History Recap / PhilipKDicksElectricDreamsS1E2ImpossiblePlanet

* EstablishingCharacterMoment: Brian Norton waxing lyrical in his tour guide narration about the beauty of the nebula while quietly loading up a graphical enhancement when it doesn't show up with the desired vividness. Andrews, meanwhile, ignoring everything going on abovedecks to watch porn.

* NotHisSled: The [[EverythingThereIsToKnowAboutTheCryingGame whole point]] of the original story is that Emphor III was EarthAllAlong. This time, we are explicitly told that Earth's total destruction is a basic, known fact, a la "[[Literature/AChristmasCarol Marley was dead]]", and moreover told that this is a setting where [[GreatBigLibraryOfEverything humans have exhaustively mapped and catalogued the entire universe]]. Aside from the superficial similarity of being the third of nine planets, with one moon -- which is what Andrews was searching for in the database -- Emphor III ''cannot'' be Earth. [[AmbiguousEnding And yet...]]

* EarthAllAlong: Subverted. We are explicitly told that Earth's total destruction is a basic, known fact, a la "[[Literature/AChristmasCarol Marley was dead]]", and moreover told that this is a setting where [[GreatBigLibraryOfEverything humans have exhaustively mapped and catalogued the entire universe]]. Aside from the superficial similarity of being the third of nine planets, with one moon -- which is what Andrews was searching for in the database -- Emphor III ''cannot'' be Earth. [[AmbiguousEnding And yet...]]

* ComicallySmallBribe: Andrews initially tries to get rid of Irma with a coupon for a free cocktail at the hotel, while [[DeadpanSnaker effusively praising his own generosity]].

* MadLibsDialogue: The hilariously impersonal video form letter Norton gets from Linus Primo denying his promotion.

* IdenticalGrandson: Played with. Brian looks ''exactly'' like Irma's grandfather, Bill Gordon -- but, as far as we know, they're not biologically related, though he may be his reincarnation.

* LostCommonKnowledge: Irma's initial monologue requires her to explain concepts like what oak trees are, and [=RB29=] apparently can't help her put on her dress because physical fasteners are now obsolete. She remembers the location of the town of Elk River only as "Carolina", and even though [[HiddenDepths Andrews knows that Mars is the name of the god of war]], he appears ignorant that it was also once known as the "Red Planet".

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: [[spoiler: It seems like the rational explanation for the AmbiguousEnding is that Brian and Irma are dying of oxygen deprivation and only imagining that Emphor III has magically transformed into Old Earth. But the bizarre coincidence that Brian looks just like Irma's grandfather and the strange dreams he's had about Earth before even meeting her indicate something deeper may be happening.]]

* FakeRealTurn: Something like this happens with Norton, where the initial idea to do the bare minimum to keep their con intact -- a quick flyby of Emphor III -- turns into a quixotic desire to get as close to fulfilling Irma's TragicDream as possible, until he's willing to risk death to make it happen.

* DeathWorld: The real Emphor III.

* SpontaneousSeamlessLie: Just at the moment Irma is about to PullTheThread and expose Andrews and Norton's con job, [=RB29=] suddenly comes up with a detailed story about how a "solar event" caused all of the discrepancies between the Sol and Emphor systems, having come to the decision to become TheShill rather than expose them.

* ArtisticLicenseGeography: There is no municipality called "Elk River" in either North or South Carolina (yet, anyway), although there is a river called the Elk River in North Carolina and Tennessee, bordering a town called Elk Park. [[spoiler: Moreover, the "Elk River" that appears in the ending is a clear case of CaliforniaDoubling -- and there is an Elk River, California.]] This is intentional, since all knowledge of the place was lost except for Irma's half-remembered stories from centuries ago.