Review: Charlie Brooker creeps out Channel 4 viewers

Charlie Brooker's best known for his savage criticism and misanthropic analysis of junk TV and current events, but Black Mirror sees him in a more contemplative and imaginative gear.

There's nothing so showy as the PM getting cosy with a pig in this, the first of three new standalone stories from Charlie Brooker; rather, it's a sad and pensive look at love and loss, with that necessary dystopian twist. Martha (Hayley Atwell) is grieving following her boyfriend's death, until a friend signs her up for a virtual service that creates a version of him based on his online footprint. It is as much about people shaping each other as it is a nightmarish vision of the future, but it is no less compelling for that.

Charlie Brooker stares into the black mirror of modern life - we are all a blank screen - for a fresh trio of dark 'what if' tales. In this first disturbing drama, he toys with the notion that the little bits of ourselves we send out into the ether as tweets and status updates could be engineered to take on a life of their own - a kind of Frankenstein cyber-monster. So switch off your smartphone and settle back for a dystopian vision of life as young lovers Martha (Hayley Atwell) and social media addict boyfriend Ash (Domhnall Gleeson) find their relationship takes an unnerving twist.

Charlie Brooker's fables of the near future return. It was one of the most disturbing and oddly hilarious dramas of last year, but repeating the trick is harder. Shock value in this new instalment comes from the premise that we might soon be able to re-create a dead loved one using their online history.

When a tragic accident robs Martha (Hayley Atwell) of her boyfriend Ash, she is tempted to try a cutting-edge internet service - and a virtual Ash returns to her in an unsettling parable about grief. It's an intriguing idea, chillingly realised.

You'd be hard pushed to call the first part of Charlie Brooker's returning series a comedy. In fact, Be Right Back is often downright sad. Martha (Hayley Atwell, giving a career-best performance in a demanding role) is stuck in an isolated countryside cottage, mourning the loss of her partner, Ash (Domhnall Gleeson) - a guy she loved deeply in spite of his irritating obsession with Twitter. Then the opportunity arises to reconstruct his personality through his online history of emails, tweets, Facebook updates et al. Initially appalled, Martha's resolve starts to crumble as her loneliness intensifies, before some unexpected news forces her hand...

Even if, as with some of the first series of Black Mirror, the denouement can't quite live up to the restless invention and plausible clairvoyance of what's gone before, this is still high-calibre television bursting with ideas and emotional engagement.

TV review: Black Mirror

This Black Mirror feels less like the usual Brookerian nightmarish video game dystopia, and more like 2019. It's also less satirical and acerbic than some of his previous television.

Pick of the week: Black Mirror, Channel 4, Monday, 10pm

The sort that could only come from the dark satirical mind of Charlie Brooker.

There may not be any Prime Ministerial pig sex this time, but we're still confident that Charlie Brooker's dark satire Black Mirror will be just as disturbing and thought-provoking second time around.

In Be Right Back, the first of three new troubling tales from the Wipe mastermind, a grieving soul named Martha (Hayley Atwell) discovers that her deceased boyfriend Ash (Domhnall Gleeson) can be resurrected in digital form using information on his various social networking sites. Scarily believable, Black Mirror may convince you to log out of Facebook for good or think twice about what you type into Google.

Martha (Hayley Atwell) wishes that her boyfriend Ash (Domnhall Gleeson) wouldn't spend so much time online. But when he dies in a car accident, all that information on social media allows Martha to use a new service to talk to a "virtual" Ash. This, though, is the first of a second series of dystopian takes on modern life from writer Charlie Brooker - so Martha should brace herself for more than comfort from her synthetic dead boyfriend.