So, have you watched Black Mirror's 'Bandersnatch' on Netflix yet? If so, how you feeling: elated, exhausted, confused... or a cocktail of all three?

However it made you feel, it seems likely you will be thirsty for more of Charlie Brooker's unique brand of boundary-breaking science fiction series.

The good news is, there's more of it to come next year. Plus, next year is this year in a couple of days, so not long to wait.

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Season five of Black Mirror was confirmed earlier this year, but following the release of 'Bandersnatch', speculation started to fly that the film itself was the series.

If you haven't seen it, I won't ruin it, but basically it takes telly to a new level, with viewers making decisions around every 90 seconds, impacting the future of the protagonist and the narrative of the film.

As such, there are reportedly more than a trillion different variations of the film, which can result in your viewing time being as short as 40 minutes or as long as two and a half hours. The unrivalled depth of this film, combined with some ambiguous statements from Netflix, led some publications to claim that the film was season five.

But now, in an email to Ars Technica, the streaming service confirmed that 'season five will arrive later in 2019, as previously announced'.

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BuzzFeed TV Editor, Scott Bryan, also confirmed the (old) news on Twitter:

Netflix has told me that the fifth season of Black Mirror is still to come in 2019. Bandersnatch was not the fifth season, but a standalone interactive film, in case you were wondering.

- Scott Bryan (@scottygb) December 29, 2018





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So, what do we know about season five?

Not a great deal, to be honest. Netflix haven't confirmed how many episodes there will be, who will be in them or when they will come out. We also haven't got any trailers to puzzle over as of yet.

Brooker has indicated though that there will be a departure from the dark tone that has come to typify the series.

Speaking to the New York Times, he said: "We're doing more optimistic episodes and stories, rather than just dystopian and negative ones. We want to keep the show interesting for us."



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This will not exactly be a groundbreaking sea change for Black Mirror - at least not by its own standards.

In season 4, episode 'Hang the DJ' finished with an unfamiliar focus on love and positivity, which left some viewers feeling joyously refreshed, and others feeling betrayed and yearning for the usual grim prophecies.