2020 is, mercifully, drawing to a close. And while the year has felt like a decade of death, disaster, disgust and disgrace, who better than Charlie Brooker– often found rounding up the preceding 12 months in his Wipe shows – to catalogue it, bringing that sentiment to Netflix. With a boosted budget and higher star count, Death To 2020 promises to make us remember what it was like living through it all. Yay? Here's the trailer...
According to the streaming service, we can expect the following: 2020. A year so [insert adjective of choice here], even the creators of Black Mirror couldn’t make it up… but that doesn’t mean they don’t have a little something to add. Death to 2020 is a comedy event that tells the story of the dreadful year that was — and perhaps still is? This landmark documentary-style special weaves together a chorus of narration from some of the world’s most (fictitious) renowned voices with real-life archival footage spanning the past 12 months.
And from Brooker himself: "Those who only know me through Black Mirror may not realize that when not writing speculative sci-fi about people frowning at smartphones, I’ve spent years making comedy shows in the UK - including many topical comedy specials. So to me, Death To 2020 feels like the collision of several different strands. (Do strands ‘collide'? No. Apologies). But the approach for this is quite different to most of the topical comedy I’ve done in the past. For one thing I'm not on screen presenting it – a relief for anyone watching in 4K – and it's more character-based. In the loneliest year on record, I got to work (remotely) with writers and team members from my previous comedies, as well as many sickeningly talented people who were new to me.
"Death To 2020 features fictional characters discussing real events in a bombastic mockumentary, but quite a bit sillier than that makes it sound. It felt like an apt format for Netflix, which is known for high-end documentaries, but also like a good opportunity to create a different kind of comedy special that deals with the year head-on while also showcasing some brilliant performers. I don’t love the word 'satire' but there’s some of that here, alongside some angry jokes, and some goofy jokes. And hopefully viewers will find at least one joke to their liking — because let’s face it, in 2020, any laugh you can emit, no matter how fleeting, is a small but precious victory."
Samuel L. Jackson, Hugh Grant, Lisa Kudrow, Kumail Nanjiani and Tracey Ullman are among those helping to flush 2020 down the chronological poop pipe. The show will be on Netflix on 27 December.