It follows Joan (Annie Murphy) as her life is adapted in real-time into a television series starring Salma Hayek.

It is released on a fictional streaming service, Streamberry, that parodies Netflix; Brooker said the company had no objections to their portrayal.

It was inspired by the recency of the events depicted in The Dropout (2022); Joan was written with Murphy in mind after Brooker watched Schitt's Creek (2015–2020).

The episode makes numerous Easter egg references to other Black Mirror instalments through Streamberry's platform and use of the song "Anyone Who Knows What Love Is (Will Understand)".

Joan Tait (Annie Murphy) wakes up, eats breakfast made by her fiancé Krish (Avi Nash) and drives to work while lip syncing to Saweetie's rap "Tap In" (2020).

Under instruction from the board of directors, she fires Sandy (Ayo Edebiri), who worked to reduce the company's carbon emissions.

The show is made by a cutting-edge quantum computer using CGI-based virtual actors and real-time data gathered from Joan's devices.

They pass the CEO Mona Javadi (Leila Farzad), who explains to the journalist Fatima Klaas (Danielle Vitalis) that Streamberry plans personalised, computer-generated content for all users.

Broke and Bones produced the series, while House of Tomorrow's parent company, Banijay, retained ownership.

Brooker was later inspired by the miniseries The Dropout (2022), which depicted the creation and downfall of a disgraced tech startup, Theranos.

Brooker said it seemed to make drama from "things that happened ten minutes ago",[8][13] and depicted events that the writers could not have had insight into, such as a person dancing with her partner.

[7] An April 2023 casting announcement for Black Mirror named Annie Murphy, Salma Hayek Pinault, Michael Cera, Himesh Patel, Rob Delaney, and Ben Barnes.

[33] Black Mirror was released by Netflix from 2016 onwards; it made an interactive film specific to this new medium with Bandersnatch (2018).

[34][29] Richard Lawson, a Vanity Fair critic, saw it as commenting on Netflix's algorithm-led strategy, while Power believed it was about binge-watching.

[35][32] Power said Javadi parodies Bela Bajaria, Netflix's Chief Content Officer, while Joan's life resembles the protagonist of The Truman Show (1998).

Black Mirror previously explored AI in "Be Right Back", which features a robotic replacement for a grieving woman's dead partner.

[7] Amit Katwala analysed that personalised content posed threats to publications such as Wired, which he was writing in, as they rely on common cultural experiences.

The song "Anyone Who Knows What Love Is (Will Understand)" by Irma Thomas is heard when Joan meets Mac at a restaurant, marking its sixth use in the programme.

It contains thumbnails for fictional shows seen in other episodes (Sea of Tranquility and Hot Shots), and the cartoon Rowdy and Peanut, named after characters in Brooker's Cat Burglar (2022).

[41] It was written shortly before the 2023 strikes by the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and actors' union SAG-AFTRA, who negotiated the role of AI in entertainment with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP).

[44] In contrast, SAG-AFTRA demanded "informed consent and fair compensation" for use of a person's likeness or performance to be altered with AI.

[52] Contrastingly, Cranz questioned the episode's logic, including the appeal of Is Awful series and the nature of the simulated realities.

[30] In addition, Mashable's Chris Taylor criticised it as an example of satire enabling "pretty awful things" when the target "learns to play along", comparing it to Mattel's villainous role in Barbie (2023) or the prominence that the politician Boris Johnson gained from appearing on Have I Got News for You (1990–).

Club's Kayleigh Dray praised the humorous style, with Rolling Stone's Alan Sepinwall describing the church scene as a highlight.

[50][48] In Den of Geek, Alec Bojalad summarised the episode as "cynical, caustic, and even charming", and Melanie McFarland—in Salon—wrote that it was "hilarious, horrifying and left off-center enough from 2023's actuality to be off-putting".

[28] In a dissenting review for Vulture, Ben Rosenstock found that Hayek "ultimately hurts the story" as her character "distracts from Joan" and is an "odd fit" for the programme.

Although Sepinwall approved of the "efficient use" of runtime, Bojalad felt it did not justify Joan's extreme behaviour in a church and Rosenstock said it should have been longer to reduce the exposition in the final 10 minutes.

[48][31] Rosenstock lauded it as a "fitting, mercifully happy" conclusion;[51] Dray found the "wildly meta" ending to redeem the "meandering middle" parts.