Talk:The Entire History of You

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 14 August 2019 and 7 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Blusolace. Peer reviewers: Cavaliergirl96, Daisja30.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 04:09, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Un-redirected

Per WP:PARENDIS, the title of this article should be The Entire History of You. Copied and pasted back from The Entire History of You (Black Mirror) since move was made impossible. This was the only edit since the original spurious copy-paste. Lagrange613 03:02, 4 May 2016 (UTC)

Grammar issue I can't fix without more info

"a memory of he and Ffion having sex about 18 months ago": the "he" should be either "him" or "himself" (as in the simpler phrase "a memory of him having sex"), but does it refer to Jonas or to Liam? I can't remember how the episode went. Equinox ◑ 11:20, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

It refers to Jonas. Which is correct for this—"him" or "himself"? I would find both confusing; it might be better to reword the sentence to name Jonas explicitly (while avoiding repetition of his name). Would this work: "Liam replays the last few memories before the crash to figure out what happened. He discovers that Jonas had a memory of having sex with Ffion"? Even this might be a bit difficult for a reader to parse though. — Bilorv_(c)(talk) 12:36, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

Potential image improvements

To support the information from Inside Black Mirror about the episode being set in 2050 and the houses being designed around a "mid-century feel" of stone, wood and metal, we could use something like [1], which also shows the usage of the grain technology (I can perhaps find a slightly better frame than that one). To depict the grain tech itself and a little bit of the "tree rings" design, we could have a simple frame of the grain being used e.g. [2] or even a composite of a person's milky eyes and their grain feed [3]. — Bilorv (talk) 10:19, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:The Entire History of You/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: The Rambling Man (talk · contribs) 20:28, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Comments

• "and develops jealousy and paranoia " too many ands here, maybe "becoming jealous and paranoid"?
• " critics highlighting " would work better for me with "with" before critics.
• Just a thought, a lot of the world refer to mobile phones as cell phones, is it worth linking mobile phone?
• "to steal it." might be worth noting that it was to hack into it to retrieve those personal memories.
  • This was in an earlier draft. It is important, but difficult to word because it's most discussed through speculation/implication. But Hallam does say Stolen to order, as far as [the authorities] could tell. I've changed to: to steal it, likely to sell her memories.
• "that she wanted him to" this reads awkwardly for me, I'm struggling to re-word right now...
  • I was going to change it to that she was the one who wanted Jonas to come with them but I've had to cut the point for the word count. Let me know if you think this was a crucial detail.
• "watching re-does of" re-do seems to be an in-universe term for replaying scenes from the grain, as such it feels unexplained here.
  • Yeah, first paragraph now says he repeatedly watches the "re-do" on his "grain", an implant which records footage from his eyes and ears and allows it to be replayed. After looking again, I now think this needs quite detailed exposition for readers who haven't seen it, as there's a lot of ways of misinterpreting the technology.
• " Gina awakes" awakens? or "wakes up"?
• "who had sex with Jonas the previous night" do we know that?
  • Not for certain. See the below point. (Unrelatedly: this was the first rewatch where I noticed Jonas says he had a "backup plan" when Liam asks him to leave, and Liam tells him "well, invoke the backup". His backup presumably being to hookup with Hallam.)
• "is alarmed" - doesn't she call the police?
  • One of the details I was annoyed to drop to fit in the word count, she calls the police and they hang up on her because she doesn't have a grain. I've changed the Hallam sentence to Hallam calls the police. because I think that's the most important detail, and describing anything else about Hallam in this scene takes too many words. It now doesn't explain why Hallam is at Jonas' place, so if you think that's confusing then let me know and I'll have another think.
• "the time Jody was conceived" no mention of Jody at this point, perhaps add her with the first mention of the babysitter?
  • Huh, an error from when I was cutting for the word limit. That's where it used to be first mentioned. Now their babysitter Gina (Mona Goodwin), who was looking after their daughter Jody, to sleep upstairs.
• "Charlie Brooker" is overlinked.
• " stories "still have meat"." strictly I would put the ref after this quote as well as the following two.
• Not clear on when you put "grain" in quotes and when you don't.
  • Should be first mention only, in practice sometimes that means 'first time I write it in an edit'. Now in quotes twice: first mention in lead and first in body (plot summary).
• "while Jodie Whittaker was cast as his wife Ffion. Whittaker was" She was (to avoid unnecessary repetition of her surname).
• "it is the size of a grain of rice." would it be more apt to say "it resembles a grain of rice"?
  • I don't know how close the resemblance is. We see it briefly when Jonas pulls his out and it's a dull black object, right? I'm not actually convinced it is as small as rice, but Armstrong definitely says it's that size. (The theory I adopt is "it was marketed as the size of a grain of rice", but this is definitely original research.)
• " being "milked out". " later you discuss what using the grain looks like but this description is omitted.
  • Repeated the quote in Analysis.
• Having watched it a few times now, I'd be interested to know what the "a small ray of hope" was that the reviewer noted!
  • Source says: This is one of those Black Mirror episodes with an ending so painful for the main character that it can be difficult to watch. The conclusion is one that comments on what it means to be human, and though it is exceptionally dark there is a small ray of hope hinted at as well. I think the idea here is that Liam is at least free of the grain by the end of the episode. I know a lot of viewers interpret that Liam went blind or suffered brain damage (it's mentioned that gouging can cause this at the dinner table with Hallam) or perhaps died from blood loss, but I'm with Doyle here. I see the ending a bit like Nosedive's: the character has hit rock bottom and they've got a chance at redemption and trying to unhook from the system they live in. Anyway, I've changed the text to it ends with "a small ray of hope" so the quote hopefully means a bit more to readers.
• "a baby's feed to ensure the babysitter " I know what you mean but feed in this context could be confusing!
  • Now audiovisual feed, definitely an important distinction.
• " can be good " -> "could be good" surely?
• "only bad action in" bad is odd here, inappropriate perhaps?
• I think "Liam [...] found " should be "Liam ... found " i.e. non-breaking space followed by three full stops, no square brackets.

That's all I have, thanks for the privilege of making me watch it again and enjoying it again! On hold. Cheers. The Rambling Man (Stay indoors, stay safe!!!!) 10:58, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

All addressed, some with comments. Another thing is that I've got a couple of potential alternatives here for the lead image, so let me know if you've got any thoughts on what the most importance feature of the episode to display is. — Bilorv (talk) 22:31, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Happy with the amendments, and if I was to choose a fair use image which would stand up to scrutiny, I'd go for the composite you linked in the section above. I'll leave it to you to do that if you're happy, and promote in the mean time. Thanks again for the chance to do this one. Good work. The Rambling Man (Stay indoors, stay safe!!!!) 08:53, 27 May 2020 (UTC)