Black Mirror, like its content, loves to be mysterious. It won’t show us the last minute twist until it absolutely must, which means that, for the most part, we’ll never know when a new Black Mirror season is nearly upon us. Alas, Charlie Brooker and Netflix are never going to make this easy. Last year, Black Mirror season 4 snuck onto Netflix in late December, just when we thought the year of content was coming to a close.
This year, that may happen again.
A since-deleted tweet from the account @NXonNetflix announced that the show would arrive on the platform on December 28, in the liminal space between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Representation for Netflix declined to comment, but, given the timing of last year's arrival, December 28 seems reasonable.
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The upcoming season is encircled with a moat of embargoes and nondisclosures, but, nevertheless, things have slipped through the cracks. So, a few other things that seem reasonably true about the forthcoming season of Black Mirror.
Miley Cyrus will appear in one episode.
In what may be the series' first attempt at stunt casting, Miley Cyrus is supposedly set to appear in an episode. In November, Cyrus was spotted in South Africa, where a local outlet had claimed earlier that Netflix was filming an episode of the series. On an episode of Your Favorite Things, a podcast hosted by Wells Adams and Brandi Cyrus, Brandi noted that she'd visited her sister in South Africa, where Cyrus was there "working." (Per Brandi, Cyrus left South Africa earlier than expected.)
Then, on Howard Stern's radio show, Cyrus gently confirmed the news, letting Stern guess which Netflix show she'd be acting in soon.
There's going to be a "choose your own adventure" episode.
In a very Black Mirror-esque twist, the show is reportedly going to feature a technologically advanced episode that allows you, the viewer, to choose where you go next. In October, Bloomberg reported that Netflix was prepping several choose-your-own-adventure properties, with Black Mirror being the first major debut of this style. (A children's program called Puss in Book already asks viewers to choose the plot.)
An episode may be titled "Bandersnatch."
In the tweet from @NXNetflix, the Black Mirror title was styled as Black Mirror: Bandersnatch. This suggests that an episode will be titled "Bandersnatch." And, possibly, "Bandersnatch" is the only episode to be released on December 28.
The "Bandersnatch" is a character in both Through the Looking Glass and the poem "The Hunting of the Snark," both by Lewis Carroll. Both titles seem fitting for a Black Mirror episode. In both depictions of the creature, it has "frumious jaws." The fact that the creature is associated with Through the Looking Glass suggests that the episode in question (if it is in fact an episode) will be the "choose your own adventure" title. After all, Alice chose her adventure in Wonderland; come December 28, Black Mirror will force us to do the same.