Set in a not-so-distant future, this frayed assemblage of vaguely interconnected skits plays like ideas Charlie Brooker had while tipsy for episodes of Black Mirror, then crumpled up and threw in his waste basket. But those ideas were retrieved, storyboarded, and shot by student film-makers whose underpaid tutors weren’t around to say keep working on this script until you have something interesting.
The opening sequence, which comes back throughout, concerns an astronaut in outer space named David (Thomas Jane), who is doing a routine repair on a satellite when a power surge sets him adrift with only an AI link for company. As he floats in space, using up his last days of oxygen, he monologues about his regrets in life, talks to God and ponders what’s going on back on Earth (where electrical storms presage environmental disaster). On our home planet, a sad-eyed robot shelter attendant (the wonderful Tomasz Kot from Cold War, incongruously named Brian despite a thick Polish accent) tries to interest customers in an elderly, doddery android named Charlie (Rupert Everett) who tells lame jokes and can’t fix much and therefore is hard to adopt out.
Elsewhere, a young woman (Alice Eve) tries to get her Alexa/Siri-like AI assistant (that’s simply called God) fixed so she can go back to having a household deity; a guy (Patrick Schwarzenegger) stalks his ex-girlfriend (Kylie Bunbury) using an Oculus-like headset; and the heir to a wealthy family of immortals (Alex Pettyfer) brings home his mortal girlfriend (Annabelle Wallis) to meet the family, making for a decidedly awkward dinner party. In the longest segment, a young woman (Garance Marillier, from Raw) agrees to rent out her body to an old man she’s been matched up with online, but not in the way you might think: his mind will actually inhabit her body, giving him a chance to enjoy a night of partying with young people in a luxurious hotel.
It all works up to an only mildly surprising “shock” ending, which is bad news for all concerned, a twist that would be more tragic if it were possible to feel sorry for any of them.
• Warning is released on 25 October on digital platforms.
