Cab driver Chris meets a lonely woman at a support group and discovers that she can’t move on with her life until she can close down her dead daughter’s social media account.

While the subject of Charlie Brooker’s grim spotlight on the evils of social media is not a new one, by employing such a great cast he manages to shift the focus away from the tech and back onto the humanity that has created it and become enslaved by it. It’s one of those grim, nihilistic instalments where we have to accept that we’re all doomed!

Andrew Scott (Sherlock) is excellent as the rideshare driver, Chris. He lost his fiancée in a road accident and for some reason (which becomes apparent) keeps picking up fares around the offices of social media corporation Smithereen. But when he mistakes a young intern for a person of standing, things rapidly escalate to kidnapping and a stand-off with the authorities.

Part of the action plays out in the US as Smithereen CEO Billy Bauer (Topher Grace) is pulled out of a spiritual retreat to try to talk Chris down. But we soon realise that there’s far deeper reasons for him to hate the social media platform, and that guilt has eaten away his sense of reality. Things come to a head in the only way possible and ultimately there’s no answers – it’s just presented to us without comment.

Verdict: Black Mirror at its blackest, there’s not much hope in Charlie Brooker’s take on Falling Down. What’s so depressing is that we can see all of this happening around us, with no suggestion that we have any more grip on the situation than Chris and his fellow social media-distracted fools. Now get off your phone and do something real! 8/10

Nick Joy