film's star, which entirely changes the course of the scripted story -- and Brandy's life. There's no happy ending here like there is in San Junipero. Instead, the story uses a nostalgic cinematic lens to explore themes of control, identity and free will in terms of Brandy's professional aspirations and personal fulfillment and the threat AI may pose to entertainment in general. The romance between its leads, which is propped up by solid performances from Rae and Corrin, lands Hotel Reverie near the top of my favorite Black Mirror episodes. 

3. USS Callister: Into Infinity

Most Black Mirror fans already know a bit about the season 7 episode USS Callister: Into Infinity -- it's a rare sequel, set after the events of season 4's USS Callister. The 2017 installment starred Jesse Plemons as Robert Daly -- a gifted programmer revealed to be a villain who created digital clones of his coworkers and tormented them. While they bested Daly in USS Callister, the virtual protagonists find their lives under threat once again in the sequel -- This time, they have to survive among millions of video game players who don't know about their whole ordeal. It's fun to revisit the world and its characters, including the likable Nanette Cole (and the imprisoned copy of Cole), both played by Cristin Milioti. Into Infinity doesn't surpass the first USS Callister but still launches audiences into a thrilling adventure.

After watching the dreariest episode in season 7, Common People, I had an eager appetite for the workplace thriller Netflix served up next. Bete Noire follows Maria (Siena Kelly), who is thriving in her personal life and job at a confectionery company. But her luck suspiciously starts to sour right after her high school acquaintance Verity (Rosy McEwen) is hired. The Black Mirror episode sucked me in with its simmering office rivalry. It's a strong installment with great performances and a deliciously mind-boggling twist, which I will not dish out any further details of here.

As the first episode of the new season, Common People clobbers you over the head with its mix of humor and dystopian horror. The story follows Amanda (Rashida Jones), an elementary school teacher, and her construction worker husband Mike (Chris O'Dowd), who are doing their best to make ends meet while dreaming of one day starting a family together. After a medical emergency that leaves Amanda's health in jeopardy, Mike is presented with a fix, but at a cost. Enter Rivermind, a tech company that offers a service to bring Amanda back from the brink. Soon, the evils of corporate greed and medical malpractice come to light through the company's mouthpiece and sales rep, Gaynor (Tracee Ellis Ross), and the couple finds their comfortable lives uprooted by the monetization of Amanda's health. If you were expecting an easy-going story that would gently drop you back into the Black Mirror universe, this isn't it. Common People is a slow-moving tragedy that sneaks up on you like an undiscovered brain tumor and quickly gets under your skin, leaving you wondering if the tech in this episode will remain as simple fiction and not reveal itself as a societal prediction. 

If you don't think Plaything deserves to be in the sixth slot on this list, I hear you. We initially had different opinions on this one, but in a season of strong Black Mirror episodes, something (or, dare I say, some "throng") had to be last. Plaything introduces seemingly innocuous little yellow critters hanging out in a green habitat on a computer screen. These are called Thronglets, described in the episode as "the first lifeforms in history whose biology is entirely digital." The episode isn't lacking in star talent -- Will Poulter reprises his Black Mirror: Bandersnatch character, and Peter Capaldi is playing an enigmatic individual in an interrogation room just like he did in The Devil's Hour. I dug the eerie vibe throughout the installment, but the flashback-heavy episode, at roughly 45 minutes, still felt too long. It also lacked the human element we appreciated in other season 7 episodes.