Danny meets up with college friend Karl and the two are soon engaging in online VR game Striking Vipers X. But where do you draw the line between fantasy and reality?

Charlie Brooker’s fifth season of Black Mirror is only three episodes long, due no doubt to the additional time that needed to be spent on Bandersnatch, but it starts well with Striking Vipers, an unexpected love story and companion piece to San incidentally, they’re both directed by Be Right Back helmer Owen Harris.

Brooker’s screenplay is delivered by a trio of movie superheroes- Anthony Mackie (Captain America: The Winter Soldier) is Danny, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (Aquaman) and Pom Klementieff (Guardians of the Galaxy) as on-screen avatar Roxette. Brooker has said before that the show is not about technology, rather the way humans interact with it, and that’s very true here, with the Tekken-style VR game being merely the catalyst to the human drama.

The hour-long story follows Danny as he desperately fights with his conscience. He’s having an early midlife crisis, stuck in the drudgery of family life, and there are temptations thrown at him. His wife Theo (Nicole Betharie) reminds him that we all have the choice to resist others, but what actually constitutes infidelity? Is it the thought of cheating, or the action?

Verdict: The sort of episode that will inevitably lead to debate (and hopefully not ending up sleeping in separate beds!) due to its inconclusive swimming through very murky water. You make up your decision – after all, we’re not machines. 8/10

Nick Joy