--- title: Black Mirror S4: Karl Pilkington May Have Predicted the Plot description: A YouTube video makes the case that Netflix owes Karl Pilkington some royalties for stories on the latest season of Black Mirror canonical: https://time.com/5084002/black-mirror-karl-pilkington-prediction/ author: Melissa Locker article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-01-02T16:34:16.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:49:28.477Z og:title: Did Karl Pilkington Predict These Black Mirror Plotlines? og:description: A YouTube video makes the case that Netflix owes Pilkington some royalties og:url: https://time.com/5084002/black-mirror-karl-pilkington-prediction/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt27a009dd71bf7f4d/6988f5c597cdff4abb6b3b1c/black-mirror-netflix.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2405 og:image:height: 1353 og:image:alt: black-mirror-netflix og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Did Karl Pilkington Predict These Black Mirror Plotlines? twitter:description: A YouTube video makes the case that Netflix owes Pilkington some royalties twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt27a009dd71bf7f4d/6988f5c597cdff4abb6b3b1c/black-mirror-netflix.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Did Karl Pilkington Predict These Wild _Black Mirror_ Plotlines? > Sponsored content. 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It curates the day's top headlines with TIME's reporting and analysis across politics, world affairs, business, health and culture. It is free to join at time.com/newsletters. #### How do I sign up for The Brief? The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-brief-2026q3/newsletters?i=1417d7dd-0295-4230-a350-560918369e21&cr=time-nl-brief-2026q3-v1) by [Melissa Locker](https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/) ## Melissa Locker Jan 2, 2018 4:34 PM UTC  From left: Anjana Vasan, Janie Booth, and Paapa Essiedu in Black Mirror season 6 From left: Anjana Vasan, Janie Booth, and Paapa Essiedu in Black Mirror season 6 Nick Wall—Netflix by [Melissa Locker](https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/) ## Melissa Locker Jan 2, 2018 4:34 PM UTC **Warning**: If you haven’t watched the fourth season of [_Black Mirror_](http://time.com/5048852/black-mirror-season-4-review/?iid=sr-link1), there are some light spoilers ahead. _The_ _Ricky Gervais Show_ regular Karl Pilkington might have predicted stories from the latest season of _Black Mirror_? Viewers noticed the similarities between Pilkington’s wild ideas and two plotlines that show up in the _Black Mirror_ episode “Black Museum,” which combines several mini stories into one hour-long show. To highlight the similarities, a fan helpfully put together a YouTube video combining clips from [_Black Mirror_](http://time.com/3449069/jon-hamm-black-mirror/?iid=sr-link8) with Pilkington’s explanation. One of the stories involves a grieving husband who has his wife’s consciousness transferred into his own head. It’s a wild idea, made even wilder by the fact that Pilkington pitched something similar to Ricky Gervais back in 2007\. [According to _Metro_](http://metro.co.uk/2017/12/30/karl-pilkington-predict-two-stories-black-mirror-season-4-7192873/?ito=cbshare), Pilkington’s film idea was called _The Love Of Two Brains_ and involved a wife agreeing to add a her husband’s mind to her own. While the [_Black Mirror_](http://time.com/4529439/sci-fi-evolves-into-disturbing-reality-in-black-mirror-and-westworld/?iid=sr-link10) premise gets much darker than what Pilkington discussed, it’s certainly a similar idea. That’s not the only similarity, though. Another mini-story involves a doctor who has a device implanted into his brain that allows him to feel the symptoms of patients wearing a headset. Pilkington mentioned a similar idea in the 2008 audiobook _The Ricky Gervais Guide To… Medicine_, which was later recreated on _The Ricky Gervais Show._[In the clip](https://youtu.be/OT0l1io7ZYQ), Pilkington called his invention the “doctor machine” and said it would transfer symptoms between patient and doctor for diagnostic purposes. Of course, the idea isn’t wholly new. As [_Heavy_ notes](http://heavy.com/entertainment/2017/12/penn-jilette-pain-addict-black-mirror-museum-buy/), Black Mirror credits magician Penn Jillette’s short story called [_Pain Addict_](http://heavy.com/entertainment/2017/12/penn-jilette-pain-addict-black-mirror-museum-buy/) as inspiration for the segment. The story was based on Jillette’s time in a hospital where a language gap made him yearn for a device that could make his doctor understand his symptoms. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5084002/black-mirror-karl-pilkington-prediction/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5084002/black-mirror-karl-pilkington-prediction/"},"headline":"Did Karl Pilkington Predict These Wild Black Mirror Plotlines?","datePublished":"2018-01-02T16:34:16.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:49:28.477Z","description":"A YouTube video makes the case that Netflix owes Pilkington some royalties","url":"https://time.com/5084002/black-mirror-karl-pilkington-prediction/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Television","Netflix"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt27a009dd71bf7f4d/6988f5c597cdff4abb6b3b1c/black-mirror-netflix.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Melissa Locker","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt27a009dd71bf7f4d/6988f5c597cdff4abb6b3b1c/black-mirror-netflix.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"black-mirror-netflix","caption":"black-mirror-netflix","creditText":"Nick Wall—Netflix","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5084002/black-mirror-karl-pilkington-prediction/","name":"Did Karl Pilkington Predict These Wild Black Mirror Plotlines?"}}]}] ```