Watch Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker's Antiviral Wipe

Before Black Mirror, Brooker was known in Britain for his comedic news and pop-culture commentary Wipe shows, which started in 2006 with Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe -- that included skewering reality TV editing -- and became Newswipe with Charlie Brooker in 2009, where he'd mock how reporters report the news. From 2013 through 2016, Brooker would end each year with a Wipe year-in-review-special. But with Black Mirror and other projects keeping him busy, Brooker seemingly retired the Wipe series at the end of 2016. On Thursday night, Brooker brought back Wipe for the pandemic-themed  Charlie Brooker's Antiviral Wipe on BBC. "Antiviral Wipe is here to clear away the fog. In its various iterations, the Wipe, as we might gruesomely call it, hasn’t been seen since 2016’s end-of-year Annual Wipe, and it has been much missed," says Rebecca Nicholson. "Brooker is never more comfortable than when expressing incredulity at the ridiculousness of people, himself included, and of course this turns out to be the perfect time for it. Any worry that the news might be beyond satire, that the situation is simply too dire for anyone to mine it for humour, is quickly dispensed with."