Editorials
Netflix’s “Black Mirror” Season 6: Ranking All 5 Brand New Episodes
After several years of waiting, Black Mirror finally returned with its eagerly anticipated sixth season. Charlie Brooker’s anthology series has reflected on contemporary society’s complicated relationship with technology since 2011. Interestingly, though, three of the five episodes in this installment occur somewhere in the past, be it distant or nearby. And even more intriguing, not every entry this time around is bent on delivering techno-dystopian dread. In fact, multiple tales are devoid of terror brought on by our overreliance on gadgets, science, and artifice.
Black Mirror was previously concerned with the immediate present or the conceivable future. However, based on this season’s episodes, the creator has perhaps grown weary of the “now.” The world that Brooker envisioned — not to mention warned us about — has, in some ways, come to fruition. These past couple of years, reality has proven to be more unsettling than whatever Black Mirror can cook up.
This latest Black Mirror season turned out to be a real jumble. It starts off in expected territory before promptly detouring. It’s definitely not the most cohesive season so far, yet Season 6 offers a healthy amount of variety as well as a few genuine surprises.
Read on for Bloody Disgusting’s Black Mirror Season 6 ranking.
5. Mazey Day
Set in the early 2000s, “Mazey Day” remembers the days of celebrities being hounded by paparazzi. Brooker naturally adds a sinister element to an already uncomfortable phenomenon, and the end result gives new meaning to the phrase “feeding frenzy.” The initial predators in this story are indeed Zazie Beetz’s character and her fellow photojournalists, but things change when they all bite off more than they can chew.
Black Mirror viewers will wait for but never find the science element in “Mazey Day.” Without spoiling the bizarre ending, this episode sidesteps the series’ standard motif and serves up something more tangibly horrific. Had this entry been a part of another genre anthology, particularly something like American Horror Stories, maybe it would have been less out of place and also better received.
4. Demon 79
The season finale is the first (and, hopefully, not last) episode to be released under the “Red Mirror” label. This experiment in genre removes the typical dangerous-science theme altogether. The shift in genre notwithstanding, the series’ trademark weirdness remains intact as a department store clerk is handed a bizarre task; Anjana Vasan’s character must sacrifice three people in order to prevent the apocalypse. And guiding the skeptical protagonist on her dark, world-saving mission is a novice demon (Paapa Essiedu) who only she can see.
In “Demon 79,” the series shakes off its sci-fi confines and jumps somewhere into the horror arena. Sad to say, this high-concept story is carried out too simply for a show like Black Mirror. From the distracting, Death Note-esque guide to the predictable outcome, “Demon 79” is as uninspired as its faux ‘70s aesthetic. Brooker shouldn’t be discouraged from adding to the “Red Mirror” label, but future horror ventures would benefit from more demanding stories and executions.
3. Joan is Awful
While Season 6’s goofy opener might seem like Black Mirror biting the hand that feeds it, this increasingly hilarious episode doesn’t quite leave enough teeth marks. Sure, “Joan is Awful” takes a prominent swipe at Netflix by introducing Streamberry, a recurring analog for the streaming giant. However, with Netflix evidently in on the gag — the streamer going so far as to lend its own interface and signature “tudum” sound — “Joan is Awful” only delivers half-effective commentary about A.I., data collection, and deepfake technology.
Annie Murphy and the show-stealing Salma Hayek are well cast in this cautionary tale that feels even more punctual now that real-life screenwriters are fighting for better treatment and pay. “Joan is Awful” openly points out the prevalent trends that are endangering the entertainment industry without also getting too cross with its obvious target. And compared to what all followed the season premiere, this episode is rather optimistic. That in itself is strange in the world of Black Mirror.
2. Beyond the Sea
The third episode is set in a retrofuturistic version of 1969 where America is studying the impact of space on humans. Josh Hartnett and Aaron Paul’s characters are this important mission’s guinea pigs who manage to stay in contact with their loved ones on Earth via artificial replicas. Eventually, a personal tragedy back home triggers something disturbing inside one of the two astronauts.
“Beyond the Sea” is the only feature-length episode here, and its slow-burn pacing may turn off impatient viewers. Of all the stories in Season Six, though, this one uses its technological component to flesh out the characters and study their relationships. The startling ending won’t please everyone, but it is guaranteed to stay with you.
1. Loch Henry
The sinister science aspect is also absent from “Loch Henry,” but even so, this episode doesn’t steer off course as much as, say, “Mazey Day.” Streamberry returns in a much smaller capacity than before, although Brooker deems the platform and others like it a symptom of a bigger problem. In a bid to make money and gain exposure, the two young filmmakers (Samuel Blenkin and Myha’la Herrold) here set out to make a true-crime documentary about an old case. Just when they think they’ve found everything they can about these crimes, they dig up something both new and shocking.
By now, the true-crime wave has experienced more than its fair share of criticism, so Black Mirror’s own takedown is belated. And to some, maybe even unnecessary. The episode’s commentary about exploitation and profiting off of personal trauma is nothing new, however, the story’s twists and turns are what make “Loch Henry” so memorable. It leaves on a sad and sobering note like a lot of other episodes, yet it also gives you a real case of the creeps.
Black Mirror Season 6 is now streaming on Netflix.
I first heard about The Mandela Catalogue through a couple of nephews who were obsessed with the ARG’s sinister mythology. It was only after watching Wendigoon’s in-depth analysis of the series that I realized just how deep this rabbit hole goes.
In fact, I’d already been exposed to the nightmarish visuals of Alex Kister’s YouTube creation for years at that point without even realizing that it was the origin of several viral “cursed images” and spooky memes that had leaked into the wider internet – with this viral element actually being a part of the Catalogue’s overarching narrative.
Flash-forward to 2026 and the unprecedented success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms has led to Hollywood betting on horrific internet properties with existing fanbases, which means that Kister’s unique hybrid of both religious and analog horror is finally headed to the big screen with a script written by Kister himself alongside Tyler Clifton.
While this news shouldn’t be too surprising if you’ve been keeping up with the ongoing success of The Mandela Catalogue (both myself and Wendigoon having previously predicted that the series would inevitably make the jump to theaters one day), plenty of horror fans are likely confused as to why so many folks are excited for what appears to be a Hollywood adaptation of a series of creepy .jpeg images under a VHS filter.
With that in mind, today I’d like to invite fellow readers to accompany me as I explore the origins of Alex Kister’s viral hit and attempt to explain exactly why we should all be excited about the Mandela Catalogue adaptation!
From High School Writing Project to Internet Horror Phenomenon
The first seeds of The Mandela Catalogue were sown when Kister was still in high school and developed a writing project subverting religious tropes in a world where biblical history had been altered by demonic forces. A little while later, Kister came across an analog horror contest on Reddit and decided to adapt his ideas into a standalone video where he would edit a religious kids’ cartoon –The Beginner’s Bible: The Nativity, to be specific- into something far creepier. This is how the iconic Overthrone video was born, with this viral short film taking on a life of its own as fans demanded more eerie content from Kister.
Though the video was originally meant to be a one-and-done sort of affair, with Kister actually regretting some of its primitive visuals and considering the editing amateurish and “YouTube-Poop-like” when compared to his current standards, fan reaction and free time during the COVID-19 pandemic encouraged the (then) seventeen-year-old filmmaker to continue producing content set in this same world. The Mandela Catalogue name was inspired by the Mandela Effect conspiracy theory, as the series would slowly begin to explore the subtle horror of alternate histories.
Inspired by existential dread brought on by extended periods of quarantine as well as a personal crisis of faith, Kister continued to expand his alternate timeline where the rise of Christianity had been prevented by what was presumably the Devil disguised as the Archangel Gabriel. This alternate course of fictional events led to the existence of certain paranormal anomalies that had come to be accepted as “normal” by the 1990s, which is why most of the series’ supernatural horror is presented in such a matter-of-fact manner.
Most of this background information and religious lore is delivered by increasingly cryptic broadcasts and in-universe PSAs, as well as the occasional found footage video, that often have to be decoded by clever viewers. Of course, it’s the consistently disturbing imagery that made the series so popular – much of which was originally created by Kister on a smartphone!
The Alternates: Horror’s Most Unsettling Modern Monsters
The show’s early episodes mostly take place within the fictional Mandela County in Wisconsin and depict life in a world where demonic entities are capable of using media to enter our reality. This process usually involves scaring victims into killing themselves and then repurposing their bodies as horrific doppelgangers referred to as “Alternates”. This terrifying phenomenon has become so common that local police already have specialized procedures in place to deal with the issue, though this usually consists of simply ignoring calls for help so as to avoid spreading so-called “Metaphysical Awareness Disorder” any further.
Over time, Kister would expand this mythology and incorporate different kinds of Alternates into the mix, though the story never stopped deconstructing religious concepts. The series’ second volume exponentially increased both video quality and the overall narrative scope as we began to follow the lives of characters who had already grown up in this dystopian hellscape where the government is forced to prohibit religion, television, and even mirrors in the hopes of mitigating the damage done by the ongoing invasion of otherworldly entities.
The really interesting part comes into play when you realize exactly how the Alternates make use of scary media in order to spread their demonic influence, with the analog horror of it all being a diegetic part of the story and something of a memetic trap orchestrated by the false Gabriel.
I particularly appreciate how some characters begin to suspect that there’s something wrong with their version of reality and that things weren’t meant to play out this way, especially when Mark utters the haunting line “who have I been praying to all this time?” That’s why I think The Mandela Catalogue is an effective piece of religious horror even if you don’t subscribe to the Christian worldview, as the mere idea of a world where evil has already won is a universally terrifying concept in and of itself. Not only that, but the series’ uncanny analog imagery alone is already worth the price of admission, as you’ve likely already noticed by looking at the pictures accompanying this article.
Why The Feature Adaptation Could Be Horror’s Next Big Success
It’s actually been a whole year since Kister first announced that he had been working on a feature-length screenplay for a Mandela Catalogue movie since 2022, with his proposed story following an ensemble of high-school graduates who uncover a supernatural conspiracy after the mysterious disappearance of a fellow student. This premise sounds similar to narrative elements present in the series’ second volume, but I’m pretty sure that Kister is going to go the Kane Parsons route and make the movie more of a spin-off than a re-imagining of its source material.
While notable Hollywood producers like Aaron B. Koontz, Scott Stuber, and Steven Spielberg himself are backing the upcoming project, I feel like there’s no one better to adapt this deeply personal exploration of faith and the dark side of communication than the person who first came up with it. That’s why I can’t wait to see Kister’s work on the big screen, as I have a feeling that this young filmmaker is the next one on the list about to make cinematic history – especially since this is clearly a passion project that has been in the works for years at this point!
That being said, there’s always a chance that the film could end up unleashing a fresh wave of Alternate incursions, but I guess that’s just a risk we’ll have to take.
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