With conflicting reviews from critics, Charlie Brooker's dystopian Netflix series Black Mirror has returned for a sixth season.
The show's five brand-new episodes cover topics like the paparazzi and true crime fans' obsession.
The show is "infected with classic Black Mirror tropes," according to Nick Hilton's three-star review in The Independent.
However, he continued, the most recent season "also brings something new.".
For the first time, he added, "Black Mirror is not just holding up the looking glass to the damage wrought by technology, but to the self-inflicted wounds of society as well.".
"The resulting mishmash proves that the best Black Mirror episodes will always be dystopian and that tinkering with that successful formula is a fool's errand. ".
Before being acquired by streaming juggernaut Netflix in 2016, Black Mirror first debuted as a Channel 4 series in 2011.
The interactive film Bandersnatch is not included in its 27 episodes, which use technology to make comments on contemporary social issues.
The new series received a four-star rating from Empire's John Nugent, who was more kind in his evaluation.
The tone or outlook of the show hasn't changed, he wrote, even though its format may have.
"Brooker's pessimistic view of humanity doesn't seem to have warmed up, and while it's not always a fun watch, it's also never particularly dull or predictable either.
The phrase "like something out of Black Mirror" is thrillingly open-ended at its best, according to Nugent.
Another four-star review by Lucy Mangan in The Guardian stated, "It is overall a fine collection of new episodes.".
But nothing quite stands out as the best that Black Mirror has to offer, nothing that really unsettles the viewer, nothing that quite lays a new stretch of awful, unconsidered possibility bare and forces you to desperately try and right your internal moral gyroscopes or grasp for certainties that are no longer there. ".
A total of six episodes make up this series: Joan Is Awful, Loch Henry, Beyond the Sea, Mazey Day, and Demon 79.
Hollywood celebrities like Rob Delaney, Salma Hayek, Aaron Paul, and Josh Hartnett are prominently featured throughout.
The latest episode of the show received positive reviews from Angie Han of The Hollywood Reporter, who called it "the freshest this series has felt since at least 2017".
Fans of the show's technologically dystopian thought exercises might be disappointed to see them completely dropped from the narrative, and the shift in emphasis still results in just as many misses as hits, she said.
"However, by shattering those previous barriers, Black Mirror positions itself for a liberated, wilder, and more captivating future. ".
The interactive film Bandersnatch (2019) and two episodes of Black Mirror's earlier series, San Junipero (2016) and USS Callister (2018), all won Emmys for best television movie. Many of Black Mirror's earlier series have also been praised by critics.
Instead of focusing on the intricate plots of each episode, some reviews highlight writer Charlie Brooker.
According to Variety's Daniel D'Addardio, "Brooker is experimenting with his art and his characters.". "And even then, we can more easily see the humans inside the machine.
Characters in Brooker's universe "either are utterly the victims of shifts in reality, or take advantage of those shifts to indulge their worst and most venal impulses," the reviewer continued.
Due to the "sheer volume of his output," Hugo Rifkind from The Times called Brooker "a phenomenon.".
"No one could deny that even his mistakes are captivating, so he's riding high, doing exactly what he wants. I really hope he keeps going," he wrote.
