Black Mirror Season 6 Adds Aaron Paul (Will There Be a ‘USS Callister 2’?), Zazie Beetz, Kate Mara and Others
Casting has been announced for Black Mirror Season 6 — and one particular name is sure to pique many a fan’s curiosity.
Variety reports that nine actors had been cast in as-yet-unspecified roles spanning the first three episodes of the first season in more than three years. Among them: Kate Mara (A Teacher), Zazie Beetz (Atlanta), Paapa Essiedu (I May Destroy You), Josh Hartnett (Penny Dreadful), Danny Ramirez (The Falcon and the Winter Soldier), Clara Rugaard (Still Star-Crossed), Auden Thornton (This Is Us), Anjana Vasan (We Are Lady Parts)… and Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad).
Paul, of course, is no stranger to the Black Mirror Universe. In the memorable Season 4 installment “USS Callister,” his BB costar Jesse Plemons played Robert Daly, a nerdy recluse who ran a virtual-reality gaming company and spent his nights recreating his favorite sci-fi series, casting himself as a heroic starship captain. But over the course of the episode, it was revealed that — SPOILERS AHEAD — Daly’s virtual starship was actually a prison where he trapped clones of his most-hated coworkers and forced them to play along with his fantasies. Daly was eventually overthrown, at which point the USS Callister crew, now led by Cristin Milioti’s Captain Cole, encountered a second player attempting to control them: “Gamer691,” voiced by Paul.
You can watch a fun, Netflix-produced edit, combining scenes from Breaking Bad and the above-mentioned Black Mirror episode below:
Though there’s been no indication that Paul will appear in a sequel to “USS Callister,” there’d previously been rumblings about a followup of some sort — perhaps in the form of a standalone series.
“I’ve heard little buzzes,” Jimmi Simpson, who aboard the Callister played Lieutenant Walton, shared at the 2018 Television Critics Association winter press tour. “But I don’t believe anything until I’m working on set…. I would love it.”
But after all this time, a singular episode revisiting the Callister crew would seem more likely.
Variety first reported that Black Mirror had been renewed in mid-May — nearly three years after the release of Season 5. Additional Season 6 castings are expected to follow at a later date.
Would you be up for a return voyage aboard the USS Callister? Or would you like to see Paul appear as a new character in an unrelated storyline? Drop your thoughts in a comment below.
I would love to revisit the Callister crew to see how they’re doing as full-time residents of a virtual game universe, but I don’t think that Aaron Paul would need to be involved.
Calling his “Gamer691” a new player attempting to control the crew is a vast overstatement – the point of his cameo was that he was a totally run-of-the-mill jerk online gamer, meaning they had broken free of Daly’s prison and entered the normal game space.
At most, I could see a small mention of his playing the game for fun during an episode that is primarily about something else.
IMO the show was much better before Hollywood got their hands on it (first seasons were on the BBC and netflix)
Black Mirror was a Channel 4 property, never the BBC, it may just have aired under BBC in your location but it’s very much not the Beeb’s type of show and a perfect example of C4’s (long May it stay independent and out of crazy Dorries hands). And I disagree, there have been great eps once partnered with Netflix but I would say there’s been less consistency which is unsurprising given the C4 seasons were only 3 episodes long.
I’ll take more of whatever they want to create, as long as it “mirrors” the first three seasons.
Well that kind of humor is quite a reflection of your personality