All hail the return of Black Mirror and its standalone dystopian techno-parables that are so able to predict the future that they elected a grotesque cartoonish hate-buffoon made famous by television and conjured up a prime ministerial scandal involving sexual activity with a pig.

Its new, three-episode fifth season has VR gaming, social media addiction and a pop star/robo-puppy/voice assistant hybrid in its sights and, as ever, life imitates art, or vice versa, the pace of living being such that who really knows any more.

In its final episode – Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too – Miley Cyrus plays a Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana-esque pop star who is isolated in her ivory tower, deep in the misery of realising that fame and indeed pop itself are not all they were cracked up to be. It is a decent caper, a bit of a romp, but it is unlikely to be considered one of the season’s great prescient moments. It looks at what is, rather than what will be. Its “fame is toxic” refrain is marred by its sniffiness towards pop music, much like A Star Is Born, with which it shares some of its DNA.

I scrawled the Nine Inch Nails logo on my school bag with the best of them but I think Cyrus’s version of Head Like a Hole could have benefited from some hardcore pop choreography.

The episode just about works because of Cyrus. As Ashley O, and the voice of Ashley Too, she makes us both pity and root for the lonely, manipulated star whose life is very much not her own. Of course, in a very Black Mirror move, the episode’s themes coincided with real-world events that happened just the day before it came out. On Tuesday, a grim video circulated of Cyrus being grabbed and kissed while out in a heaving, jostling crowd in Barcelona. She tweeted a response, along with a news clip asking: “Was she groped?” (people with eyes say: yes), pointing out that she can wear and do whatever she likes, but “She CAN’T be grabbed without her consent”.

Cyrus followed her initial post with a screengrab of comments that criticised her clothes, her being “sexy”, with the hashtag, #stillnotaskingforit. To promote Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too, Cyrus has changed her Twitter handle to Ashley O, blurring the lines of her character and herself once more, just like the Disney days. The difference between what happened last week is that one is a horrible, depressing vision of the world; the other is an episode of Black Mirror.

Latex will so suit Robert Pattinson, the new Batman

Robert Pattinson, the latest occupant of the Batcave. Photograph: Matt Crossick/PA

Like an indie band that had a few minor hits in the 90s and have discovered that, on the live circuit, the nostalgia pound is strong, Batman just keeps on coming back for more. When one round of Batmans has finished, there is barely time to say: “Do you remember that one with the handclaps, that was good”, before it grows a new head and carries on. This time, the much-derided gloom of Ben Affleck, a man whose public sadness vies only with that of Keanu Reeves, has been replaced with the new, edgier gloom of younger upstart Robert Pattinson.

Pattinson is no stranger to a mega-franchise. He did, after all, shine bright like a diamond in the Twilight series, the final instalment of which remains one of the most avant garde and impressively batshit films of all time (the plot summary makes William Burroughs sound like Enid Blyton). Naturally, he followed this up by working with Claire Denis, David Cronenberg and Werner Herzog, the artsiness of which, according to the Hollywood Reporter, worked in his favour. It came down to a final choice between him and Nicholas Hoult, so I look forward to years of reports of a cooked-up rivalry between the pair, except they aren’t women, so they’ll probably be fine.

The casting process involved the actors being asked to don a previous Batsuit, as is, apparently, a Batman tradition. Sadly, the “insider” who provided these details neglected to ask the crucial question: was it one of the nipply ones? Never mind his indie film credentials. If Pattinson got the big job by pulling off a massive latex suit with inbuilt pointy nipples built in to it (and let’s just agree that he did, for me, despite a lack of any evidence that suggests it at all), then he deserves to fly and fly.

Ed Sheeran: that’s my boy, says proud dad

Ed Sheeran: all his life is here. Photograph: Miguel A Lopes/EPA

Ed Sheeran is one of the richest musicians in the UK. He collaborates with the biggest pop stars on the planet, which can serve as a reminder that he is also one of the biggest pop stars on the planet. He plays multiple-night runs at massive stadiums around the world. On paper, as in practice, he is a superstar. The news, then, that his career to date is to be commemorated in an exhibition dedicated to his life and work is not unexpected nor entirely out of proportion to his success.

The collection of portraits, photographs and personal items has been curated by his dad, John. “Edward’s homecoming gigs in Ipswich in August 2019 provide a fitting climax to his mammoth world tour,” Sheeran Sr told ITV News. Edward! It must be strange enough to have artefacts from your life put on public display, but the fact that Sheeran has let his father choose is both a beautiful testament to parental pride and also incredibly brave.

My mum needs no encouragement at all to whip out a picture of me as a rosy-cheeked two-year-old bearing an uncanny and untimely resemblance to Miss Trunchbull, so let’s hope Ed’s father shows a similar lack of restraint.

• Rebecca Nicholson is an Observer columnist