Discover

"'A Clean Escape'" is the first episode of ''Masters of Science Fiction'' which aired August 4, 2007. Based on a John Kessel short story by the same name, the story was adapted for the screen by Sam Egan and directed by Mark Rydell. It starred Sam Waterston as Robert Hovelmann and Judy Davis as Major Dr. Deanna Evens.

Contents

Opening narration

Plot

Closing narration

External links

Opening narration

:''"Are there events so impossible to forget that they become too painful to remember?"''

Plot

Dr. Deanna Evans is a psychiatrist who finds out that she has terminal cancer. For the past 10 months she has been treating a patient named Robert Hovelmann, who has a form of anterograde amnesia. Hovelmann has forgotten the past 24 years and so believes it is 2007, that he is 41 and is running a technology company doing work for the Pentagon. Evans is obsessed with getting Hovelmann to recover his memory so that he can be held accountable for his actions.
It turns out that he is currently the president of the United States of America, which has a population of 871. When he was in charge of the technological company, he didn't listen to his advisers who told him a weapon they created had a defect and he again didn't listen to his advisers when he was president and used this weapon. In doing so, he started a chain reaction causing a nuclear holocaust, leaving the only known survivors the 900-odd people in a bunker in Virginia.
Dr. Evans then shows the president images of his wife Dorothy, burnt to a crisp by the nuclear explosion. This causes Hovelmann to temporarily overcome his amnesia and recall all the memories from the past 24 years, and he breaks down, crying over his mistakes and his losses. Dr. Evans then pulls out a gun and brandishes it at Hovelmann. It is revealed later that Dr. Evans did not shoot Hovelmann, but herself. Hovelmann is shown later, the anterograde amnesia taking over again, continuing to see a new doctor, one of Dr. Evans' colleagues.

Closing narration

:''"When the fate of so many rests in the hands of so few, can the failure to be accountable ever be forgiven?"''

External links

★ Review of the episode (La Lamina Corredora)