Black Mirror

Ha, Black Mirror (Channel 4)! Like The Hunger Games plus The Truman Show plus The Gadget Show plus Jeremy Kyle plus Big Brother plus Dawn of the Dead plus Shaun of the Dead plus Groundhog Day plus a lot of morons with phones, all snorted into Charlie Brooker's head where it can fester and go off a bit and gather darkness ... before getting vomited out - projectile vomited - on to the screen.

I actually preferred the first one. It was more human, and felt more of an individual drama in its own right. This is more brutal and bleaker. Nastier. And still probably about the most imaginative television around right now. A big blinding flash of futuresplat.

Review: Black Mirror - Tweet dreams are made of this?

Charlie Brooker's smart sci-fi drama wasn't quite the social-media satire it hoped to be.

Black Mirror is a byte-size chance to reflect

In Black Mirror the screens are bigger, the phones thinner and the sat nav actually knows where to take you. It's some time in the not too distant ­future and Ash is never far from his smartphone. He ­updates his Twitter feed, he uploads a picture of himself as a child, thinking people might find it "funny". Only it's not very funny.

That week on TV: Black Mirror, C4

Charlie Brooker's dystopian futures aren't piercing the heart quite yet, says Jack Seale in his weekly TV review.

The second of this trilogy of edgy dystopian dramas, White Bear is a horror-thriller starring Lenora Crichlow (Being Human) on extraordinary form as a girl who wakes up unable to remember her own name. A mysterious beamed signal has turned most of the population into dumb, apathetic voyeurs, while the unaffected have become murderous "hunters". Unsettling, satirical stuff.

The second series of Charlie Brooker's technology-based, self-contained dramas Black Mirror kicked off with a chiller set in the near future entitled Be Right Back. Hayley Atwell stars as Martha, a bereaved girlfriend who assuages her grief with the help of a useful telephone app that draws upon the departed's online footprint to offer a virtual form of communication beyond the grave.

Brooker's trademark cynical sense of humour is noticeable by its absence as the first 30 minutes concentrates on Martha's loneliness, desperation and unbearable sense of loss. But then things take a distinct turn for the sci-fi, with Martha taking delivery of what can best be described as a grow-in-the-bath android to give her late boyfriend actual physical form.

Much like Martha and her android, Brooker walked the idea around for a while, realised it was going nowhere and ultimately opted for abandonment. To the writer's credit he resisted the temptation to take the tale into the realms of terror, although I can't help wondering if this would have provided a far more satisfying conclusion than sticking the poor surrogate up in the loft.

But for all its flaws, Black Mirror remains compulsive viewing. Well made, well acted and never less than imaginative, it is one of the few dramas around that explores ideas rather than scenarios, employing a dramatically diverse palette of tones in the process.

Black Mirror: Be Right Back, Channel 4, review

It was refreshing that the first episode of the new series was much more sympathetically engaging.

An intriguing premise but lost its emotional thread

Black Mirror saw Charlie Brooker pushing his ideas to the extreme.

TV review: Black Mirror

I wasn't too sure about the science of Ash's resuscitation, but I thought the emotions were engineered pretty well.

Be Right Back gives TV viewers 'nightmares'

Black Mirror has returned to TV screens with viewers hailing the first episode of series two, Be Right Back, as 'great' but one that was so spooky, it gave them nightmares.