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You can already use Signal for secure chats on the desktop, but you've had to use a Chrome web app to participate in those encrypted conversations. What if you don't like Chrome, or would just prefer something more elegant than a browser? Signal is...

The voyages of the USS Discovery will continue on CBS All Access.

The streaming service has renewed Star Trek: Discovery for a second season. Sources say current showrunners Aaron Harberts and Gretchen J. Berg are signing on for another tour of duty as well.

“In just six episodes, Star Trek: Discovery has driven subscriber growth, critical acclaim and huge global fan interest for the first premium version of this great franchise,” said Marc DeBevoise, President of CBS Interactive. “This series has a remarkable creative team and cast who have demonstrated their ability to carry on the Star Trek legacy.”

It’s still unclear how many subscribers Trek has fueled, and how many viewers are actually watching the series (CBS hasn’t released either number). Yet a renewal seemed likely at any rate due to the show’s heavily promoted tentpole status on the subscription service plus CBS’ heavy start-up world-building investment in the series (additional episodes add to the show’s total cost but decrease the average spent per episode overall).  

Discovery airs Sunday nights on CBS All Access.

Kevin Spacey has apologized to Anthony Rapp after Rapp alleged Spacey made an unwanted sexual advance toward the Star Trek: Discovery actor when he was 14 years old. Spacey, at the time, was 26.

“I have a lot of respect and admiration for Anthony Rapp as an actor. I’m beyond horrified to hear his story,” Spacey wrote in a statement posted to Twitter. “I honestly do not remember the encounter, it would have been over 30 years ago. But if I did behave as he describes, I owe him the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior, and I am sorry for the feelings he describes having carried with him all these years.”

In addition, Spacey said Rapp’s story “encouraged me to address other things about my life,” including his sexuality. “I know that there are stories out there about me and that some have been fueled by the fact that I have been so protective of my privacy,” Spacey said. “As those closes to me know, in my life, I have had relationships with both men and women. I have loved and had romantic relationships with men throughout my life, and I choose now to live as a gay man. I want to deal with this honestly and openly and that starts with examining my own behavior.”

pic.twitter.com/X6ybi5atr5

— Kevin Spacey (@KevinSpacey) October 30, 2017

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In an interview with BuzzFeed published late Sunday, Rapp, now 46, alleged Spacey invited the then-teenager to his Manhattan apartment for a party in 1986, where Rapp said he spent most of the evening in a bedroom watching television. As the night wound down, Rapp said he found himself alone in the dwelling with Spacey.

“My memory was that I thought, Oh, everybody’s gone. Well, yeah, I should probably go home,” Rapp said. According to Rapp, Spacey appeared in the bedrrom doorway and allegedly picked the young actor “up like a groom picks up the bride over the threshold.”

“But I don’t, like, squirm away initially, because I’m like, ‘What’s going on?’ And then he lays down on top of me,” Rapp said.

At the time, Rapp was starring in the play Precious Sons opposite Ed Harris while Spacey was doing Long Day’s Journey Into Night with Jack Lemmon. “He was trying to seduce me,” Rapp alleged. “I don’t know if I would have used that language. But I was aware that he was trying to get with me sexually.”

Rapp said he left the apartment after the alleged incident, but claimed to “have a memory of turning around and , What was that? What am I supposed to do with it? What does it mean? The older I get, and the more I know, I feel very fortunate that something worse didn’t happen. And at the same time, the older I get, the more I can’t believe it. I could never imagine anyone else I know would do something like that to a 14-year-old boy.”

Rapp told BuzzFeed that he never approached Spacey about what happened. (He began telling friends about it around 1990, which BuzzFeed confirmed.) Rapp eventually talked to a lawyer, who advised him against pursuing a case.

Rapp, who has appeared in movies like School Ties and Twister and on Broadway in Rent, said he’s bringing the issue up now because of the mounting sexual misconduct allegations against Harvey Weinstein. He currently plays Paul Stamets on Star Trek: Discovery.

“Part of what allowed the Harvey situation to occur was that there was this witting and unwitting conspiracy of silence,” Rapp said. “The only way these things can continue is if there’s no attention being paid to it, if it’s getting forgotten.”

In a statement released to EW after the BuzzFeed story published, Rapp said, “I came forward with my story, standing on the shoulders of the many courageous women and men who have been speaking out, to shine a light and hopefully make a difference, as they have done for me. Everything I wanted to say about my experience is in that article, and I have no further comment about it at this time.”

This post has been updated to include Kevin Spacey’s response

Kevin Spacey came out as gay via social media early Monday morning after actor Anthony Rapp accused the two-time Oscar winner of making unwanted sexual advances more than 30 years ago.

In a two-paragraph tweet, Spacey, 58, wrote he was “horrified” to hear Rapp’s allegations that Spacey climbed on top of the young actor at a Manhattan party when Rapp was only 14. (Spacey was 26 at the time.) While he claimed to not remember what happened, Spacey wrote that he owes the now 46-year-old actor from Star Trek: Discovery “the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior.”

Spacey continued, writing that he wanted to “address other things about my life.” The House of Cards actor wrote that while he has had relationships over the years with both men and women, “I choose now to live as a gay man.”

pic.twitter.com/X6ybi5atr5

— Kevin Spacey (@KevinSpacey) October 30, 2017

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Spacey’s tweet was met with a mixture of shock and skepticism (if not straight-up anger) from many people online — including Billy Eichner, Rose McGowan and numerous members of the media — for its conflation of the actor’s public coming-out statement with sexual misconduct allegations.

This is changing the subject. Rapp's charge is pedophilia. https://t.co/FNSiSW27KB

— Frank Rich (@frankrichny) October 30, 2017

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That Kevin Spacey statement. Nope. Absolutely not. Nope.

— billy eichner (@billyeichner) October 30, 2017

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Kevin Spacey has just invented something that has never existed before: a bad time to come out.

— billy eichner (@billyeichner) October 30, 2017

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Dear fellow media:

Keep focus on #AnthonyRapp BE THE VICTIM'S VOICE. Help us level the playing field.

— rose mcgowan (@rosemcgowan) October 30, 2017

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Bye bye, Spacey goodbye, it’s your turn to cry, that’s why we’ve gotta say goodbye. #ROSEARMY

— rose mcgowan (@rosemcgowan) October 30, 2017

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Christ, of all the ways to come out. pic.twitter.com/ZhLa3VNOGx

— realMarkHarris (@MarkHarrisNYC) October 30, 2017

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Nope to Kevin Spacey's statement. Nope. There's no amount of drunk or closeted that excuses or explains away assaulting a 14-year-old child.

— Dan Savage (@fakedansavage) October 30, 2017

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Kevin Spacey exploiting coming out as a gay man to try to distract from his assault on a 14-year-old is repugnant https://t.co/4yaYljlReX https://t.co/UUXOwZZaLf

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) October 30, 2017

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Never thought in my adult life that I would say coming out was a bad thing, but for Kevin Spacey it is.

— Phillip Henry (@MajorPhilebrity) October 30, 2017

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Kevin Spacey being gay is irrelevant to Kevin Spacey being a predator. Do not make that the story as though they are linked.

— Rachel Sklar ❄️ (@rachelsklar) October 30, 2017

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Kevin Spacey’s coming out was worse than when I came out as a Big Bang Theory fan

— Ira Madison III (@ira) October 30, 2017

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For a famous person to deflect these accusations with a long-in-the-making coming out is so cruel to his supposed new community it stings

— Richard Lawson (@rilaws) October 30, 2017

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SEXUAL ASSAULT IS NOT ABOUT SEXUALITY. SEXUAL ASSAULT IS ABOUT POWER. SAY IT WITH ME, PLEASE. #KevinSpacey

— Jordan Gavaris (@JordanGavaris) October 30, 2017

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Harvey Weinstein: "I'm going to fight the NRA!"

Kevin Spacey: "I'm gay!"

Same story different distractions….

— Yashar Ali (@yashar) October 30, 2017

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Pedophilia is pedophilia regardless of sexual orientation or am I missing something here.

— Masked sGHOULduler (@maskedscheduler) October 30, 2017

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Congrats to Spacey for making his shitty day a shitty day for entire gay community that fought for decades not to be equated with pederasty.

— Scott Renshaunt (@scottrenshaw) October 30, 2017

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So Kevin Spacey is gonna use a coming out narrative to deflect that this 'oopsie' moment happened with a FOURTEEN YEAR OLD. infuriating.

— LW (@lindseyweber) October 30, 2017

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kevin spacey trying to use coming out of the closet to distract from anthony rapp pic.twitter.com/yfKXNKDbzk

— no dana, only zuul (@DanaSchwartzzz) October 30, 2017

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Can't believe I'm saying this in 2017 but here it goes:

Being gay is not an excuse for trying to molest children. pic.twitter.com/5mA4o0r7xm

— Travon Free (@Travon) October 30, 2017

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Bye bye, Spacey goodbye, it’s your turn to cry, that’s why we’ve gotta say goodbye. #ROSEARMY

— rose mcgowan (@rosemcgowan) October 30, 2017

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kevin spacey does not get to have a poignant coming out moment after he attempted statutory rape. he doesn't get control of this narrative.

— djinni maxwell (@astroblob) October 30, 2017

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Lots of arguing on my feed about whether Kevin Spacey came out tonight. This is not what we should be focused on. He hurt a child!

— MariaElena Fernandez (@writerchica) October 30, 2017

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The more I think about that statement, the more cruel it is. The courage it took Anthony Rapp to do that, and this is the response.

— Aly Semigran (@AlySemigran) October 30, 2017

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Ashamed to have been accused of bank robbery- I forget if I did that- but this is a good time to let you all know; I am Jewish.

— Moshe Kasher (@moshekasher) October 30, 2017

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There's no question that California's recent wildfires are ultimately a human tragedy, destroying homes and upturning lives. Please donate if you can. However, they've also represented a loss for technology history. The Press Democrat has learned tha...

Nathan Fillion is returning to ABC and the world of police procedurals, but this time he’s the one with the badge.

The former Castle star is set to headline and executive produce The Rookie. The drama reunites him with Castle producer and co-showrunner Alexi Hawley and is produced by the Mark Gordon Company. ABC has ordered the show straight to series, EW has confirmed.

The series is based on a true story and stars Fillion as John Nolan, a rookie cop in the LAPD who is twenty years older than most of his fellow rookies. Nolan ditched his small-town life and career to move to L.A. and pursue his dream of becoming a cop, but now he finds himself navigating the unpredictable, dangerous, and occasionally humorous world of a “young cop.”

The series has all the signs of a potential hit for the network — Mark Gordon Company most recently brought the Kiefer Sutherland-led Designated Survivor to ABC, now in its second season; Hawley got his big break as a writer on the Fillion-led Castle beginning in 2009.

Castle was one of ABC’s most successful procedural dramas for the entire eight seasons it was on the air before it was abruptly canceled in May 2016 following the shocking announcement that Fillion’s costar Stana Katic would not be returning to the show. Fillion has remained in close contact with ABC, featuring in a prominent guest-starring arc on the net’s hit comedy Modern Family in the last year. 

Amazon has revealed a new service for Prime members called Amazon Key that allows packages to be delivered inside their houses.

In a step-by-step guide that teaches you how to let Amazon-approved strangers enter your home, Amazon reveals that the new Key service for Prime Members is meant to ensure safe delivery of packages. The company highlights the ability of Key users to allow remote entry to anyone they choose with the installation of a new camera and lock system.

The Amazon Cloud Cam and Smart Lock are included in the Amazon Key In-Home Kit.

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Passwords are one of the weakest links when it comes to our online security, and we may be one step closer to getting rid of them altogether. Today, Lenovo and Intel announced the first built-in authentication for PCs that adheres to FIDO (Fast Ident...

We've seen some pretty strange tech-related PR stunts over the years -- Engadget editor Edgar Alvarez rounded up some of the most bizarre for your enjoyment. But this new invention out of Japan might be one of the strangest we've seen. It tackles the...

There's a new ransomware making the rounds today with confirmed targets in Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and Germany. Kaspersky Labs says that nearly 200 victims have been hit with the ransomware that's been dubbed Bad Rabbit.

The experiment has been a success, because news has just dropped that CBS is renewing Star Trek: Discovery. The show, which was used as a tentpole to launch CBS' All Access streaming service, has been enough of a success to justify a second season of...

Zoey Anderson (Yara Shahidi) is officially college bound.

Freeform announced that the highly anticipated Black-ish spin-off — appropriately titled Grown-ish — is set to kick off with a two-episode season premiere on Jan. 3. The show will launch Freeform’s Wednesday night comedy block that includes the Lonely Island’s Alone Together, which will premiere the following week on Jan. 10. Alone Together has already been renewed for a second season, the network also announced Wednesday.

Grown-ish follows Dre (Anthony Anderson) and Rainbow’s (Tracee Ellis Ross) daughter Zoey as she starts college at Southern California University. The series centers around the popular, stylish, and socially active 17-year-old as she tackles current social issues and complexities that face both students and administrators in her freshman year.

“At Freeform, we are committed to our audience; and this past year, we refined our programming strategy to be a destination for trendsetting originals that champion youth culture,” said Freeform president Tom Ascheim.

The show is truly a case of life imitating art as Yara Shahidi, an activist herself, recently started her freshman year at Harvard, telling EW, “I’ve been a student as long as I’ve been an actor, if not longer.”

Grown-ish will premiere with two back-to-back episodes on Jan. 3 at 8 p.m. ET, with Alone Together set to air on Jan. 10 at 8:30 p.m. ET.

Brazenly corny and watchably stupid, Dean Devlin's Geostorm only manages to transcend its palpable sense of banality through the sheer force of its own unashamed silliness. Not only are the stakes ratcheted up to gloriously fatuous levels – all the storms on Earth are set to interlock into a worldwide, extinction-level cataclysm – but the emotional payoffs are so smackingly obvious that one is almost moved to a sense of bemused awe.

This is a film that begins with the promise of destruction, distracts the audience with a contrived government conspiracy plot, and ends on a teary reunion of a young, unnamed Indian boy with his beloved pet dog. Roland Emmerich would be so proud.

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This article contains spoilers for 'Blade Runner 2049' There's a scene in Blade Runner 2049 that takes place in a morgue. K, an android "replicant" played by Ryan Gosling, waits patiently while a member of the Los Angeles Police Department inspects...

UPDATE: An Activision representative provided the following statement to IGN:

"This was an exploratory patent filed in 2015 by an R&D team working independently from our game studios. It has not been implemented in-game."

Activision has filed a patent for a microtransaction-driven system for matchmaking in multiplayer games.

As reported by Glixel, the patent was filed in back in 2015, and was officially granted to the publisher by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office today, October 17.

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Do you remember the days when you had to wait each week for a new episode of your favorite show? Sure, those days still exist now on network television, but streaming services like Netflix has done away with the week-by-week model and introduced fans to “binge racing”. “Binge racers” are Netflix viewers who strive to […]

What do you do when your highly-successful reality show goes out with a bang? If you're Discovery-owned Science Channel, you quickly reboot it and find new hosts to replace the iconic ones. If you're a fan of the original and willing to give the new...

A converted Boeing 747-400 used to fight fires is a great example of old technology reborn with a new purpose. The aircraft, the largest passenger model in Boeing's jumbo lineup, first entered service with Japan Airlines in 1991. After being converte...

Google first added the moon and Mars to Google Maps back in 2014 to commemorate the Curiosity rover's second year exploring the red planet. Sure, you couldn't zoom down to Street View level, but it's the closest many of us will get to the celestial b...

Full spoilers follow for the latest episode of Star Trek: Discovery, “Choose Your Pain.”

There was a lot going on in last night’s Star Trek episode, which saw Captain Lorca escaping Klingon captivity, the first appearance of the (new) Harry Mudd in Rainn Wilson, Michael Burnham’s salvation of the tardigrade Ripper, and a bunch of classic Trek captains getting namedropped. There was plenty more to ponder in the segment, “Choose Your Pain,” too, but perhaps most intriguing was the genuine twist that it ended on.

Anthony Rapp as Lt. Paul Stamets in Star Trek: Discovery

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Today a collection of severe security vulnerabilities in the WPA2 encryption protocol for Wi-Fi are being disclosed, along with a proof of concept exploit. The weaknesses center around the process used for negotiating the encryption keys used by the client and access point. These core vulnerabilities are part of the Wi-Fi Protected Access WPA standard itself, so even devices that correctly implement WPA2 according to spec are expected to be affected. Both personal and enterprise WPA modes are affected, and both the original WPA and WPA2 are affected. The primary mode of attack exploits vulnerabilities in client devices, but there are some variants that affect features used by some access points.

As a quick WPA refresher, the password you type in to connect to an access point using WPA2 is not directly used as the encryption key for the network traffic your device exchanges with the access point. Instead, that password (technically referred to as a pre-shared key) is used to authenticate the client device to the access point and start the process of negotiating the connection. The vulnerabilities disclosed today allow for attacks on the four-way handshake sequence that is used in setting up the encryption and determining what keys will be used, all without having to broadcast the pre-shared key itself. Once a connection is fully established, the client and access point regularly rotate the encryption keys to new ones derived from the pre-shared key.

802.11i Four-Way Handshake (Image Via Wikipedia)

The proof of concept attack technique, named KRACK short for Key Reinstallation Attacks, focuses on step three of the four-way handshake. In the third step, the access point sends to the client confirmation that the access point has completed its side of the key negotiation process. After receiving that message, the client can begin using the negotiated key and initialization vector to encrypt traffic, and the client completes the handshake by sending the access point an acknowledgment.

But that assumes each of the four messages in the handshake process is successfully received. The key negotiation process needs to allow for the possibility of radio interference, so it permits the access point to re-send the message that is step three of the handshake. If an attacker sends a copy of this message, the client device will be tricked into reverting back to the original encryption key and initialization vector used at the start of the session. The client's next transmissions will have been encrypted with the same key as earlier transmissions, even though that key was only meant for a single use. That allows for a key reuse attack, which doesn't directly expose the underlying encryption key but does make it relatively easy to decrypt the data that was encrypted, especially if something is known about the structure of the messages that were both encrypted with the same key. IP packet headers, in turn, provide exactly that.

Despite not leaking the Wi-Fi pre-shared key itself or the per-session master key negotiated by the four-way handshake, KRACK style attacks can net the attacker enough information to start hijacking TCP connections and escalate to similar attacks. If the wireless network is using the older WPA-TKIP protocol instead of the WPA2 AES-CCMP protocol, then the attacker may be able to forge and inject packets into the wireless network itself instead of using the recovered information in less direct attacks. Meanwhile, newer networks using the short-range Wireless Gigabit (IEEE 802.11ad) standard generally use GCMP,  which uses the same authentication key for both directions of communication between the client and access point, so a KRACK attack can allow for decryption of transmissions from either device.

Linux systems including Android version 6.0 and above generally use the wpa_supplicant program. This implementation of WPA tries to defend against key reuse by wiping it from RAM after it is used for the first time. When subjected to a KRACK attack, this means wpa_supplicant doesn't revert to the original key but instead replaces its key with all zeroes. Unfortunately, in the KRACK scenario this technique backfires and results in a known, fixed key, making decrypting future transmissions too easy.

Today's disclosure is documented across ten CVEs, each describing a different style of key reinstallation attack on different parts or modes of WPA. This means that any full-featured Wi-Fi implementation is likely to require patching in several places. Fortunately, these key reinstallation vulnerabilities can all be fixed in a backwards-compatible manner, and the Wi-Fi standards are expected to be updated to require defenses against key reinstallation attacks. This class of vulnerabilities was discovered earlier this year and the researchers involved began informing vendors in July. CERT issued a broad notification to vendors on August 28. OpenBSD has already patched their WPA implementation, and Aruba, Mikrotik and Ubiquiti are among the vendors reported to have fixes ready or already deployed.

As with many other recent major security vulnerabilities, this discovery has been given memorable branding and a logo:

This is hardly the first major security breach to affect Wi-Fi. The original standard for Wi-Fi encryption was named Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP), a name that proved to be completely inaccurate as flaws were found permitting quick and easy cracking of the encryption. Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) was introduced as a replacement that could be deployed on most existing hardware with software and firmware updates, while WPA2 made more significant changes like switching from the RC4 cipher to AES. Previous attacks against WPA2 have all relied on some form of password guessing at heart, such as attacks exploiting Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) PINs. Until now, the four-way handshake process in WPA was regarded as secure, and the AES cipher used by WPA2 is still considered secure.

This is also not the first widespread security flaw affecting common network infrastructure to have been disclosed recently. Earlier this month, a team of Google security researchers published several vulnerabilities in DNSMasq, the DNS and DHCP server most commonly used by consumer-grade routers. The severity of these bugs ranged from denial of service to remote code execution and affected both the DNS and DHCP functionality of DNSMasq.

If you live with type 1 diabetes, you have to constantly keep track of your blood sugar levels and give yourself just the right amount of insulin. It's arduous, and more than a little frightening when you know that the wrong dose could have serious...

Researchers have discovered a key flaw in the WPA2 WiFi encryption protocol that could allow hackers to intercept your credit card numbers, passwords, photos and other sensitive information. The flaws, dubbed "Key Reinstallation Attacks," or "Krack A...

Below EW interviews Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker about the upcoming fourth season of his Emmy-winning Netflix series. Don’t worry, Brooker avoids anything resembling a spoiler about his ever-twisty and twisted anthology drama, but he does offer several tantalizing teases about the new season, which includes the show’s first black and white episode, a 74-minute epic and a “Treehouse of Horror”-style anthology (a’ la “White Christmas”).

But first, you might want to watch this Black Mirror season 4 teaser video, if you haven’t already, which we refer to during the interview:

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Last season you described the episodes as a collection of outliers. At first glance from the teaser trailer, “U.S.S. Callister” aside, several of these seem like more traditional Black Mirror episodes?CHARLIES BROOKER: All the episodes are intrinsically Black Mirror and also aren’t. Like “Metalhead” is very unlike any episode we’ve done before. It’s a deliberately paired down and brutal tale. If you imagine every season like an album, this is like a 2-minute punk single. Each is pretty different from every episode we’ve done before and it’s difficult to explain why until you’ve seen them.

The “Metalhead” teaser gave us a glimpse of one of those horrifying Boston Robotics-style robots and a woman running, which makes us suspect a bot has run amuck.
Your instincts are not entirely incorrect there. Weirdly, the inspiration for this episode was I was trying to set myself a challenge of how paired back can I get. What’s a literally black-and-white story we can tell?

In the teaser for “Arkangel,” we have a device and a child…
Tone wise, that’s almost within the world of an indie drama — and you could say that’s classic Black Mirror. It’s about a mother and a daughter and a technological opportunity that comes along that’s seized upon .

How did you land Jodie Foster to direct? That’s a huge score.
Netflix had worked with her before and they suggested Jodie. We were like, “Really? You think she would?” We had a Skype conversation during which I managed to keep my cool and not freak out. She responded to the script and she had a lot of thoughts and suggestions on the characters so there were a lot of adjustments. She’s not just a gun for hire, she’s incredibly intelligent and comes in with some thoughts on the material. Which is what you want in a director because each story is a stand-alone , so you want each to be idiosyncratic to that director. And she brought a lot of that.

“U.S.S. Callister” is the WTF of the clips…
It certainly sticks out. Last time when we first released some images it was “San Junipero” that threw , and that’s certainly the case with “Callister” this time around. In a way, is what it appears to be… and also obviously this is also Black Mirror. There’s certainly more to it than meets the eye.

Are they are other inspirations for that one other than the obvious — Star Trek?
There definitely was but if I say what it is then it gives it away. I will say there have been questions about how is Black Mirror going to address Trump and Brexit and the way the world is now. I kept saying, “Well it isn’t, really.” We tried not to think about that. But if you look at “Callister” there are some stuff that leaked in from the outside world. There is stuff that has to do with regimes, you could say, that’s not there and also very much there.

The vibe I got from “Crocodile” is isolation and paranoia. How far off am I?
Not entirely off! No one has guessed what that one’s about yet, probably because it’s got the most opaque title of all of them. That title tells you nothing, in the way that Reservoir Dogs doesn’t tell you anything about Reservoir Dogs. It’s a title that was echoing around in my head for all sorts of reasons that have no relation what’s going on there. So I’m happy to keep it that way. It’s a fairly taut story; it’s kind of a thriller…

For “Hang the DJ” you got the great Tim Van Patten (Game of Thrones) on board to direct and my guess on that one is some sort of dating app twist.
That’s not a million miles away. There’s a hint of that. It’s probably more societal. We’ve gone for lots of different tones this season. There’s a couple more comedic. There’s some that are not nihilistically horrible from beginning to end and there are others that are. This is one that’s more enjoyable .

“Black Museum.” Um, something to do with race relations?
No, a black museum in the U.K. is a crime museum. It’s a phrase I didn’t realize wasn’t a universal phrase. That’s a “Treehouse of Horror.” We did “White Christmas” before. The show itself is an anthology and that was an anthology within an anthology. I always wanted to do another one of those and that’s what this is. You’re getting several stories. “Tales from the Black Museum” we could have called it. There’s quite a lot going on there. We do little nods and winks to previous stories we’ve done.

Which is not something you normally ever do, right?
Right. My position on this has changed. I used to say “they’re all individual stories.” Emotionally, they are. Sometimes I’d make suggestions for something in a news ticker or a Facebook feed that eludes to other stories. Certainly, by the time I got to “Hated in the Nation” I could have them refer to the case that’s central to “White Bear,” because why not? With “Black Museum” I realized we can build upon previous episodes. The basic rule with Black Mirror is you never have to see another episode of Black Mirror, so it doesn’t matter if “Black Museum” is the first episode you see. But if you have seen the rest you’ll see quite explicit nods — literal plots and devices and references to things we’ve done before.

Wouldn’t it be too horrible if all these things in your show were happening in the same world though?
Well, they are and they’re not. It’s weird. It’s interesting that I’ve now become convinced this is a shared universe and was once convinced it wasn’t. I think I’m right in saying in “Black Museum” we have a reference to every episode we’ve ever done but I’m not sure if they’ll all end up on screen.

Have you started anguishing over the order of the episodes yet?
Yes. We’re pretty sure what opens and closes the season, but we’re still working out the order of what’s in between. We’ve got a real variety of tone again this season. We run the gambit between the most broadly accessible mainstream commercial story we’ve ever done and the most gritty and hard-nosed. In that respect, we’re gonna piss off everyone. Last time we felt opening with “Nosedive” was a good gambit because not only was it a very good episode but it was also accessible and we could ease you into the anthology. This time around we think a little more knowledge about the basic concept so we’re going to open with a bit of an epic. I think also in 2017 people need a bit of f—ing cheering up. Black Mirror might not be the obvious show to call for that — and don’t get me wrong, this is not a series you want to watch like The Waltons — but we’re just looking at the balance of the order. We’ve also got very different lengths — “Callister” is 74 minutes long and some of the other episodes that are below 40 minutes.

I always wrestle over which episode to tell people who have never seen Black Mirror to watch first. Which do you tell people to watch?
I used to say, “Just start at the beginning.” But I recognize that “The National Anthem” is very divisive.

Which is why I don’t tell anyone to start at the beginning.
“National Anthem” is perceived slightly differently in the UK where I’m known for comedy writing background. Going into it cold it’s quite a spoonful. There is no right episode. I would suggest jump into the episode list, scroll up and down, and pick one that appeals to you based on the photo and description. Or pick whichever episode your friends recommended. It’s like a little movie festival, you don’t have to watch all of them. That’s a long way of saying that I don’t know. “Nosedive” is a good place to start for a lot of people.

If you weren’t already assured of an another season beyond this I assume after the Emmy win you’re most definitely assured of another season.
I’m not allowed to say anything about that! Obviously, it’s pretty good to get an Emmy. There will be an update on that soon…

Speaking of that: What was your reaction when your show’s title was called twice at the Emmys for “San Junipero”?
Terror. Because beforehand when we flew out, we saw various websites had the odds of winning and we thought we maybe had a chance in the TV movie category. You never think these things are a done deal — that would be psychotic — but we thought there’s enough of a chance to think about what we would say if we won. But for the writing category I genuinely never entertained the prospect. As soon as they announce you won, there’s a nice warm spike of surprise and joy immediately followed by a massive wave of fear because you hadn’t thought of anything to say. But it was a very pleasant surprise. To win both was flabbergasting.

It’s the most uplifting and optimistic and, therefore, the most incongruent episode of Black Mirror that got the most acclaim. So how does that sit with you given the show’s usual darker tendencies? Does it make you want to explore the lighter side more?
I like to think the reason it’s had a warm reaction is less to do with the optimism and more to do with the characters. I was lucky that the scenario one I thought up was an evocative one. And originally it was a heterosexual couple, so it meant there was a different resonance that came in when that changed, and it forced me to think about the characters in a more three-dimensional way. Certainly, I was more acutely aware of not wanting to f— it up. Obviously, a bit daunting, it’s now a higher bar to clear, you can only fail from here — my characteristically optimistic view on things.

To see an exclusive new photo from Black Mirror season 4, pick up the new issue of Entertainment Weekly on stands Friday. You can buy the whole set of Supernatural covers now, or purchase the individual covers of the group shot, Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki, or Misha Collins. Don’t forget to subscribe for more exclusive interviews and photos, only in EW.

Black Mirror season 4 will premiere later this year.

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The cast and producers of the Amazon series talk the multiverse and Season 3 at New York Comic Con.