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Season 1

The Entire History of You

In the near future, everyone has access to a memory implant that records everything they do, see and hear - a sort of Sky Plus for the brain. You need never forget a face again - but is that always a good thing?

Air date:
December 18, 2011
Writer:
Jesse Armstrong
Director:
Brian Welsh
Air date:
Writer:
Director:
December 18, 2011
Jesse Armstrong
Brian Welsh

Storyline

In the future, thanks to the Grain, a chip which can be implanted on a hard drive in the brain, every single action that a person makes is recorded and may be played back. Liam, a lawyer, married with a child, suspects that his wife Fi is having a fling with the brash Jonas, whom they meet at a dinner party.

Trivia

  • ā€¨Robert Downey Jr. will be producing a film version of this episode and it will be written by Jesse Armstrong
  • When the group of friends is discussing memories at the dinner party, part of the conversation is an implicit reference to the "Memory Wars" of the 1990s, when a battle ensued between different groups of psychotherapists and members of the public, with some cases of "planted memories" (particularly of incest or other sexual transgressions) surfacing. This led to many debates in psychiatric circles in North America and Europe over how memory works and to what degree organic memory could be relied upon to discern truth, particularly as time went on. It appears that this theme was at least part of the inspiration for the episode.
  • This episode revolves around the ability to see memories. The main characters name is Jonas. This is an interesting similarity to the book and movie The Giver in which the main characters name is Jonas and he is assigned to recieve memories.
  • In this episode, the main couple Liam and Fi have a daughter called Jodie. The name of the actress that plays Fi is Jodie Whittaker.
  • French title: Retour sur image.
  • Rhashan Stone and Jimi Mistry starred together in Strike Back Season 2 aka Strike Back: Project Dawn together. Stone played Major Oliver Sinclair and Mistry played Latif in that season. Stone plays Jeff and Mistry plays Paul in this Black Mirror episode.
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