First glimpse of Black Mirror season four

Charlie Brooker’s twisted sci-fi series returns with six new episodes, and the episode titles and casts have been announced

Video by The Skinny | 25 Aug 2017

Black Mirror, Charlie Brooker’s bleak anthology series about technology’s grip on humanity and the dystopic futures this might mean for us all, will soon return to Netflix. We’ve had our first glimpse of the new series with the above rapid montage of clips from each of the fourth season's six episodes, which was unveiled at the Edinburgh International Television Festival.

The clips pass by in a blur, but they do suggest Black Mirror might be upping its scale this time around. During the 50 second promo we see a killer robot that could be a relative of the ED-209 from RoboCop and an episode set in space that looks like a Star Trek homage.

Plenty of big names are featuring in the new series, including Andrea Riseborough, Rosemarie Dewitt, Game of Thrones’ Gwendoline Christie, Breaking Bad’s Jesse Plemons and Maxine Peake. The anthology series' new set of directors, meanwhile, include Jodie Foster, John Hillcoat (The Road) and David Slade (30 Days of Night). Brooker has written five of the episodes and co-written USS Callister – the episode that looks to be set on a spaceship – with William Bridges.

The six episode titles and their casts and directors are below:

Arkangel – starring Rosemarie Dewitt, Brenna Harding and Owen Teague. Directed by Jodie Foster.

Black Museum – starring Douglas Hodge, Letitia Wright and Babs Olusanmokun. Directed by Colm McCarthy.

Crocodile – starring Andrea Riseborough, Andrew Gower and Kiran Sonia Sawar. Directed by John Hillcoat.

Hang the DJ – starring Georgina Campbell, Joe Cole and George Blagden. Directed by Tim Van Patten.

Metalhead – starring Maxine Peake, Jake Davies and Clint Dyer. It is directed by David Slade.

USS Callister – starring Jesse Plemons, Cristin Milioti, Jimmi Simpson and Michaela Coel. Directed by Toby Haynes. Brooker has co-written this episode with William Bridges.

Take a look at the season teaser trailer in the player above.