The only three episodes of ‘Black Mirror’ that won Emmy awards
There are so many moments from the Black Mirror series that are burnt into my brain. The British sci-fi anthology series has provided no end of insane plot twists or twisted plots during the course of its six seasons. Tackling everything from politics to social media, crime to punishment, most people could tell you exactly where they were when they first watched some of the more insane episodes.
As the series rolled on, the whole world seemed to have been hooked into Charlie Brooker’s weird cinematic world. In the last series, it felt like Hollywood was especially interested as the cast suddenly included major names like Salma Hayek, Aaron Paul and Kate Mara. With such vast visions of imagined futures or alternative realities, the show’s budget is now in the hundreds of millions as Brooker brings it all to vivid life.
It’s worth it. Watching episodes like ‘Shut Up And Dance’ or ‘White Bear’ stick in the mind as some of the most electric TV-watching experiences I’ve ever had, gathering around the TV with my university flatmate and gasping out loud at the twists. It’s also clearly worth it for more tangible responses, as the TV series had picked up 90 award nominations and 25 wins across both technical and artistic categories.
When it comes to the Emmys, the show has been nominated 14 times as a clear stand-out production in recent TV history. Actors like Seamus McGarvey, Letitia Wright and Andrew Scott have been nominated for their performances in a few episodes, but when it comes to the show’s Emmy wins, they all come from three episodes in particular that sit as the best of the best.
The first is ‘San Junipero’, the fourth episode from the show’s third season, which aired in 2013. The episode hooked into people’s hearts as a softer and more emotional offering from a show that is so often brutal and dramatic. But it has just the right amount of weirdness as it deals with a future where dead people can live on in a simulated reality, free to forge relationships and love as if they’re still alive. The strange love story between characters Yorkie and Kelly proved endearing as one of the show’s best-loved episodes. It also won them Emmys for ‘Outstanding Television Movie’ and ‘Outstanding Writing’ in 2017.
On a winning streak, the show took home more Emmys the following year. After the release of the fourth season, the opening episode’s Star Trek-style plot had everyone gripped. ‘USS Callister’ was a more comedic take, merging the show’s typical interest in technology with a more nostalgic interaction with classic sci-fi. It was good enough to bag seven nominations across cinematography, music, acting and writing. The episode took home awards for ‘Outstanding Television Movie’, ‘Outstanding Writing’, ‘Camera Editing’ and ‘Sound Editing’.
The third Black Mirror instalment to succeed during award season was a landmark one. After several seasons, Charlie Brooker dropped something different into our laps via the world of Bandersnatch, an interactive project that lets Netflix viewer choose their course. A major part of the plot is about a young developer going mad trying to plot out the various options and plays in Bandersnatch, and as viewers can end up going in loops trying to find different endings and pathways, that feeling perfectly translated to audiences. Watching the film three times in a row with my friend, trying desperately to find new ending scenes to get a better outcome for the protagonist, Stefan Butler, became a natural occurrence.
Bandersnatch picked up Emmys for ‘Outstanding Television Movie’, as well as the well-deserved award for ‘Outstanding Creative Achievement’ in Interactive Media Within a Scripted Program. Since the film’s release, Netflix has seen the release of several new interactive projects, so Charlie Brooker really led the pack with his experimental output.
It was recently announced that season seven is in the works and will include a sequel episode to USS Callister, meaning perhaps more awards are on the horizon as Brooker dives deeper into his strange world.
