Black Mirror review: Yes, that is really Peter Capaldi

***

With the world as it is, you might think it impossible for any drama to beat reality for dystopian bleakness, and so it proves with this patchy seventh series from Charlie Brooker. 

But don’t give up on Black Mirror just yet. There are flashes of brilliance here from Brooker, and a few star turns - step forward Peter Capaldi - that will make your head spin. 

As usual, Brooker does the heavy lifting on the writing front, keeping things fresh with the occasional co-writer and different directors for each tale. The overall vision and tone remain unmistakably his own. 

Of the six new episodes, the best turns out to be the first off the line. In Common People, co-written by Brooker and Bishka K Ali,  Chris O’Dowd and Rashida Jones play Mike and Amanda, just your average American couple struggling to get by even with decent jobs. 

When Amanda, a teacher, is felled by a brain tumour, it looks like recovery is going to be long, slow and painful. But then the pair are introduced to a new programme, Rivermind, which uses an implant to get the brain working again. All that’s needed to access the service is a monthly subscription at a surprisingly reasonable price. 

Everything is going great until Amanda starts to slow down again. An upgrade is required, for a fee of course. The couple soon find themselves working just to keep up the payments on Rivermind. 

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Upgrades, ad-free versions, special offers, basic models - any resemblance to streaming services is, I’m sure, wholly coincidental. It takes a certain cheek to snarl at the hand that feeds you, and Brooker has fun doing just that.

The remaining five films are a mixed bag in every way, some treading territory that will be familiar to fans of previous series. 

The Star Trek-style USS Callister: Into Infinity raises a laugh; Bete Noire, when the bullied turns into the bully, starts well but fizzles out; while Hotel Reverie, in which an actor of today enters a black and white Casablanca-style romance, fails to get going.

Now the good stuff. In what is a little corner of Scotland, Plaything has Peter Capaldi in a standout performance as a crazed gamer arrested for attempted murder, with fellow Glaswegian Lewis Gribben (T2 Trainspotting) as his younger self. 

Brooker can still attract star names, including Paul Giamatti, well as some of the hottest young talent around. 

Giamatti appears in Eulogy, co-written by Ella Road, as a shambling author who gets a call one day telling him an old flame has died. Would he contribute to the eulogy? Since the affair ended badly, he’s worked hard to erase memories of his lost love. But what do you know, technology, as in Common People, has a solution for that. 

Like many another character, Giamatti’s writer has no hesitation hooking his brain up to the latest tech. Have these people never seen an episode of Black Mirror?

Hits, misses and maybes then, but Brooker still makes most writers for TV look pedestrian.