Black Mirror season 5: Everything we know so far

As none other than Miley Cyrus is revealed to be the first cast member of the anthology series's new season

Black Mirror has stayed curiously quiet during its production this year.

We knew a fair amount about season 4 in the lead-up to its December 2017 release, but the fifth season has been elusive, and the chances of it hitting over Christmas again are now looking slim.

Here are the known knowns, and known unknowns:

Release date

Despite filming getting underway back in March, we still don’t have a release date for the new episodes. Last year’s batch arrived all in one go on 29 December, but Netflix are leaving promotion very last minute if they’re aiming for a similar release date.

It’s possible that they’re going for a “surprise” release on this occasion, but more likely is that they just need a little more time for production, and the release date will be pushed to early 2019.

Cast

Now that Black Mirror is a major Netflix show, we’ve come to expect a big name cast. No doubt we will get one, but producers are doing an excellent job of keeping the actors under wraps.

We do know one major addition however: Miley Cyrus.

Following rumours that Cyrus had been filming on Black Mirror, Howard Stern put the matter to her on his radio show this week. “If you guess it, then I will shake my head ‘yes’ or ‘no’,” she said. Stern then let listeners know that she was nodding in the affirmative when he guessed the Netflix original.

“I’m really actually excited for everyone to watch the ‘headshaking project’ we said yes to,” Cyrus added, saying she usually hates her own work but was really pleased with her performance on this occasion.

Trailer

None yet. Watch this space.

Episodes

Black Mirror has settled into a six episodes per season format now, though still likes to mix things up in terms of episode length, usually throwing in a feature-length instalment each season.

There’s only one episode we can be fairly certain exists at the moment, and it’s called “Bandersnatch”.

An official Netflix sci-fi account posted a swiftly deleted tweet about the episode, and said it would be released on 28 December.

The title was then spotted during shoots in south London’s Croydon.

At first glance, “Bandersnatch” would seem to be an appropriation of the nonsense word from Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky poem. Eagle-eyed fans spotted that it is also the title of an unreleased Commodore 64 game however, and, sure enough, the episode appears to be set in 1984 – a set photo shows a record store proclaiming that Bob Marley’s “Legend” is at No. 1 in the charts.

The internet sleuthing didn’t stop there, with Bandersnatch subsequently being spotted as one of the review titles on the front cover of a gaming magazine seen in the “Playtest” episode.

There may be a “choose your own adventure/ending” episode

This is something director Steven Soderbergh explored in his recent HBO series Mosaic (though it was more about choosing your perspective on the action) and may be what Charlie Brooker was talking about when he said season five features “the most complicated thing we’ve ever done.”

An episode idea has been dropped because of other Netflix show Maniac

“Maniac is very similar to something I wanted to do,” Brooker said. “I haven’t seen it, but I know it’s like a VR therapy thing, so that was something we were going to do; we touched upon it in San Junipero.”

Another idea has been shelved (for now...) because it’s simply “too horrible”

“There was an idea that I’ve got that I want to do that is so horrible that I’m trying to work out how to approach it because it’s so horrific,” Brooker revealed.

“If I tease it, then you’ll sort of know what it is. I’ve got an idea for a horrible twist for something.”

“I can’t unfortunately say anything about it because it would rob it of about 48 per cent of its horribleness. It’s that specific.”