Black Mirror creator refuses to watch Severance for a sad reason

In the build-up to the long-awaited Season 7, Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker has revealed he’s never seen Severance – despite plenty of recommendations.

Black Mirror and Severance both began life as entirely different shows. The former was a gritty, grimy dystopian series that aired unceremoniously on Channel 4, and has since developed into a high-budget, celebrity-stocked cautionary tale.

Severance, on the other hand, burst onto the scene on Apple TV+ with an already mega cast and all the resources a major streaming service could have to offer. But then again, both shows are part of that disturbing, fantastical subgenre that arguably began life back in 1959.

Charlie Brooker, creator of Black Mirror, has revealed ahead of Season 7 that even though Severance is one of the biggest TV shows of the decade, he won’t watch it for one reason.

Comparisons have stopped Charlie Brooker watching Severance

As Brooker says, the main reason he won’t watch the Ben Stiller-led series is because of the backhanded compliment that always comes along with the recommendation.

“There’s certainly a show I haven’t watched that’s made me jealous,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “People keep telling me to watch Severance, and I haven’t let myself do it because they also say to me, ‘Oh, you’ll love it. It’s a bit Black Mirror-y, but it’s much better.'”

Ouch. Well, for what it’s worth, Black Mirror definitely holds a spot on the pedestal when it comes to tech-phobic and worse-case-scenario TV shows.

In fact, each season of the Netflix series sits incredibly high on Rotten Tomatoes, with the highest (the first) even reaching 98%.

Black Mirror Season 7 is dropping on the streaming service on April 10. The new season is just as jam packed with famous faces as the rest, and even includes two sequel stories: ‘Plaything’ and ‘USS Callister: Into Infinity’.

Luckily Black Mirror’s anthology format is very different from Severance’s slow burn storytelling. In short: you don’t need to pick between the two, unlike Charlie Brooker.

For more, check out all the other new TV shows arriving this month. You can also take a look at the most binge-worthy shows, and see what else is new on Netflix.