History Series / BlackMirrorSeriesOne

* DownerEnding: Completing the set, this ending sees [[spoiler: Liam without a job and without his family, cutting out his grain which risks leaving him blind]].

* UsefulNotes/{{Dogme 95}}: Two characters discuss whether the list of demands about the filming of the video - meant to make it as hard as possible to fake - are references to the movement.

* SoundtrackDissonance: Used to great effect with ''Anyone Who Knows What Love Is'' - Abi sings a cover on ''Hot Shot'' and Irma Thomas's original version plays over the credits. While the schmaltzy version of ''I Have A Dream'' is very fitting as we're introduced to this made-up world, a sweet song about experiencing love as something real sounds depressingly ironic as we leave it.

* StreisandEffect: In-Universe. They tried to take down the video on YouTube, but it only made even more popular. The news tried to censor it by not talking about it, but it only made popular on social media.

* [[spoiler:DownerEnding: The Prime Minister does... ''it'', saves the princess and even boosts his political career after the act (if only because everyone felt both awe and sorry for him). The ending shows that he's been destroyed ''as a person'' anyway, traumatized and with an utterly destroyed marriage. And it turns out he didn't even need to go through with it in the first place.]]

* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:While Bing gets a bigger degree of freedom and comfort, he becomes part of the entertainment he hates while looking at trees he'll never touch, and it is strongly implied he is still longing for Abi and the emotional connection he felt to her. Meanwhile, Abi is doped out her mind, exploited, and filmed for the pleasure of thousands... if not millions]].

* {{Foreshadowing}}: Bing is trying to talk with Abi but is interrupted a couple of times by the ads for the porn programme "Wraith Babes". It seems a funny RunningGag at the beginning, [[spoiler:but it's '''really not''']].

* ShaggyDogStory: [[spoiler:Not only has Bing chosen to buy into the celebrity status his rant gave him instead of actually making a moral stand, it's even possible that he's decided to do so of ''his own free will''. Abi drank from the Cuppliance and succumbed to the pressure of being forced to go into porn, whereas Bing snuck into the auditions without partaking of it and yet metaphorically followed the same path to fame as she did]].

* [[WeWillSpendCreditsInTheFuture We Will Spend Merits In The Future]]: Merits are this world's currency.

* JerkJustifications: After finding out that his wife [[spoiler:may be cheating, the main character of this episode absolutely ''loses it'', including self-medicating with alcohol, screaming at his wife, and assaulting the man he suspects her of cheating with]]. His behavior becomes so irrational and angry that it is not hard to see how a viewer could fear for the lives of the other characters in the story.

* WhosYourDaddy: It's pretty heavily implied that [[spoiler: Jonas]] is Jodie's father, [[LawOfInverseFertility given that the couple were trying for a baby at the time]].

* YourCheatingHeart: Turns out Ffion did [[spoiler: have a relationship with Jonas]] when they fell out for a week, and he might be the father of her child.

* ComeToGawk: Everyone in the UK watches the broadcast either for amusement. Even those expressing disgust at others for watching are watching it themselves in horror.

* JerkJustifications: After finding out that his wife may be cheating, the main character of this episode absolutely ''loses it'', including self-medicating with alcohol, screaming at his wife, and assaulting the man he suspects her of cheating with. His behavior becomes so irrational and angry that it is not hard to see how a viewer could fear for the lives of the other characters in the story.
* LittleWhiteLie: A fib about the length of a relationship with an old boyfriend kicks off the drama.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: Bing is trying to talk with Abi but is interrupted a couple of times by the ads for the porn programme "Wraith Babes". It seems a funny RunningGag at the beginning, but it's '''really not'''.

* JerkJock: Dustin liked ''Botherguts''"... and when he's not busy laughing at fat people he can be found abusing the cleaners and leering at violent porn.

* DownerEnding: While Bing gets a bigger degree of freedom and comfort, he becomes part of the entertainment he hates while looking at trees he'll never touch, and it is strongly implied he is still longing for Abi and the emotional connection he felt to her. Meanwhile, Abi is doped out her mind, exploited, and filmed for the pleasure of thousands... if not millions.

* HopelessAuditionees: The silver-haired Scouse woman plays this role. The show keeps her waiting for what must be months before letting her on, just to tell her to go home.

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Oh Bing, you should have just let Abi stay on her bicycle.

* PantsPositiveSafety: Where Bing hides the makeshift glass dagger. Fortunately the ''Hot Shot'' judges don't ask him to take a seat.

* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: [[spoiler: Bing delivers one when he gets onto Hot Shot, and all it gets him is a spot on a TV channel, where he can rant and rave and just be another part of the landscape]].
* TruthSerum: Cuppliance is more of an obedience serum which is forced on all ''Hot Shot'' contestants.

** The show is a satire of TheXFactor... and it's co-written by Konnie Huq, former presenter of "The Xtra Factor" spinoff show (she's also Charlie Brooker's wife).

%%* BestialityIsDepraved

%%* DistressedDamsel

* [[spoiler:DownerEnding: The Prime Minister does...''it'', saves the princess and even boosts his political career after the act. The ending shows that he's been destroyed ''as a person'' anyway, traumatised and with an utterly destroyed marriage. And it turns out he didn't even need to go through with it in the first place.]]

** The show is a satire of TheXFactor... and it's written by Konnie Huq, former presenter of "The Xtra Factor" spinoff show.

%%* {{Fingore}}

%%* HostageSituation

* StreisandEffect: They tried to take down the video on YouTube, but it only made even more popular. The news tried to censor it by not talking about it, but it only made popular on social media.

[[CaptainErsatz Princess Susannah]] is kidnapped while the abductor taunts the police and press by releasing videos on the internet. The singular demand? That the Prime Minister [[Squick have sexual intercourse with a pig on live television.]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjfw5mr6fQ8 Trailer here (obviously NSFW)]]

[[CaptainErsatz Princess Susannah]] is kidnapped while the abductor taunts the police and press by releasing videos on the internet. The singular demand? That the Prime Minister have sexual intercourse with a pig on live television. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjfw5mr6fQ8 Trailer here (obviously NSFW)]]

* [[TakeThat Take That, David Cameron!]]: Although played with; while the Callow[=/=]Cameron links are there, and Callow isn't exactly a paragon of humanity himself, he is ultimately sympathetic and his experiences are ultimately ''not'' something to be laughed at or dismissed.

** Especially telling is [[spoiler: Bing going on a national TV show in front of a panel of judges and threatening to slit his throat in protest]], an idea that Brooker floated years before in one of his ScreenBurn editorials.

%%* [[TakeThat Take that, X-Factor!]]

%%* [[WeWillSpendCreditsInTheFuture We Will Spend Merits In The Future]]

* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Princess Susannah is basically a cross between Princess Diana - widely popular among the public and a campaigner for good causes - and Kate Middleton - a fashionable recent university graduate, only recently married.
** Michael Callow is fairly clearly intended to be at least reminiscent of UsefulNotes/DavidCameron (who, incidentally, episode writer CharlieBrooker has an intense hatred of).

* EnhanceButton: Regardless of the distance or clarity of an event, the "grain" can zoom close enough to read lips and examine facial expressions, even if the event was across the room. Taken to the extreme when [[spoiler: Liam loads a memory where he briefly looked indirectly at a TV, before zooming so far into the said TV that he can clearly see what the people in the background of the footage are doing]].

* SelfDeprecation: In the last few scenes, [[spoiler:Bing]] is a fairly obvious Charlie Brooker parallel. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tY5It0jnD6M His speech]] sounds a lot like [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59OJ17raqWw some of Charlie's angrier pieces]]... [[spoiler:and promptly gets resold as a twice-weekly TV show. He becomes richer and more famous, but stays just as empty inside]].

The only distraction in a {{Dystopian}} life of endless physical toil is a series of tedious games and TV talent shows on every screen, which people can enter at the cost of work tokens. This episode's premiere screening was [[MeaningfulReleaseDate deliberately scheduled]] to begin on {{Channel 4}} immediately after the 2011 final of ''TheXFactor'' ended over on {{ITV}}(1). [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqTyZoupc1w Trailer here.]]

** It also plays during [[spoiler:Abi's porn]].

** Not entirely without merit as an idea. If the grain can record and retrieve stored visual information from the brain, remember that the human eye captures incredibly high-resolution images at very fast rates.
*** Ish. The retina is ~80 megapixels, but the optic nerve has only ~10 megabits/second of bandwidth. If you want speed of update, it can only be for a small region of interest... your brain fills in the gaps as best it can. The area of maximum visual acuity on the retina (the fovea) is pretty small, too.

* BitingTheHandHumor: The show is a satire of TheXFactor... and it's written by Konnie Huq, former presenter of "The Xtra Factor" spinoff show.
** And produced by a subsidiary of Endemol, the producers of BigBrother.