Years late to the party, but I started watching it on Netflix from season 1, and GOOD GOD ALMIGHTY it is grimdark! What I’ve seen so far is variations of the theme of “someday science will make it possible to torture people in Hell forever”.
theres a episode called san Junipero that people love… but I hear its a rough series ………
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It’s Black Mirror.
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Most are very dark, but some have hope in them.
I love the show, would recommend you keep going.
Black Mirror excels at taking an interesting idea and doing nothing interesting with it. I gave up after two seasons, so I concede I may have missed better episodes. I did randomly select a later episode called Crocodile but it was the same uninspired dreck.
USS Callister (Season 4, Ep. 1) is not to be missed, even if you walk away from the rest (IMO, the entire series is worthwhile, though).
Although it’s yet another story along the lines of “someday science will make it possible to torture people in Hell forever”.
I find the show one of the best written shows on TV. Yes, it’s dark, but it rarely takes the obvious path and handles twists brilliantly. The great thing is that the twists expand upon what happened before.
Yes, but only if you want your mind blown!
Yes, but only if you want to have your mind blown.
I believe Crocodile is considered one of the weakest episodes in the series.
In addition to San Juniper, I also enjoyed:
“White Christmas” - Christmas special with Jon Haam torturing people in Hell forever.
“Nosedive” - Bryce Dallas Howard is the "ugly friend"to Alice Eve in an amusing take on social networking in Hell…forever
“USS Callister” - Torturing people in a VR Star Trek game forever
“Hang the DJ” - A take on internet dating…in Hell…forever.
“Metalhead” - An unsettling Terminator story. Probably takes place in a VR Hell forever.
Interestingly, all the stories are said to loosely take place in the same “universe”. There are references to events from other episodes and the same fake brands, characters, media channels and technology is referenced. Of course that doesn’t mean much as the entire premise of the show is based on the possibility that your brain can be set up in a VR reality and you wouldn’t know it.
For example, in White Christmas, Jon Haam makes a throwaway comment about defective AI copies of people’s personality being used as cannon fodder in videogames. So for all we know, the events in Metalhead might take place in some post-apocalyptic game or Nosedive is some advanced version of The Sims.
That said, I’m not sure if it really matters. Black Mirror does a good job of setting up each episode so that you emotionally vested in the characters, usually before you find out if they are virtual.
There is a fair amount of variety, ranging from dark comedy to dark horror. And you will enjoy some episodes more than others, and they will be quite different from what everybody else considers their favorites. But yeah, it’s always pretty grim.
The ones I’d say are unmissable because of the attention they have garnered online are USS Callister, Nosedive, White Bear, San Junipero, The National Anthem and Shut Up and Dance.
Agreed. Jesse Plemmons is terrific in that. I also loved the episode where people are giving other people rankings based on their interactions with them.
One could describe Twilight Zone the same way, maybe more so.
My favorites are:
“White Bear”
“White Christmas”
“San Junipero”
“USS Callister”
“Shut Up and Dance”
“Arkangel”
“Crocodile”
“Black Museum”
“The National Anthem” is good, too, but not for everyone.
The third season is the best. There aren’t too many duds, other than "Playtest,’ whose twist was obvious and trite, and “Metalhead,” with is pure futility, and whose twist makes everyone look like idiots.
I would say probably a third of the episodes are interesting, a third are tolerable, and a third are not very good.
I am a lone voice in the wilderness who thinks that episode is as dark as all the others.
That’s about right.probably a better average than Twlight Zone. When it’s on, it’s in, though. It’s one of my favorite series of the past decade. I find even the bad episodes make me think far more than any other series.
True. But not necessarily safe. 
“White Bear” made me feel sorry for a convicted child kidnapper and murderer. I’m not sure Hitler, Stalin or Pol Pot would deserve that fate.
Or was that the point? Justice degenerating into vengeance and then sadism.
Shut up and Dance was one my my favorites. The British guy going off on the kid about how if he didn’t rob the bank then his mother would be forced to watch sperm bubbling from his dick cracks me up every time.
Spoilers ahead…The episode almost lost me half the way through. I think instead of endangering lives and robbing banks, it was time for the British guy to have a heart to heart with his wife about the problems in their marriage.
Likewise, it would be horrifically embarrassing for the kid to have that tape released, so I felt sorry for him, until the big twist at the end where it was shown that he was jerking off to child pornography instead of adult pornography (because hell, even the Pope does that 
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Overall, I agree that the show had overdone the whole “is an AI even though he or she has the same thoughts and feelings as a real person deserving of minimal protections such as not being tortured? And if you answer no, then you will find that you are an AI” schtick. Hopefully next season they get away from that. When is next season coming out anyways?
I really enjoyed the very first episode. But by the third episode I came to the conclusion that they were trying to be “artier than thou”. Can’t recall if I finished the third episode.