Still speaking about “Playtest,” Charlie Brooker explained, “In my head, it’s like a classic ‘The Twilight Zone’ punchline ending, like ‘To Serve Man.’ So hopefully people see the humor in that.” The “Twilight Zone” episode he’s referencing is the one where the twist relies on a silly pun: the human characters realize that the aliens’ book titled “To Serve Man” doesn’t refer to helping mankind, but cooking them. It’s one of the most memorable episodes of the series, parodied on later shows like “The Simpsons” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”
But maybe the best episode of “The Twilight Zone” to compare “Playtest” to is the season 1 episode, “Time Enough at Last.” This is the one where a bookish guy survives the apocalypse, finds an untouched library, and rejoices in the fact that he’ll finally have all the time in the world to read books, a pleasure that’s been denied to him throughout the first half of the episode. It almost sounds like a happy ending, but then the guy accidentally breaks his glasses. Now he can no longer read, and there’s no one in the world left to help him out. “To Serve Man” had a dark ending, but the final twist of this episode is just plain mean.
It’s hard not to see echoes of “Time Enough at Last” in “Playtest.” Both episodes center around a guy who never commits any serious sins, but is nevertheless punished severely in the end. Each episode’s conclusions also function as the punchline to a long-winded joke, one that might take a while to properly settle in. In its best moments, “Black Mirror” and “The Twilight Zone” both understand that sometimes a situation is so bleak, so horrifying, that all you can really do is laugh.