It follows Amy (Georgina Campbell) and Frank (Joe Cole), who are matched into relationships for fixed lengths of time by an algorithm that eventually determines their life-long partner.

The episode received positive reception according to Rotten Tomatoes and was nominated for three British Academy Television Awards (BAFTAs), but critics wrote mixed comments about the storyline and the final twist, though were mostly favourable towards the characters of Frank and Amy.

Frank (Joe Cole) and Amy (Georgina Campbell) use a circular device called "Coach" that matches them with partners for fixed periods of time.

Coach (voice of Gina Bramhill) tells them the system monitors each relationship to assign them a lifelong partner on "pairing day", with a success rate of 99.8%.

Frank is distracted the next day as Amy notices every pebble she skips hits the water four times; he admits what has happened with an hour remaining.

[5] According to the executive producer Annabel Jones, "Hang the DJ" reflects on the state of dating in the present day and a "general sense of loneliness".

Brooker was concerned about fans disliking the "light and playful comic tone" of "Hang the DJ" and was initially reluctant to write a happy ending.

[7] The setting was based on Soho Farmhouse in Oxfordshire, an expensive holiday area where production designer Joel Collins had attended a birthday party.

The geometric design of the world was Collins's idea, intended to resemble the inside of a mobile phone—where various copper and brass lines are arranged on a green plate.

The cast were confused about the intention during filming for this ending, particularly the footage taken against green screens of characters looking "meaningfully into the middle distance".

To establish that the episode's setting had been a simulation, disembodied voice and text reveal that Amy and Frank had "rebelled" 998 out of 1,000 times, leading to a 99.8% match for the pair, and dialogue in the previous restaurant scene was simplified.

Additionally, visual effects developments led to characters "dematerialising" by a "graceful leaving of their body" rather than "being broken, squashed or incinerated", according to Pitt.

[1] The instrumental soundtrack for "Hang the DJ" was created by Alex Somers, with two pieces contributed by the Icelandic band Sigur Rós, "End" and "Match".

The two songs are both ambient music: "End" is a five-minute structured piece featuring vocals by Jónsi, which Rolling Stone's Ryan Reed described as post-rock; "Match" is a 90-second segue with a dark tone and use of drones.

[23][24] Jacob Oller of Paste and Louisa Mellor of Den of Geek compared it to The Lobster (2015), a film in which single people are coerced into finding relationships.

[24][25] Mellor and Vulture's Jen Chaney made comparisons to The Good Place (2016–2020), a television programme which begins with characters in the afterlife being matched with their soulmates.

Kathryn VanArendonk of Vulture found that both episodes were intended as hopeful, and showed "love enabled by technological advancement and two people choosing one another over the world they know".

[28] Shirley Li of Entertainment Weekly saw similarities like "the star-crossed couple" and "the impossible parameters set around them" but also found "Hang the DJ" to be "more absurd, more sinister, and less optimistic and warm in its conclusion".

[29] Sophie Gilbert of The Atlantic saw the twist as also relating to other episodes featuring simulated people, including "USS Callister" and "White Christmas".

[30] Additionally, The Atlantic's Hannah Giorgis later compared it to the television anthology series Soulmates (2020), which also stars Campbell and was co-created by Black Mirror writer William Bridges.

[32] The setting initially presented to the audience raises many questions: Oller said that there are "so many strange and seemingly contradictory hints at the way the world works".

[30] The Verge reviewer Lizzie Plaugic saw the setting as "flat and neutral" and suggested that its display of characters who "generally have nothing to do but kill time" was like that of "a Victorian-novel romance".

A Pew Research Center study around the time of the episode found that about a quarter of Americans in the age range 18–24 used dating applications.

[35] Gilbert found Amy's "sped-up montage of different relationships and sexual encounters as if outside her own body, detached and dehumanized" to be a possible "critique of Tinder".

dating algorithms", Devon Maloney of Wired said that the system is "intentionally depressing for us as an audience", but marketed to characters "as a solution to the problems that plagued single people of yesteryear".

[27] Writing in Den of Geek, Alec Bojalad found Amy and Frank to be "perfect for each other", as they share a sense of humour and "a clear physical connection".

[28] Though rated highly according to some metrics, the episode received mixed reception for its storyline and final twist, along with acclaim for the acting and characterisation of Frank and Amy.

[25][27][29][37][38] Maloney praised that it "perfectly captures the modern desperation of trusting algorithms to find us love" and found it moving enough to cry at the ending.

[28] Bojalad saw this not to be a negative, writing that "the best part" of the episode "is how the tonal and thematic experiences remain the same before and after its twist", because "in both realities ... falling in love is the same.

IndieWire authors ranked the 22 Black Mirror instalments excluding Bandersnatch by quality, giving "Hang the DJ" a position of 7th.