David Farnor | On 21, Apr 2025

Seven seasons in, where on earth do you suggest someone start with Black Mirror? Against the odds, the seventh instalment of Charlie Brooker’s dystopian anthology begins with the perfect primer for the show.

Brooker’s series has always been pitched in the grey area between the present day and the future, exploring the consequences of the next logical step in humanity’s technology advancement – consequences that aren’t caused by the technology itself, but the people using it. Because no matter how much our scientific understanding evolves, our human nature will always find a way through.

Season 7’s first chapter, Common People, is a perfect introduction not only to the the format and concepts of Black Mirror, but also to its tone: as dark as its title suggests. We begin with Amanda (Rashida Jones) and Mike (Chris O’Dowd), a happily married couple who are living a comfortable, mostly content life. She’s a teacher at a primary school and he’s a welder at a nearby construction site. Every year, they travel to the Juniper Swiss Mountain Lodge for their anniversary. The only thing they want that they don’t have is a child.

O’Dowd and Jones are perhaps a little too famous to play everyday working folk, but they have an everyperson charm and a lived-in chemistry that brings Amanda and Mike the familiarity of a pair of long-time friends, the kind you’ve probably known since school. That warmth, and their easygoing humour, are almost jarringly un-Black Mirror, setting the mood in firmly upbeat territory for the opening 10 minutes.

But when Amanda suffers brain tumour, Mike’s doting devotion leads him to an accept an offer from a fledgling bio-science firm – because when you’re in trouble, you can always trust a tech start-up. Called Rivermind, the firm makes a simple offer: they replace the damaged part of Amanda’s brain with synthetic material that’s hooked wirelessly up to their server, which both powers its functioning and backs up all the data from that removed bit of grey matter. She can be back to her normal self in hours.

What ensues is nothing short of miraculous, but it comes with an inevitable catch: a small monthly fee to pay for the service. And she also can’t travel outside of the range of Rivermind’s network. And so what begins as a remarkable gift becomes a burden, as Amanda and Mike’s lives are impacted by what it initially a $300 monthly charge. Anyone who’s used Spotify, Netflix or any service won’t need much of a clue to guess where things go from there, and that’s where Black Mirror’s grim power lies – in its understanding that technological advancements in our world don’t exist outside the influence of our late capitalist society. Subscription models have become the latest way to fleece people for as much money as possible, both through tiers and through the dependency they create through routine, integrating into our daily existence – in the case of Rivermind, literally.

The idea of adverts brings a dark streak of humour, but it’s offset by the emotional impact on Amanda and Mike, and Jones and O’Dowd are heartbreakingly good at portraying the downtrodden weariness of two people who realise all too late that they’re trapped in an impossible cycle. Director Ally Parkin – who previously helmed Black Mirror’s Joan Is Awful – expertly fuses the technology into the day-to-day reality of this world, but more importantly holds space for O’Dowd and Jones’ honest performances to keep us emotionally invested in Amanda and Mike’s journey. It’s a bleak, timely tale that’s pure Black Mirror – and makes it clear for newcomers or veteran viewers alike that this series has lost none of its original, grim bite.

 

 
Through a glass darkly (spoilers)

– It’s horribly inevitable that Rivermind should lead to Rivermind+ ($800 a month) and then Rivermind Lux ($1,800) – and the script sharply points out the features, or restrictions, that differentiate the two tiers. The introduction of automated ad tiers – that Amanda’s unaware of – is hilariously inappropriate, particularly the Christian counselling message to a boy at school that leaves her facing redundancy. The “context-dependant” nature of the ads, and how still woefully inept they are, is a particularly nice touch.

– Rivermind Lux is an even more scathing vision of where this technology would lead, not only with the ability to adjust one’s own mood and brain chemistry but in adding skills that a user doesn’t naturally have – because humans will always look to technology as a way of providing a shortcut.

– Mike’s decision to use “Dum Dummies” to fund Amanda’s service is an equally insightful touch – because humans, in our worst, bleakest version of ourselves, will want to use technology to find a way to be superior to others and laugh at other people’s misfortune. What exactly Mike decides to go and do at the very end of the episode – after Amanda has died – is a particularly bleak denouement, if you haven’t already been unsettled by Dum Dummies’ vision of the future form of the gig economy.

– It’s a surprisingly timely story for Black Mirror to tell, just as an assisted dying bill is going through parliament in the UK – Amanda’s decision to die at the end of the episode comes while she is using Rivermind Lux to dial up her serenity, which perhaps means she’s able to think clearly or perhaps means she’s not thinking clearly because of the technology. Either way, it’s food for thought – and the timing of her death, during an advert so she’s not technically conscious or present, is a carefully considered details.

– Shout-out to the couple at the Juniper Swiss Mountain Lodge singing Anyone Who Knows What Love Is – which joins the robotic bees Amanda is teaching during one lesson as nice Black Mirror references.

– Let’s also pause to acknowledge how brilliant Tracee Ellis Ross is as Gaynor, the Rivermind employee who first convinces Mike to sign up. She’s chillingly corporate, right down her to faux-sympathetic, heartfelt delivery of the most ruthless ultimatums – particularly when all the company’s changes to tiers and fees appear to be done without any communication with their customers at all. Gaynor mentions she was an early Rivermind adopter, which might mean she really buys into it, but likely means that she’s lost all sensitivity to her work and the people affected by it – just as we see her dial up her nonchalance after Amanda and Mike vent their anger at her. If Rivermind Lux were a reality, how much would people use the ability to dampen their negative emotions to cope with actions that hurt others? And would the ability to do that in itself enable such behaviour? As always, the best episodes of Black Mirror leave you with lots of little what-if threads to ponder about afterwards.

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