Charlie Brooker on emotional Black Mirror season 7 episode which made him shed a tear
Brooker has compared season 7 episode Eulogy with season 2's Be Right Back.
The creator of Black Mirror, Charlie Brooker, has teased that the seventh season of the hit sci-fi anthology series features more emotional stories than before, and one in particular appears to stand out from the crowd in that regard – Eulogy.
The fifth episode of the season, which stars Paul Giamatti and Patsy Ferran, seems to have struck a chord with the creatives behind the show, and Brooker has revealed that it actually brought himself, and in fact everyone working on it, to tears at one point or another.
"You’ve got two incredible performances by Patsy Ferran and Paul Giamatti who I’ve been a huge fan of pretty much as long as I can remember, Brooker said. "He’s one of those personalities that I just warmed to. He’s also as a person, exactly as you want him to be. It turns out he’s a huge fan of the show and a huge fan of sci-fi in general.
"But this one is about a guy called Phillip, and when we meet him he’s quite isolated and he’s quite bitter and closed-down, and we discover that’s in part because of his heartbreak that occurred to him when he was a younger man.
"There’s a technological gizmo that the story revolves around, that allows him to enter old photographs in order to curate a eulogy for someone who passed away.
"He had deliberately shut his past away, literally put it in a box and put it in the attic, but now he has to look at it from a fresh perspective."
Brooker went on to say that the story "probably doesn’t do quite what people think it will do", calling it "emotive" and "a real tour-de-force for Paul and Patsy, who are the only characters who speak, or even move in the episode".
He continued: "It went through various iterations, there was an earlier idea which was much more like A Christmas Carol which is why there’s a character called Carol in the episode, but we wanted to lean more into the technology where he almost becomes a detective, he's trying to remember her face, which he obliterated from his memory.
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"I don’t know how it will be received, doing the very earlier emotional episodes always felt a bit of a risk, we did one way back yonder called Be Right Back, and I remember being quite nervous about it. It was sweet, open hearted, and quite earnest but vulnerable, and I think this is a vulnerable story too. All of us have shed a tear at some point over this one."
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For her part, Ferran herself has called the episode "a human story of potential regret and sadness" – so it certainly seems fans should prepare themselves for an emotional rollercoaster.
Meanwhile, if they're looking for something a little darker, Brooker has teased the season is, for the most part, "back to basics" and has stated that it definitely features "some disturbing content".
Black Mirror season 7 will stream on Netflix from 10th April 2025. Sign up for Netflix from £5.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream.
Check out more of our Sci-Fi coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Authors
James Hibbs is a Drama Writer for Radio Times, covering programmes across both streaming platforms and linear channels. He previously worked in PR, first for a B2B agency and subsequently for international TV production company Fremantle. He possesses a BA in English and Theatre Studies and an NCTJ Level 5 Diploma in Journalism.
