After four years away, Black Mirror returned with five new episodes in 2023.
Created by Charlie Brooker, the dystopian anthology series is known for its satirical swipes at society’s relationship with technology. The show originally began on Channel 4 in 2011, before shifting over to Netflix from season three onwards in 2016.
In the show’s sixth season, an episode titled Beyond The Sea follows two astronauts Cliff (Aaron Paul) and David (Josh Hartnett) on a deep space mission, who catch up with their life back home through replica androids.
Directed by John Crowley, the episode also stars Kate Mara, Rory Culkin and Auden Thornton.
Where are the filming locations in Beyond The Sea?
As confirmed to NME, the countryside manor where Cliff and Lana live with their son Henry was filmed in the seaside town of Whitstable, Kent during last summer’s heatwave. The sequence where Lana goes shopping with David, meanwhile, was filmed in Rye, East Sussex.
The spaceship interior was built in Twickenham, using the same soundstage where The Beatles recorded ‘Get Back’, as reported by Esquire. The scenes with David’s family, including the massacre, were shot in Valencia, Spain.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter about filming the Charles Manson-esque murder scene, Hartnett said: “We were only there for three nights of filming. You have to imagine this [murder], and then John [Crowley] kept asking for another take and then at the end of it, he wanted to do this spinning shot zooming in on my face.
“I have kids and you just have to go to a place that you don’t want to go. I was so exhausted by the end of it. It was not fun.”
What inspired the episode?
Speaking to NME, Brooker explained that the episode was inspired by his own experiences working from home during lockdown and using web applications like Zoom.
“It’s the ultimate working from home episode, the ultimate Zoom call,” Brooker said. “It was an idea that had been rattling around for a while in my head… inspired by the pandemic.”
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