Black Mirror set for fifth season on Netflix

In news that will surprise nobody, Charlie Brooker's Emmy-winning science fiction series Black Mirror has been renewed for a fifth season by Netflix, following the enormous success the show has enjoyed on the streaming platform.

Netflix made the announcement on Twitter with a short video showing previous episodes on a patchwork of screens before pulling back and switching off. "Be Right Back" it reads under the series' logo.

The tweet also read: "The future will be brighter than ever."

Black Mirror is anthology series that tackles the use of technology in our society and its effect on ourselves in standalone episodes that run between an hour and 90 minutes in length.

The show started out life on Channel 4, where two seasons of three episodes aired, plus a Christmas special. The broadcaster was not interested in a third series, but when Netflix picked older episodes up the show found a new audience.

American viewers lapped up Brooker's twisted parables, leading Netflix to commission a further two seasons shot in quick succession. The first of the seasons debuted in 2016, followed by season four in December of last year.

The standalone nature of each episode has allowed for the casting of some big names in front of and behind the camera.

Jon Hamm, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jesse Plemons, Andrea Riseborough and Black Panther's Letitia Wright have starred, while Darkest Hour's Joe Wright and actor Jodie Foster have directed episodes.

The move to Netflix, and the series reaching its third and fourth seasons prompted more experimentation in the kind of episodes Brooker wrote.

Romantic drama San Junipero stands out thematically and is widely regarded as the best episode of the series so far. It's this episode that won two Emmys: one for Outstanding Made for TV Movie and another for Outstanding Writing for a Limited Series.

In most recent, fourth season, premiere episode U.S.S. Callister stood out for its blatant homage to classic Star Trek, which was put to use to tell a classic Black Mirror tale.

There's no announced launch date for Black Mirror season five and it's not known how far along in the writing process Brooker is. That is, if he even writes each new episode - as he has so far. The Brit did say in December however that he'd love to do more.