“San Junipero” was one of the standouts of Black Mirror’s fourth season—not just for its wildly clever twist on modern technological culture, but for its uncharacteristically tender plot about the kinds of powerful relationships that technology can help foster between people.
In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker expressed that he was more than open to the idea of revisiting the not-too-far-off future of “San Junipero,” in which human consciousnesses are uploaded to massive servers where they’re able to live out rich lives in multiple virtual realities.
Brooker said that he and the rest of Black Mirror’s creative team had contemplated what a follow-up to “San Junipero” might look like. Instead of continuing the original two characters’ story, it could explore other aspects of that world. When pressed, Brooker described things about the original story that he cut out of the episode’s early script:
There were aspects of the story that I took out. For instance, I’d originally written a scene where Gugu’s character, Kelly, is in a kindergarten and there are children there and when you realize what’s going on, it’s that these are deceased children. It was too sad and too poignant of a note to hit in that story, but I kept thinking about how that felt like a whole world in and of itself. I think we almost might do it in a completely different form if we were doing a straight sequel, if that makes sense. Maybe not even as a normal episode.
Brooker was somewhat cagey about just what an non-“normal episode” of Black Mirror focused on San Junipero and its citizens might look like, but he and executive producer Annabel Jones hinted that there might be Easter eggs gesturing to the story in other episodes of the series.
Black Mirror’s fourth series doesn’t have a premiere date yet, but it’s coming soon.