Black Mirror's "Metalhead": Scientist Critiques Realism and Accuracy
Black Mirror may be known as one of the most beloved sci-fi series of all time, but a scientist had lots of criticism of the science behind one of the anthology's most eerie episodes. "Metalhead", a realistic season 4 episode of the highly popular Netflix show, featured a society taken over by hyper-violent robot dogs.
The episode holds a moderately fresh Rotten Tomatoes score of 68% and is shot in black-and-white with an extremely bleak ending. The episode stars Maxine Peake, Jake Davies, and Clint Dyer, and was directed by David Slade from a script by Charlie Brooker, who also serves as Black Mirror's creator.
In an Insider video, a scientist named Ayanna Howard, who serves as the Dean of Engineering at Ohio State University, critiqued "Metalhead" for certain inaccuracies. Howard explained that the movement of the robots in the Black Mirror episode is realistic, but all the actions the beings do are far-fetched from a scientific perspective.
"This case, they did design it based on an actual platform, with the way that it moves, with the way that it navigates," Howard said. "The sensor that was shown, which was most likely LIDAR, does exist in a small platform." She added that LIDARs are used in some of the self-driving cars and are now at a small enough footprint to fit into the torso of the robot that we saw.
However, Howard pointed out that having a robot plug into an electronic device and magically be able to hack the code and override any passwords and encryption scheme is not feasible. "The energy requirements for a robotic system to continuously activate, or actuate, to do the processing in terms of a computation, to do the sensing," she said. "Solar power would not provide the longevity that's required to actually function for more than a couple of minutes." Traditionally, you wouldn't use solar power, at least for this application.
Howard rated this episode about a 3 out of 10 in terms of scientific accuracy. Her analysis suggests that Black Mirror is more interested in entertaining plot points rather than fact-checking everything. While there are realistic aspects of the episode, there are definitely exaggerations that aren't true to the workings of real technology.
Black Mirror's first season premiered on Channel 4 in the UK on December 4, 2011, before the show moved to Netflix with season 3 on October 21, 2016. Black Mirror season 7 was released back in April 2025, and the season was critiqued by some for having several inaccuracies, especially in the episodes "Common People" and "USS Callister: Into Infinity."
"Black Mirror is a great show that is inspired by truth," Howard said. "But the viewer should always hold a certain suspension of disbelief when watching this jaw-dropping anthology series." It is unsurprising that Black Mirror's "Metalhead" is not fully accurate when it comes to science, because it feels like an exaggerated version of the truth.
Even though Howard proved that the episode is not exactly a realistic depiction of a robotic takeover, it is still an excellent hour of television and arguably one of the best Black Mirror episodes. Only time will tell if Brooker decides to make future seasons of Black Mirror more realistic, but no matter what, the show will likely stay massively entertaining.