I think people are starting to look away and questioning, and they're sort of horrified.

"Be Right Back," in which Hayley Atwell brings Domhnall Gleeson back from the dead using his social-media profile, sprang out of an unrelated conversation. Other stories you thrash away at for weeks and weeks.

I'm trying to think overall. Some of our stories [Black Mirror], I think you're right in that they don't tend to have a message.

[Worshipping God] is like fellating someone who intermittently stubs fags out on your head for no good reason. And we all know how unsatisfying that can be.

In the U.K. I'm probably better known as a comedy writer - or certainly that's my background is in writing comedy.

I was more aware initially of shows like Tales of the Unexpected. And the BBC used to put on a lot of one-off, bizarre television plays.

Many people find bald, unvarnished truths so disturbing, they prefer to ram their heads in the sand and start dreaming at the first sign of scientific reality.