Prepare to engage: the new Black Mirror trailer is a perfect Star Trek parody
The brilliantly cheesy sneak peek of USS Callister gives us 60s haircuts, a Khan-style baddie and a fight in an alien quarry
The latest Black Mirror trailer has energised – and it promises to boldly go where no episode has gone before.
And in the unlikely event that you struggled to get that reference, then a lot of the Star Trek nods packed into this USS Callister sneak peek may go over your head too. From the 1960s hairstyles to the Khan-style villain on a planet that looks like a quarry, the Netflix episode looks like a huge wink towards the classic series.
But rather than William Shatner's Captain Kirk helming the USS Callister, we see Captain Daly (Jesse Plemons AKA Meth Demon) in charge and applauded by the crew (Jesse Plemons, Jimmi Simpson and Michaela Coel) of the titular starship.
And then there's How I Met Your Mother star Cristin Milioti, whose character seems rather bewildered by the whole thing.
No doubt, there's more going on here than immediately meets the eye...
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The trailer's intriguing. It’s fabulously camp. It’s, well, see for yourself...
What else can we tell you about the USS Callister? When we recently spoke to Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker, he revealed the feature-length episode was influenced by the Emmy-winning San Junipero from season three.
"Like Junipero, [USS Callister] was a conscious decision to expand what the show was and then upend it,” explained Brooker. “We were pleased with how [San Junipero] had come out, it gave us the confidence to play with the tone more than we have before. We were sort of saying, ‘What haven’t we done yet?’. We did the 1980s [in San Junipero] when we didn’t think we could do that, so then we thought, ‘Can we do space?’”
He added: “Callister is very dark in places and it’s got moments of comedy that you maybe wouldn’t have expected a few years ago from Black Mirror.”
Can we tell you anything else? Unfortunately not. Although we’ve seen the episode, Brooker has only permitted us to reveal “it’s a story set in space” with “more to it than meets the eye” (see?).
We can, however, say it’s an incredibly good episode – certainly another Emmy contender. And even if it doesn’t pick up a deserved award, you can certainly expect USS Callister to crank up your brain to warp 10.
