Retro Spectacles begins a new deep dive into Black Mirror with Series 1, the original Channel 4 run that introduced Charlie Brooker’s bleak, funny, horrifying vision of modern technology staring right back at us. Before the Netflix era, before San Junipero, before the show became shorthand for “this terrible thing is basically a Black Mirror episode,” there were three brutal opening swings: The National Anthem, Fifteen Million Merits, and The Entire History of You.
The National Anthem starring Rory Kinnear defined the brand in the most confrontational way possible and predicted a real David Cameron scandal four years early. Fifteen Million Merits is a pre-fame Daniel Kaluuya demo reel so convincing that Jordan Peele reportedly cast him in Get Out off the strength of it. And The Entire History of You, written by Jesse Armstrong four years before Succession, remains the only episode in the show's entire run without a Brooker writing credit. From the public appetite for humiliation to ad-saturated bike prisons to memory implants that would destroy every relationship on Earth, Series 1 still feels uncomfortably close to now.
Mitcz & Teddy revisit how the series first made its way into their friendship, why Brooker’s comedy background matters, how these early episodes already establish the show’s core formula, and a \"is this your fault or does this situation just suck\" framework for sorting every episode.
Get your spectacles on and join us!
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