Netflix may have let the cat out of the bag too early and revealed the Black Mirror season 5 release date. One of the many Netflix accounts Tweeted out an image of sci-fi and fantasy titles to look forward to in the month of December – and at the tail-end of the list was none other than Black Mirror, Netflix’s sci-fi series that plays out like a Twilight Zone for a digital world. The tweet was deleted almost immediately, but the internet saves everything, and a screenshot has been making the rounds. If accurate, we’ll be returning to the world of Black Mirror at the end of the month.

@NXOnNetflix, the Netflix Twitter account devoted to “everything super, sci-fi, the fantastic, and beyond,” dropped the following image just before Thanksgiving:

The image features a list of all the fantastical things you can watch on the streaming service this month, and as you can see, at the very bottom is the title Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, listed as premiering December 28. The image was quickly deleted, but the fact that this came from a verified Netflix account more or less indicates it’s true. We reached out to Netflix for comment, and they replied that they weren’t commenting on the matter. In other words, it’s probably true.

The interesting thing here is that unlike previous Black Mirror seasons, this has a subtitle: Bandersnatch. This suggests that only one episode, not the entire season, could be dropping on that date. Perhaps the other episodes will roll out gradually? Back in April, we learned that the title Bandersnatch was being used during the filming of a new Black Mirror episode. The episode took the series back to the 1980s, much like the fantastic episode San Junipero. But what does it mean? The word Bandersnatch comes from Lewis Carroll’s 1872 novel Through the Looking-Glass, and refers to a creature “with a long neck and snapping jaws, and both works describe it as ferocious and extraordinarily fast.” Whether or not that’s to be taken literally for this episode is unclear.

Back in November, a twitter user pointed out that there was a never-finished UK video game called Bandersnatch back in the 1980s:

Turns out there was an ill-fated game named ‘Bandersnatch’ developed by a UK studio back in 1984, which is the year ‘Bandersnatch’ the Black Mirror episode takes place (we know this because a set photo shows Bob Marley’s ‘Legend’ at #1 on the charts in a record store). pic.twitter.com/rytyTl22sP — Ebejeevezner Scrooge ?????? (@jeeveswilliams) November 21, 2018

That same user pointed out that Bandersnatch was referenced all the way back in season 3.

WHHAAATTTT, Bandersnatch was referenced all the way back in Season 3 on the front cover of the gaming magazine in Playtest ? pic.twitter.com/LabQe7dX6v — Ebejeevezner Scrooge ?????? (@jeeveswilliams) November 26, 2018

Per Wikipedia:

Bandersnatch was originally intended for release on the 8-bit ZX Spectrum home computer, and would have set a new price point for computer games (£39.95 vs. the standard rates of the time of between £5.95 and £11.95). It was intended that the game would have required a cartridge or dongle to support the demands of the game. However, before any of the Megagames had been completed, Imagine Software went bankrupt owing to financial mismanagement.

If Black Mirror: Bandersnatch is focusing on some kind of game, it might very well be the choose-your-own-adventure style episode that was teased back in October. Per a report:

Viewers will get to choose their own storylines in one episode of the upcoming season of “Black Mirror,” the Emmy-winning science-fiction anthology series. The show is famous for exploring the social implications of technology, including an episode where humans jockey to receive higher ratings from their peers. The fifth season of the show is expected to be released in December.

Things are all adding up, and I’m sure we’ll know more soon.