Television
Brooker's television presenting debut was with Gia Milinovich on BBC Knowledge's The Kit (1999–2000), a programme that reviewed gadgets and technology. From 1999 to 2000, Brooker played the hooded expert 'the Pundit' in the short-lived show Games Republic, hosted by Trevor and Simon on BSkyB.
In 2000, Brooker was one of the writers of the Channel 4 show The 11 O'Clock Show. In 2001, he was one of several writers on "Paedogeddon", Channel 4's Brass Eye special on the subject of paedophilia. In 2003, Brooker wrote an episode entitled "How to Watch Television" for Channel 4's The Art Show. The episode was presented in the style of a public information film and was partly animated.
Together with Brass Eye's Chris Morris, Brooker co-wrote the sitcom Nathan Barley, based on a character from one of TVGoHome's fictional programmes. The show was broadcast in 2005 and focused on the lives of a group of London media 'trendies'. The same year, he was also on the writing team of the Channel 4 sketch show Spoons, produced by Zeppotron.
In 2006, Brooker began writing and presenting the television series Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe on BBC Four, a TV review programme in a similar style to his Screen Burn columns in The Guardian. After an initial pilot series of three editions in April, the programme returned later in the year for a second run of four episodes plus Christmas and Review of the Year specials in December 2006. A third series followed in February 2007 with a fourth broadcast in September 2007, followed by a Review of the Year in December 2007. The fifth series started in November 2008 and was followed by another Review of the Year special. This series was also the first to be given a primetime repeat on terrestrial television (BBC Two), in January 2009.
Screenwipe editions have had themes including American television, TV news, advertising and children's programmes. The last of these involved a segment where Brooker joined the cast of Toonattik for one week, playing the character of "Angry News Guy". An episode on scriptwriting saw several of British television's most prominent writers interviewed by Brooker.
Newswipe with Charlie Brooker, a similar show concerned with current affairs reporting by the international news media, began on BBC Four on 25 March 2009. A second series began on 19 January 2010. He has also written and presented the one-off special Gameswipe on video games and aired on BBC Four on 29 September 2009.
Brooker's 2010 Wipe, a review of 2010, was broadcast in December 2010. The end-of-year Wipe specials continued annually, the last one to date broadcast on 29 December 2016. Due to Brooker's commitments to Black Mirror and other projects, the annual Wipe went on hiatus beginning in 2017.
Charlie Brooker's Weekly Wipe was first broadcast on BBC Two on 31 January 2013. It was an amalgam of Screenwipe and Newswipe, with sections that dealt with recent news, television shows and films. Along with the regular cast, it also featured guests who discuss recent events. Two more series followed in 2014 and 2015. A 60-minute special, Election Wipe, aired on 6 May 2015, examined events running up to the 2015 general election.
A 45-minute BBC Two special, Charlie Brooker's Antiviral Wipe, aired on 14 May 2020. It concerned life during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom. It was produced during the UK lockdown, which had caused a series starring Wipe character Philomena Cunk to be postponed. Most of the crew from the series transferred to work on Antiviral Wipe. Brooker initially turned down the offer to make the special but accepted when it was clear that production would be largely unchanged, as the format of the series required few characters to appear on screen together and made extensive use of archive footage. The editing process was the most affected aspect of production.
Brooker often signs off his programmes by saying "Thank you for watching. Now go away."
Brooker wrote Dead Set, a five-part zombie horror thriller for E4 set in the Big Brother house. The show was broadcast in October 2008 to coincide with Halloween and was repeated on Channel 4 in January 2009 to coincide with Celebrity Big Brother, and again for Halloween later that year. It was produced by Zeppotron, which also produced Screenwipe.
Brooker told MediaGuardian.co.uk it comprised a "mixture of known and less well known faces" and "Dead Set is very different to anything I've done before, and I hope the end result will surprise, entertain and appall people in equal measure." He added that he has long been a fan of horror films and that his new series "could not be described as a comedy". "I couldn't really describe what it is but it will probably surprise people," Brooker said, adding that he plans to "continue as normal" with his print journalism.
Jaime Winstone starred as a runner on the TV programme, and Big Brother presenter Davina McCall guest starred as herself. Dead Set received a BAFTA nomination for Best Drama Serial.
In December 2011, three episodes of Brooker's Black Mirror, a science fiction anthology series, aired on Channel 4 to largely positive reviews. As well as creating the show, Brooker wrote the first episode and co-wrote the second with his wife Konnie Huq. He also wrote all three episodes of series two. In September 2015, Netflix commissioned a third season of 12 episodes, with Channel 4 losing the rights to the programme. A trailer for the third season was released in October 2016. This was later split into two series of six episodes. The third season was released on Netflix worldwide on 21 October 2016. Brooker has solely written four of the episodes in series three, and has co-written the remaining two.
The fourth season was released in December 2017, followed by a full-length interactive film Bandersnatch in December 2018. The fifth season was released in June 2019.
The series is produced by Zeppotron for Endemol. Regarding the programme's content and structure, Brooker noted, "each episode has a different cast, a different setting, even a different reality. But they're all about the way we live now – and the way we might be living in 10 minutes' time if we're clumsy."
An Endemol press release describes the series as "a hybrid of The Twilight Zone and Tales of the Unexpected which taps into our contemporary unease about our modern world", with the stories having a "techno-paranoia" feel. Channel 4 describes the first episode as "a twisted parable for the Twitter age".
Brooker explained the series' title to The Guardian, noting: "If technology is a drug – and it does feel like a drug – then what, precisely, are the side-effects? This area – between delight and discomfort – is where Black Mirror, my new drama series, is set. The 'black mirror' of the title is the one you'll find on every wall, on every desk, in the palm of every hand: the cold, shiny screen of a TV, a monitor, a smartphone."
Several news reports, including one by Chris Cillizza, political reporter for The Washington Post, compared the 2016 Donald Trump political campaign to "The Waldo Moment", a 2013 episode of the Black Mirror TV series; later, in September 2016, Brooker also compared the Trump campaign to the episode and rightly predicted Trump would win the 2016 election.
With Daniel Maier, Brooker co-wrote a spoof crime drama for Sky1 called A Touch of Cloth, which first broadcast on 26 August 2012 and starred John Hannah and Suranne Jones, both notable for having starred in genuine crime dramas. Two further series were broadcast in 2013 and 2014, with the latter starring Karen Gillan.
Brooker has appeared on three episodes and one webisode of the popular BBC current affairs news quiz Have I Got News for You. He appeared on an episode of the Channel 4 panel show 8 Out of 10 Cats, The Big Fat Quiz of the Year 2009, Never Mind the Buzzcocks and Would I Lie To You?. In December 2006 he reviewed two games written by the presenters of VideoGaiden, on their show. He also made a brief appearance in the third and final instalment of the documentary series Games Britannia, discussing the rise and popularity of computer games.
Brooker wrote for the BBC Three sketch show Rush Hour.
In 2009, Brooker began hosting You Have Been Watching, a panel comedy TV quiz on Channel 4 which discusses television. A second series was broadcast the following year.
On 6 May 2010, Brooker was a co-host of the Channel 4 alternative election night, along with David Mitchell, Jimmy Carr and Lauren Laverne. The telethon was interspersed with contributions from Brooker, some live in the studio but mostly pre-recorded. Notably, these included an "Election Special" of You Have Been Watching and two smaller segments in an almost identical style to Screenwipe (the only noticeable difference being that Brooker was sitting in a different room). Brooker described the experience of live television as being so nerve-wracking he "did a piss" during the broadcast. A spin-off series, 10 O'Clock Live, started in January 2011 with the same four hosts.
Brooker hosted How TV Ruined Your Life, which aired on BBC Two between January and March 2011.
In November 2020, Hugh Grant reported that Brooker was producing a mockumentary with Netflix "about 2020". Grant stated that he would star as "a historian who is being interviewed about the year." The mockumentary, titled Death to 2020, was released on Netflix on 27 December 2020.
In 2022, the animated interactive fiction Cat Burglar was released. Brooker was credited as creator.
