Black Mirror: Here's the secret inspiration for 'USS Callister'

Note: This story discusses spoilers from the Black Mirror episode “USS Callister.”

When footage from the Black Mirror episode “USS Callister” was first released, it’s a safe bet that everybody had pretty much the same thought: Why, it’s an episode based on Star Trek!

And of course, to some degree, that assumption is perfectly correct. USS Callister tells the story of a classic sci-fi show called Space Fleet that’s very much in the vein of Star Trek. But as is revealed in the episode, it’s really the story of modern-day tech company’s quietly monstrous CTO (Jesse Plemons) who virtually escapes into an immersive virtual version of an old TV show — and drags clones of his coworkers into his sci-fi world so he can torment them mercilessly as an all-powerful god.

As part of a series of interviews with Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker talking season 4, we briefly discussed “USS Callister” and the other inspiration for the episode — which wasn’t initially Star Trek at all, but rather another 1960s-era TV series, the one that most directly inspired Black Mirror in the first place, The Twilight Zone. Remember the 1961 episode “It’s a Good Life,” about a town terrorized by an all-powerful 6-year-old (who even looks a bit like a young Plemons)?

There’s a lot to metaphorically unpack in this episode: Workplace sexual harassment, criticism of classic science-fiction tropes, white men who long for the entitlements of yesteryear, and even possibly a critique of our current president. What were you trying to say with this one?
It was written in November last year, so certainly when we came to film it in January 2017, it was around the time of the inauguration. There was a certain mood among a lot of the cast that we were dealing with a new regime coming in. That’s an aspect of it. It’s not where the idea came from. But as soon as you get into the workplace stuff, forcing people [into the virtual prison] for what he perceives as slights in the workplace, that then gets to a whole other level of stuff. So often with our episodes, really, there’s not a central message or certain thing we’re trying to evoke, but it comes out alongside of that. Certainly, a lot of those things resonate in that episode, but it’s not directly about any one of those things. Really “USS Callister” is about someone who is wielding absolute power who shouldn’t be, and people overthrowing him.

More Black Mirror season 4 postmortem interviews:
— Black Mirror creator explains that ‘Metalhead’ robot nightmare
— Black Mirror creator reveals what Jodie Foster changed in Arkangel
— Black Mirror creator answers our burning ‘Crocodile’ questions
— Black Mirror showrunner reveals the ‘Hang the DJ’ ending you didn’t see

Black Mirror season 4 is streaming now on Netflix.