The irony in so few Netflix shows hanging around for more than a handful of seasons before being canceled is so thick you could cut it with a knife when you consider the dwindling returns to have greeted Black Mirror ever since the streaming service decided it would make a wonderful addition to its roster of in-house exclusives.
The first two runs – which were fittingly the ones that didn’t originate under the company’s watch – remain the best-reviewed of the lot with respective Rotten Tomatoes scores of 88 and 90 percent. The third and fourth did admittedly showcase that Netflix was onto a winner as they nabbed an 86 percent approval rating each, but the fifth and sixth have gone on to set Black Mirror lows with 67 and 73 percent scores.
That’s not to say Charlie Brooker’s brainchild doesn’t still have its moments, because every additional batch of stories since the Netflix era began have offered at least one installment that can arguably be deemed one of Black Mirror‘s very best ever, but you don’t have to look too hard to find a handful of people who think the show is beginning to overstay its welcome.
Of course, subscribers are still checking it out in huge numbers to underline that the nightmarish anthology is certifiably one of the biggest and most popular shows on offer, with FlixPatrol revealing season 6 to have debuted as a Top 10 hit in 76 countries around the world since premiering. It only bagged number one in 21 of them, though, which is on the low side for a juggernaut that’s six seasons deep. Time will tell if there’s more to come, but it certainly shouldn’t be ruled out.