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Will Poulter on ‘Black Mirror’ Episode ‘Plaything,’ Its Key ‘Bandersnatch-y’ Moment and Bringing Back Gaming Legend Colin Ritman for a Story in Which the ‘Future of Humanity Is at Stake’
Set 10 years after 'Bandersnatch,' the episode sees Poulter's games designer develop a program of digital lifeforms called Thronglets
Set 10 years after “Bandersnatch” in the slightly less 8-bit video game world of 1994, the episode is a sort-of sequel, based around a new project from Ritman called “Thronglets” in which an ever-growing number of tiny creatures must be fed, watered and bathed in order to survive (a sort of Tamagochi-meets-Civilization). Decades later in a bleak, dystopian-looking near-future London, Walker — now disheveled with long, grey hair (and played by Peter Capaldi) — has dedicated his entire life to growing his thronglets across his expanded array of computers into a major civilization of powerfully intelligent beings (that he’s also physically connected to using a surgically implanted socket in his neck). Despite his near-cameo role, a lot of thought went into Ritman’s character — and how he’d changed since “Bandersnatch.” It’s referenced that he’d suffered a very public mental health breakdown in the decade between the episodes (he actually leaves his office in order to take his medication), something Poulter acknowledges would have been “highly taboo” and “more stigmatized” at that time.
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