So I have noticed a TV trend in recent years toward more dark, gritty, and pessimistic programming. I have to say, it’s starting to get a bit old. Not that this trend has not produced some amazing work; everything from “House of Cards” to “Game of Thrones” to “Jessica Jones” exemplifies how anti-heroes, moral relativism and dark humor can create compelling television.

Sometimes, though, you have to wonder, does TV have to rely on unearthing the worst aspects of humanity? Can TV today be both brilliant and optimistic? I was unsure of the answer, until I watched what I consider the best episode of television this year, “San Junipero."

Optimism is not a detriment to great TV. In fact, it can be its greatest strength.

If you have yet to see “San Junipero,” a stand-alone episode of “Black Mirror,” a Netflix Sci-Fi anthology series, go watch it now. Seriously, you won’t be disappointed. I’ll wait.

(*Requisite spoiler warning*)

You back?

“San Junipero,” the episode title, refers to a resort town in 1987, where a shy, awkward girl, Yorkie, meets a self-assured, vivacious girl, Kelly. They flirt and dance around each other (both figuratively and literally), as we realize that San Junipero is not as it appears. As Kelly and Yorkie unravel their own baggage -- the former’s grief over the death of her husband and her own mortality, and the latter's inexperience and intense desire to start over -- we realize that this town is not in Florida or California, but a virtual reality. You can spend five hours a week in this virtual paradise, where you can be able-bodied, young, and without material concerns, or you can “retire” and spend your entire afterlife in San Junipero.

Stories like this often end with a condemnation on humanity, with technology and selfishness as the moral nail in the hero's proverbial coffin. Instead, we get something unexpected -- we get a happy ending. Kelly and Yorkie “retire,” or spend their afterlife in the seemingly perfect (but, of course, still flawed -- it was created by humanity, after all) paradise. They choose to spend however long paradise lasts together. They get to start over; they get a second chance to be happy, to be in love, to just be people.

All while “Heaven is a Place on Earth” plays in the background.

There is so much in this episode that works. The sets and costume design are over-the-top 1987, or 1997, or 2002, depending what world our characters are visiting. This is not humanity as it is, but how we wish it to be. Everyone is young and beautiful, because everyone imagines their best selves, or at least the selves they want the world to see.

Charlie Brooker, the series' creator, manages to maintain both a sweet love story and a science-fiction epic, giving great material to his even greater actors.

Kelly, portrayed by bonafide movie star Gugu Mbatha-Raw, is brash, bold, and fun. When you first see Kelly, she’s dismissing a previous flame and gliding into a club, all shoulder pads, big hair and attitude. You never doubt why Yorkie is enamored. And even more impressively, you empathize with the impossible choice she has to make: to honor the love of her life, or to start a new life with someone she could love, even as she hurts those around her, including herself.

Mackenzie Davis’ Yorkie is anxiety in Coke bottle glasses and truly dreadful tan, pleated shorts. Davis, without over-acting or melodrama, longs for a life she was denied. She longs to be in love, to live a full and free life. Yorkie wants so much to be like Kelly, and yet, is authentically herself, for better or for worse.

The episode hinges on their chemistry, and boy, does it deliver. Lines like, “I’m regarding you," “Can’t you make this easy on me?” and “Hi, stupid" are in turn charming, heartbreaking, and unbelievably sweet. The relationship is so good you could almost ignore the sci-fi elements... Almost.

This episode brings up questions about morality, religion and technology that we could be discussing at the water cooler into the next year: Can you travel to other “San Junipero”s? Ones that look like Paris or Dubai? What would be the political and academic debate about “nostalgia therapy”? Is the entire practice playing God? Is it morally corrupt to not go through the process of death like everyone else? Can you die, go to San Junipero and then change your mind? Is it morally corrupt not to give someone the option to live in this manufactured heaven, if that's what they choose? What happens if the warehouse where our two heroes consciousnesses reside burns down? Or what if a soul got misplaced?

I could keep going.

The mark of truly good science-fiction is its ability to tap into an audience's curiosity and morality, but that is not the only thing that makes this episode extraordinary.

Art doesn’t exist in a bubble, and with a contentious political climate and a queer character epidemic, “San Junipero” is a breath of fresh air. It’s ironic that the famously bleak “Black Mirror” allowed its audience to be hopeful, to look at both love and technology as attributes of humanity, not its fatal flaw. This message is made even more poignant when you consider that people like Kelly and Yorkie are so often told that they are undeserving of this hope, of this happy ending.

“San Junipero” affirms minoritized people’s humanity by giving us a surprisingly rare happy ending. How can we say that representation doesn’t matter when it gives people hope for a better world? Whether it is “Commander in Chief” foreshadowing a female president in 2005, or the first interracial kiss on “Star Trek” in the 1960s.

Kelly and Yorkie are not anti-heroes, and they do not commit unspeakable acts. They are good people trying to figure out an increasingly difficult and complicated world -- people who find that the bravest thing that they can do is live and love fully. Sound familiar?

There’s a familiar saying when it comes to representation: “You can’t be what you can’t see." I do believe that we can be what we can’t see, but it makes it infinitely harder. Kelly and Yorkie made it just a little bit easier.

Thank you, “Black Mirror."