- "Black Mirror" creator Charlie Brooker said he sees the upcoming season as a "reboot."
- He said at a Netflix UK event that the new episodes are "both the same and different from where we've gone before."
"Black Mirror" creator Charlie Brooker has said that he sees the upcoming sixth season of the Netflix anthology series as a "reboot."
It was announced on Wednesday that the Emmy award-winning drama, which has been on an almost four-year hiatus, will be returning to screens in June.
"So this season of 'Black Mirror' is both the same and different from where we've gone before," Brooker said in a prerecorded video message at Netflix UK's See What's Next event attended by Insider on Wednesday.
"I wanted to kind of reboot the show a little, and slightly move away from just focusing completely on technology by setting most of our stories in the past," he continued.
However, Brooker said that the new season — the episode count of which is unknown — has ended up being a mixture of stories set in the future as well as the past because he found himself coming up with "some ideas that were a little more futuristic."
Brooker, who has penned all of the new episodes, added that the final product is a "bit of a mix" but added that he thinks it "hopefully expands the remit of what 'Black Mirror' is while keeping it still the same sort of unpredictability."
He also said: "What I always used to say about all the previous seasons of 'Black Mirror,' there was a huge variety amongst the stories. It was like a box of chocolate, you didn't know what the filling was going to be, but you always knew it was going to be dark chocolate when it was 'Black Mirror.'"
The British writer and satirist also serves as an executive producer alongside longtime producing partners Jessica Rhoades and Annabel Jones, as well as new addition, "Ms. Marvel" showrunner Bisha K. Ali.
A trailer for the new season was released on Wednesday ahead of the event and gives viewers a glimpse into what audiences can expect, teasing a spaceship-set storyline for "Breaking Bad" actor Aaron Paul. Elsewhere, Zazie Beetz, best known for her roles in "Deadpool 2" and "Joker," deals with the difficulties of dial-up internet in the early 2000s.
The new cast of guest stars also includes Anjana Vasan, Annie Murphy, Auden Thornton, Ben Barnes, Clara Rugaard, Daniel Portman, Danny Ramirez, Himesh Patel, John Hannah, Josh Hartnett, Kate Mara, Michael Cera, Monica Dolan, Myha'la Herrold, Paapa Essiedu, Rob Delaney, Rory Culkin, Salma Hayek Pinault, and Samuel Blenkin.
"Black Mirror" began life on UK broadcaster Channel 4 in 2011 before being snapped up by Netflix in a $40 million deal. Its last season was released in June 2019.