‘F*** Off’: Charlie Brooker Shuts Down This 1 Criticism Of Black Mirror Season 7

The reviews are already in for the new series of Black Mirror on Netflix, and they’re overwhelmingly positive.

But creator Charlie Brooker has given a pretty blunt response to one of the criticisms aimed at the dystopian drama in more recent years.

While Black Mirror began its run on UK screens, it garnered a whole new audience when it premiered on Netflix, with the streaming platform later buying the format from Channel 4 a decade ago.

Speaking to The Royal Television Society in a video released on Thursday, Charlie said that changes that have been made to the show since its initial run on Channel 4 still have some people talking.

“I hear people going, ’Oh, it’s all American now’…” he claimed. “Fuck off – no it isn’t!”

Charlie Brooker at Netflix's 2025 Black Mirror screening
Charlie Brooker at Netflix’s 2025 Black Mirror screening

via Associated Press

“I defy anyone to look at, like, an episode from this season like… Bête Noire or Plaything, like even Hotel Reverie [is] about a British studio,” the writer and show creator continued.

“It’s part of the show’s DNA” to switch up the show’s locations and themes, he insisted, pointing out that season three – the first to air fully on Netflix – went from “this big, glossy episode with all this Californian imagery and red sports cars and a sunset” in San Junipero to “people waking in Croydon” for Shut Up And Drive.

That chop-and-change essence has stayed the same, the executive producer stated, adding: “We mix these sort of gritty episodes with British people frowning.”

It’s not the first time Charlie has been, er, vocal about critics’ comments.

When the “pick your own adventure”-style Bandersnatch episode came out, Charlie told HuffPost UK: “There’s also some people that are like ‘I don’t wanna make decisions’, ‘I don’t want to do any of it’… well fuck off, then. Do something else!”

The new episodes of Black Mirror have already launched on Netflix and are brimming with the show’s beloved satirical style.

Season seven also offers what may be the show’s most glittering cast to date.

And while some fans may still wish the originally British show had stayed closer to home, the pros are (almost) united; American or not, the reviews are almost roundly positive, with many calling it a “return to form” for the hit show.

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Why Black Mirror Creator Charlie Brooker Won’t Watch This Hit TV Show

Black Mirror season seven is set to hit Netflix soon (April 10).

You might associate creator Charlie Brooker with the series – but he’s also worked on other shows like the BBC series Weekly Wipe, which included reviews of TV shows, news events, and games.

It showed how much of a telly fan the writer and executive producer really is, which makes his admission to The Hollywood Reporter, that he “hasn’t let himself” watch a hit show, pretty notable.

Black Mirror 2025
Black Mirror 2025

“There’s certainly a show I haven’t watched that’s made me jealous,” he revealed.

“People keep telling me to watch Severance, and I haven’t let myself do it because they also say to me, ‘Oh, you’ll love it. It’s a bit Black Mirror-y, but it’s much better.’”

The Apple TV+ hit, which involves people who have “severed” their minds to cut their working selves off from their out-of-hours consciousness, certainly shares the Netflix show’s eerie sci-fi feel – but Charlie need not be jealous.

Not least because Severance’s creator, Dan Erickson, told The New York Times in 2022 that a 2014 Black Mirror episode actually inspired a Severance plot.

Zach Cherry as Dylan in Severance
Zach Cherry as Dylan in Severance

Erickson said that White Christmas, an episode in which characters are trapped in an eternal loop (not unlike Severance’s ‘innies’), left him feeling “so cold and afraid after seeing that, this devastating idea of having to experience this endless solitude”.

He added that this is linked to the season one scene in which Helly R tries to escape the severed floor.

“It’s this nightmare of running out a door and then you’re just running back in, and you realise you’re truly stuck in this liminal space with this kind of nightmare logic,” he said.

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Black Mirror Drops Star-Studded Season 7 Teaser And We Are So Ready

And it looks like we might be in for the most star-studded season yet.

On Thursday afternoon, the show shared a cryptic clip intended to resemble a glitching computer, to let fans know that the show would be returning next year.

The 15-second teaser (accredited to Tuckersoft, the video game company originally seen in the stand-alone Black Mirror episode Bandersnatch) also features cryptic messages like “is everything alright at home?”, “lonely old place, isn’t it?” and the repeated “oh dear – is the entire internet wrong?”.

Charlie also teased “one of the bleakest, heaviest gut punches yet” in the new batch of episodes, describing the new season as “a full emotional workout”.

All six seasons of Black Mirror are available to stream now on Netflix.

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