Todd Sampson returns to the 10 Network this week for the new season of Mirror Mirror. The two-part series Mirror Mirror: Love & Hate, will air on Monday, October 10 and Tuesday, October 11, at 7.30pm on 10 and 10 Play.
Mirror Mirror kicked off last year as the series explored the societal crisis of body image dissatisfaction and the manipulative trillion-dollar industry that profits from it. Over the two nights, Sampson lifted the lid on the beauty industry and explored how people’s obsession with looks is exploited by the fitness, diet, and pornography industries and how an image-obsessed culture can easily lead to disorder.
Now, the series will follow Sampson as he explores how the internet is changing us and what we can do about it.
Mediaweek caught up with Sampson to discuss what viewers can expect from the new series, who said that expanding Mirror Mirror was always part of his plan.
“I had seen Mirror Mirror as a broad concept that was about reflecting back society to us. I’ve had a number of different ideas and different things that I think could work within that series. One was the internet, which arguably, we’re on the cusp of one of the biggest crisis of society ever.”
Considering that season 1 of Mirror Mirror touched heavily on the internet as well, as part of its investigation into body image dissatisfaction, Sampson said that he wasn’t concerned over retreading similar ground.
“It’s not a problem when the topic is as deep and as wide as the internet. We didn’t really cover body image satisfaction in this. Except there’s one moment in the suicide segments where we realised that the young woman had been suffering body image dissatisfaction. The point that we we’re making there is that Facebook, and Instagram knew about the correlation between body image dissatisfaction and Instagram. This was from their own internal research that they buried for two years until Frances Haugen drew attention to this research.”
Working with a commercial network
The placement of Mirror Mirror in a primetime weeknight slot was a brave move by 10 last year, and one that the broadcaster is doubling down on now by airing the second series in the same timeslot. The show pushes the envelope of what is considered primetime material with its naturally confrontining nature. When asked about working with a commercial network on a project like this, Sampson said that he has had nothing but support from 10.
“I don’t really have that feeling that most people talk about when they talk about a commercial network. I have never had any restrictions from channel 10. They’ve been incredibly supportive, even of the most controversial content. I don’t know what that commercial filter is, because I don’t have that.
“What I did understand is that the show appealed to a lot of young audience and it appealed to a lot of parents with young kids at home and it was in the 7:30pm primetime slot. The opening scene of this new series is quite shocking and it will be for a lot of people. We needed to allow people to use their mind’s eye than for us to be explicit. It’s illegal for us to be explicit, it would have been illegal for us to be explicit even at 8:30pm It’s that graphic.”
What to expect from Mirror Mirror: Love and Hate
When discussing the show, one situation in particular featuring the popular online platform Omegle came up. While understanding that the situation might seem controversial, Sampson said that the purpose of the show isn’t to push the envelope.
“We’re on the borderline there. We went with a former police officer who was dedicated to cybersecurity and a actress who played a 14 year old, who was actually 19. We went on Omegle, and it was unbelievable. She was groomed within 10 minutes and there was someone masturbating and at one stage, I couldn’t take it anymore. I shouldn’t have dont it but it’s not on camera, I ran to the front of the camera and said, “you should be in fucking prison”. He went blank on the screen. and then I went back to controlling what was being said, and the actors couldn’t see anything. As I got back he went back to masturbating, and it’s the same fellow who tried to groom me on WhatsApp. This is all within 10 minutes of being on on the app.
“The intent is not to be shocking or even to push the envelope. Young kids watching that will have known about this for years, so that’s not the point. The point is to explore the world in a way that has impact and in a way that’s practical for people so that they can learn what they can do, as opposed to just feeling paralised.”
Todd Sampson standing in on a hair transplant in season 1
The characters that make Mirror Mirror
The heart and soul of the series in season one was multi dimensional characters that allowed Sampson to tell the story from a personalised point of view. Sampson said that this once again the case this year.
“All of it is seen through the eyes of those that are experiencing it, every segment. It’s all true. There’s no theory, obviously the experts come in and they explain things and they get practical tools, but we really see the world through the eyes of those living it. For me, that’s what interests me the most. Those are the stories I like telling.”
Sampson’s most well known work for 10 was his series Body Hack which saw Sampson himself actively get involved in the subject matter, for Mirror Mirror he said it was a conscious decision to step away from that style.
“I made a very conscious choice to not do that as much in the series because I don’t want to be a distraction. I don’t want it to become about me. I fully immerse myself in their world. I’m there with them. I don’t judge them. I hear them out. It’s not a debate. It’s not a gotcha series. A lot of this was emotional for me, I cried more in this series than I cried in all of Body Hack combined.”
The Future of Mirror Mirror
When asked about the future of the series, Sampson said that he already has a couple of ideas in mind.
“There’s plenty to do. I’m just working those things out now. I get very myopic when I’m film making, so I spent eight months only thinking about this, it’s all I can think about when this is on.”
Created and written by Todd Sampson, Mirror Mirror: Love & Hate is a Baltimore Films production for Network 10.