What I truly enjoy about Black Mirror is it's off the beaten path take on every day life especially concerning technology and the dark side of human nature. Released just 4 days ago, all the episodes of this season can stand alone with nothing tying them together, no central theme or story. Watch in any order you please without worry of spoilers, as such I have put together my ranking of favorites.
Having said that, I provide my list of favorites from most to least:
Episode 3 - Beyond the Sea
The best truly sci-fi show of the season, set in the 1960s during the space race, two astronauts have some cool tech to enable them to live their normal lives on earth while they are in space. The cool tech is what gives it the Black Mirror twist, but the whole concept is a great brain teaser on interstellar travel. The acting, with Aaron Paul in particular, was superb and really made for a fun watch. For me this was head and shoulders above the other episodes.
Episode 1 - Joan is Awful
A great take on AI, netflix and the metaverse, a fresh view of all these technologies and how they come together. It is a story of how someone's life can be made into a story, in real time.
Episode 5 - Demon 79
The most twilight-zone-esque episode of the series, about a shoe clerk in a department store from the 1970s who more or less must complete a series of tasks from a lesser demon looking to get promoted to prevent an apocalypse.
Episode 2 - Loch Henry
Dark, horror genre of a young couple out to make a documentary about a boring egg watcher. After visiting the boyfriend's hometown in Scotland, they learn about a gruesome serial killer and set out to learn more about it changing their plans to film about this instead. This is not a bad episode per se, just that I enjoyed the others much more.
Episode 4 - Mazey Day
This episode was only 45 minutes but it was very tough to watch until the end when it actually got pretty good. I think I just have such distaste from the paparazzi of that era that it sort of turn the whole thing off for me. The show is from the point of view of a paparazzi out to make a buck. It shows the consequences that it has on the people they stalk.