Post#159 Memory the Mender.

I was sure the white sphere that followed Patrick McGoohan around in The Prisoner was marked with an iris to make it a giant eyeball but it turned out Anastasia was right - it was just a plain white sphere.

This was the most recent occasion where I've discovered that my memory has improved or embellished an original. The usual trend with memory is that things fall out. In the case of movies, books, paintings and anything else remotely artistic I discover that the reverse occurs. My own aesthetic sense papers over the failings and produces a fine gloss on what might really be dross.

I received one of my rudest revisions when I saw a special broadcast of an episode of the Doctor Who serial Tomb of the Cybermen. It was a shocker to see the crudity of the sets, the woeful quality of the ham acting and the excruciatingly rough props. An "x-ray laser" pistol prop looked like a piece of jaggedly-sawn water pipe taped to a piece of scrap plastic which, naturally, was exactly what it was.

This was episode 2 of the serial which ends with the release of the Cyberleader from his compartment.



This was my favourite moment from the serial and it's not as badly divergent from memory as much else but it's still not great. The scene where the Cyberleader is released shows a door being opened and the Cyberleader sitting on a step inside. In my memory, which is superior, of course, the cybermen lift the hatch and place it to the side, rather than opening it on a hinge and then reach in and help the cyberleader to stand. The whole appearance is more dramatic and ritual.