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At its best, science fiction looks into our present and future. They can be optimistic looks at what humanity can achieve through sheer force of will, but other times they are cautionary tales - moral fables to give us a warning about certain paths we may be going down on.
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Black Mirror is certainly the latter, and while its popularity is likely due to the rapidly changing state of technology and the audience's fears about the implications of said tech, it's also had several episodes that predicted the future, sometimes shockingly so. If anything, the biggest takeaway from this should be to never underestimate science fiction, and its ability to read ourselves better than anything else.
The National Anthem
The very first episode of Black Mirror also manages to be, eerily, one of its most accurate in terms of what occurs in real life. Following the kidnapping of a British royal, the kidnapper demands that the Prime Minister do, um, things with a pig on live television for her release. The absurd yet disturbing premise brilliantly straddles the line between political satire, bleak comedy, and extremely dark drama to create a story that's incredibly unique and so very uncomfortable to watch.
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And then four years after this episode aired, former British Prime Minister David Cameron was accused of, well, doing things to a pig during an initiation ceremony at his frat in university. While the claim was never fully collaborated, the simple idea that this might have happened is both eerie but also darkly hilarious, something series creator Charlie Booker happened to agree with.
The Entire History of You
Released in 2011 during the beginning of the rise of social media, The Entire History of You follows a lawyer (played by the always great Toby Kebbell) who becomes suspicious of his girlfriend and his best friend and begins deep diving into their literal memories through "grains" that record their entire lives. It's standard Black Mirror fare, one that uses an advance in technology to explore a dark, moral consequence of technology. However, the episode also has a darker, more sinister outlook if one looks deeper.
While we don't have "grains" per se, the technology seen here is much like social media and the phones we have nowadays, keeping track of every second of our lives. This obsession with keeping our entire lives visible can be a double-edged sword as the episode shows, as it can help relive good memories but also have stuff we would like to keep hidden away out in the open. This similarity is intentional and only makes the episode more and more relevant with each passing year.
Be Right Back
Widely seen as one of the best episodes of the show, Be Right Back follows a young woman whose boyfriend (played by Star Wars alumni Domhnall Gleeson) is killed in a car accident and, in her mourning, decides to try a new artificial intelligence that can "bring him back" in a way. It's a tragic episode and one that asks important questions about the nature of moving in an age where social media platforms leave a person up to be visible long after they've passed on.
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And then in 2015, a young AI startup company, Luka, made a chatbot eerily similar to the one in this episode - even citing it as inspiration for the whole chatbot's existence. While we can debate all day about whether the company took the wrong message away from the episode, it's still a clear-cut case of how science fiction has influenced so much of our modern technology.
The Waldo Moment
Released in 2013, The Waldo Moment follows a young comedian who plays an animated blue bear named Waldo. After a politician he scolded enters an election, he ends up running Waldo in the election as well to massive consequences. While it's purposefully absurd and deals in a purely hypothetical scenario like most of Black Mirror, it also ended up being quite possibly the most true-to-life episode.
Waldo, who is a comedian or entertainer by trade, ends up looking increasingly similar to world leaders like Donald Trump and Boris Johnson, and the general campaign of Waldo is shockingly similar to Volodymyr Zelenskky, the president of Ukraine, another comedian who ended up getting elected. The sheer absurdity of this happening is oddly fitting for one of the more absurd episodes of Black Mirror and shows that reality can sometimes be stranger than fiction.
USS Callister
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One of Black Mirror's more expensive and cinematic episodes, USS Callister follows a gifted-if-bitter programmer of an online game who uses the DNA of his co-workers to create clones within the game and control them. Outside its many homages to Star Trek - so much so that one could mistake it as an actual episode of Star Trek at first glance - the episode is a much more scathing condemnation of toxic masculinity, male control, and toxicity in fandom.
So it's fitting the episode was released in December 2017, two months after the Harvey Weinstein scandals and around the same time that the fan divisive Star Wars: The Last Jedi premiered. The episode continues to be relevant and predicts multiple things happening in fandom right now as certain men in fandom circles are continued to be called out for their sexism and rampant abuse. If anything, USS Callister came out at the best time and helped bring to light what was going on among film circles throughout.