Charlie Brooker: Fans tell me Black Mirror was better before we cast Americans

By Hannah Roberts, PA Senior Entertainment Reporter

Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker has said fans have told him they preferred the series when it “didn’t have Americans in it”.

The dark satirical anthology series first aired in 2011 on Channel 4 but moved to Netflix in 2016, which is when US cast members were introduced to the show.

Asked at the Edinburgh TV Festival if he writes with an audience in mind, Brooker, 54, said: “I think if you think too much about the audience, you go a bit mad. It gets in the way, I think because you feel like you’re faking it somehow or you’re forcing it.

“Sometimes I’ve written things that are in a different kind of tone. One of the first times I did that was when… all the episodes had been, every episode had been bleak and horrible and had a bleak, horrible ending, and then the show was going to Netflix.

“Also, sometimes people say to me, ‘I prefer it when it didn’t have Americans in it and everyone had bad teeth, and then it ended, and the worst thing ever happened to them, and then they died. Can you do that please?’

“And Netflix never said, ‘Could you make this a bit more jolly and American?’ I was just thinking, if I just did nothing but down endings, A, that’s really predictable and B, I’ll get very bored.

“So the first episode I wrote for Netflix was called San Junipero.

“It was an upbeat ending, an upbeat tone. And I think that one, I suppose it was writing for me.

“I was about to say, ‘Was that something I would have naturally gone to? Was I thinking about the audience?’ Actually, no I wasn’t.

“I was sort of experimenting and thinking ‘Can I write an optimistic story. What happens if I do that?’ It was terrifying.”

“It was one of our most popular (episodes) ever that we’ve done.”

The latest series of Black Mirror, released in April, had a star-studded cast with actors including Issa Rae, Chris O’Dowd, Will Poulter, Emma Corrin, Rashida Jones and Dame Harriet Walter.