Dont know if I want to watchthatnow, Brooker explains.

Wedo havenihilistic bleakness in this season, but we also wanted a bit more lightness occasionally.

The two episodes Ive seen [ArkangelandUSS Callister] are brilliant.

CB:Oh good!

Did you have a favourite of the two?

Theyre both so different, arent they?

CB:Thats the right answer!

What was the approach with season four?

Annabel Jones:To continue doing that really.

As an anthology show, you just dont want to become predictable.

Whats an unpredictable thing for us to do?

So thats hopefully very unexpected.

Then as we go throughout the season.Arkangel, thats a completely different tone.

AJ:And scale.

CB:Its much smaller, more of an indie drama.

AJ:InBlack Mirrorterms!

CB:It is!

[Laughs] Its got overtly playful elements in it.

Its set in a world in which theres Spotify for relationships, i.e.

So thats a fairly comic premise… AJ:[laughs] Or reassuring?

CB:Or reassuring, yes!

It is quite a playful episode.

Then youve got something likeMetalhead, which is theoppositeof that!

ThenBlack Museum, which is the anthology one.

In that, theres a lot of references to other stories weve done.

Thats the Easter Egg one then?

CB:Lots of Easter Eggs.

Theyve all got Easter Eggs in I think this time around.

Theres a couple inUSSCallister, there are a couple of references to things.

AJ:Very fleeting!

CB:But theyre there!

[Laughs]

Having identified that formula, do you feel a need to break with it?

AJ:Im not sure about that at all!

That was you being slightly facetious.

CB:They escape for five minutes, then its back in the trap!

Nobody would describe the show as comforting TVits hardlyBake Off, is it?

But youd say theres a sense of comfort to be derived from these stories of unfair universes?

CB:I think theres something cathartic in that sometimes.

Its so unexpected and small and cruel.

AJ:Before Trump.

Dont know if I want to watchthatnow.

So there was a conscious decision to vary it.

CB:And when it comes, its worse!

[Both laugh] Because then its like OH NO!

Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones, thank you very much!

Black Mirror season 4 arrives on Netflix on Friday the 29thof December.

Well have plenty of spoiler-filled coverage post-release.