With Black Mirror confirmed to be returning for its seventh season, series creator Charlie Brooker explained why one of the anthology series’ most popular episodes, USS Calister, is getting a sequel.
For the first time ever, viewers will get to see a Black Mirror episode get a sequel, with the episode arriving alongside other upcoming Season 7 titles. While most episodes from the anthology series deserve to have a story expansion, the continuation of the USS Callister sequel has been on the creator’s mind for quite a while.
“This has been brewing for actually quite a long time. And it’s partly because of the way that it ends,” Brooker told The Hollywood Reporter. “The first one ends like you could just carry that story on and follow where they go now. So it was always like, “Hmm, I’m going to do that.” It was something we were looking at for quite a long time.”
Brooker added, “There were various iterations it went through, various version we wanted to do and were discussing on and off for several years. But there are a lot of schedules to sort out, and then the pandemic got in the way. It was something that looked like it wasn’t going to happen, and so I was delighted when it did. So, it’s been a minute. But even writing the characters is a luxury I don’t often get. I’ve never had it before on Black Mirror, to have a character that survives beyond one episode! So that’s been a lot of fun, and then seeing them all on set has been fantastic.”
Who’s returning for the USS Callister sequel?
The Black Mirror creator didn’t reveal anything about what the upcoming sequel may entail, including the cast aboard the USS Callister starship, but he did tease that they will be continuing the story from where they left off.
“You’ll see. Yeah, you’ll see. But we continue the story from where we left off. And there are some new characters as well. There is new stuff to do with where they’ve now ended up versus where they were,” Brooker also told THR.
The original USS Callister episode from the Emmy-winning fourth season of Black Mirror starred Jesse Plemons as Robert Daly, Cristin Milioti as Nanette Cole, Michaela Coel as Shania Lowry, Billy Magnussen as Valdack, Milanka Brooks as Elena Tulaska, Jimmi Simpson as James Walton, and more.
“Capt. Robert Daly presides over his crew with wisdom and courage. But a new recruit will soon discover that nothing on this spaceship is what it seems,” the logline for USS Callister reads.
All six seasons of Black Mirror are available to stream on Netflix.
