Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker teases the upcoming USS Callister sequel, but could Jesse Plemons return?
The upcoming season of Black Mirror will include a first for the franchise: a sequel. It was officially announced earlier this year that Black Mirror season 7 would include a sequel to the fan-favourite USS Callister episode from the fourth season. The brief synopsis reads: “Robert Daly is dead, but for the crew of the USS Callister, their problems are just beginning.“
Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker told THR that the USS Callister sequel had “just wrapped” and revealed why he wanted to return to this story.
“This has been brewing for actually quite a long time. And it’s partly because of the way that it ends. 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,’” Brooker said. “It was something we were looking at for quite a long time. There were various iterations it went through, various versions we wanted to do and were discussing on and off for several years.“
Brooker continued: “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.“
The original cast, including Cristin Milioti, have returned, but Brooker wouldn’t spill the beans on whether Jesse Plemons (who starred as Captain Robert Daly) would be back as well. “You’ll see. Yeah, you’ll see,” he said with a laugh. “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.“
As for the other episodes, Brooker wouldn’t drop any hints, only saying he’s really excited about what’s in store for the audience. “I’m always excited about all of them, but I think we have a really good mix. I’m about to start writing the last one, which actually is terrifying because I probably should have written it several weeks ago!” he said. “We have a real mix of things, really exciting castings that have happened. I don’t want to jinx it by saying too much. We’re in the bit that I really like, where you’ve locked an episode, so that’s such a good feeling. We’re doing the final polishing of the score and the mix on one of them. And we are doing something really cool right now that we’ve never done before — but I can’t say what it is.“
The seventh season of Black Mirror will be released on Netflix sometime in 2025.