Review Welcome to Paradox (1998) - episode 10 "All Our Sins Forgotten"

Do you forgive the writers for this episode? Grade it now.

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Mad-Pac

Member: Rank 5
Aired Oct 12, 1998 on Syfy

Dr. Ovid Brazil develops a machine capable of transferring one person's memories to another. But it soon becomes apparent the cost is greater than he thought on the recipient.


CAST


Henry Rollins ... Dr. Ovid Brazil
Brendan Fletcher ... Rudy
Bernie Coulson ... Frank Daskin
Sarah Strange ... Dr. Newman
Claudette Carracedo ... Rwanda
Michael Philip ... The Host
Alice Poon ... Claire Brazil
Jasmin Dring ... Rwanda's Mother
Terry Barclay ... Rwanda's Father (as Terry J. Barclay)
Michael Sunczyk ... William Steele
Erick Kaffka ... Beta Cop


WRITING CREDITS

David Ira Cleary ... (original story)
Miguel Tejada-Flores ... (teleplay)
 

Brimfin

Member: Rank 3
Well, I thought I was getting a week off here but Mad-Pac posted the next episode and sent me a copy so I managed to watch two episodes in one weekend. The good news is it was totally worth it. This episode was hands down the best episode of the series so far – a solid premise, good acting, and a plot that moved along steadily to a satisfying conclusion.

The premise was the idea of erasing people’s memories – the painful, traumatic or embarrassing ones people would rather forget. That’s something all of us can relate to. I can think of a few memories I’d love to forget forever. I even once had a similar story idea to this one years ago, but never did put it in writing. Here, Dr. Ovid Brazil has found a way to erase unpleasant memories. He has the patient write it down, pointing out that the hand and the brain are in sync and writing the memory down helps his device locate the spot on the brain where the memory is stored. From there it is erased. Dr. Brazil is so successfully that he is late coming home one day because he had so many patients to process. When he arrives home, he finds his wife brutally murdered. Feeling guilty about not being there, and lost without her in his life, Ovid buries himself in his work.

All goes well for the first 100 patients or so, until one of them frantically demands his memory back. Ovid has him read back the writing from earlier but the revised memory and the connected emotions come back with such force that he is traumatized, possibly permanently. The doctor escapes a lawsuit and is discharged but he still believes in his system and decides to use it on his own.

He starts a clinic near an international bazaar. He perks the interest of a young man named Rudy, who turns out to have a gift for fixing things and wants to be able to help out since he can see people’s lives are being improved here. Ovid even explains that he has solved the earlier problem: instead of having the person read back their own memory, he reads it back to them making it less traumatic. He himself runs the risk of a traumatic injury if he breaks the connection in midstream.

Again, thing are going well until Frank Daskin shows up. He looks like trouble right from the start. He has several memories he wants to rid himself of but starts with one. The next day one of Ovid's former clients Rwanda, who had a memory of an attempted rape erased, returns needing to have it replaced. But Frank bursts in and demands that he remove the rest of his memories right now, as eliminating one of them just magnified all the other ones. Dr. Brazil leaves Rudy to complete Rwanda’s process so he can take care of Frank. Rudy discovers two truths – one that Rwanda killed her attempted rapist in self-defense and the other that the person who reads back the memories absorbs the emotions of the memory – leaving the client with her memory back but no trauma. Ovid assures him that the emotions will wear off in time; he has absorbed many himself. Rudy decides he’s had enough of the place, and leaves, but not before telling him that people like Frank shouldn’t be helped. “A guy like that deserves his memories,” he declares, “who are you to let him off the hook?”

Ovid is disturbed as to how Frank knew about his practice out there. Frank told him his former colleague Dr. Newman told him about it. He goes back to Dr. Newman and she confirms the story. He admits to her that he is losing touch with what’s right and wrong. He is genuinely remorseful about letting Rudy read to Rwanda without really warning him of the consequences. Meanwhile, Frank returns to Dr. Newman trying to retrace his steps – realizing that he’s lost some memories but not sure what and why. He comes across Rwanda who remembers him being at the clinic. He returns demanding that Dr. Brazil return his memories. He begins to do so, and we find out that Frank was the one who murdered his wife – all because he lusted after her and was angry that she already had a husband whom she loved. Rudy finds Rwanda upset over the incident and puts two and two together. He gets to the clinic before Ovid can complete the reading and gently pulls the glasses off of him. The connection broken, Franks gets the full trauma of what he did and either dies or goes insane - good riddance eother way. Ovid is not traumatized likely because it was not he who removed the glasses.

There are actually two endings here. The first immediately after the above has Rudy telling the doctor it wasn’t his fault about Frank. “Now all I have to do is live with it,” Ovid declares guiltily. But then later on, we see Rudy guiding Dr. Brazil through the memory process. The doctor looks at his own special pen and asks what it is. “Just junk,” Rudy assures him, leaving him free of his guilty memories and off to lead a hopefully happier life. The host is a little off the mark at the end, declaring the lesson was about what you become when you lose your memories – but it really wasn’t. Not a problem, though. This episode earns a solid 10 fortune-telling birds, which really didn’t seem to tell anyone’s fortune but was a good connector for the characters and incidents in the story. I’d love to read the original short story this was based on someday, as I suspect this would turn out to be a faithful adaptation of it. It played like a genuine sci-fi short story.

By the way, it wouldn’t have mattered last week if I had known what episode was next, as neither “Hemeac” nor “All Our Sins Forgiven” was available on YouTube. They have mostly the earlier episodes which we’ve seen, although they do have a copy of the upcoming “Options.”

When Frank came across Rudy after his traumatic effect from reading Rwanda’s memory back, he said, “Man, you look like…” but I couldn’t make out the rest. I tried replaying it but it didn’t help. Could anyone else make out what the line was?
 

Mad-Pac

Member: Rank 5
Well, I thought I was getting a week off here but Mad-Pac posted the next episode and sent me a copy so I managed to watch two episodes in one weekend.
I asked if you wanted me to postpone episode 10, but as far as I can see, you said nothing. So I assumed, that was not important to you and, as there might be other reviewers as well, I decided to maintain things as they normally would be.
 

Brimfin

Member: Rank 3
I asked if you wanted me to postpone episode 10, but as far as I can see, you said nothing. So I assumed, that was not important to you and, as there might be other reviewers as well, I decided to maintain things as they normally would be.
I didn't see your offer right away, but if you check down last week's post, you'll see I did respond.
 

Brimfin

Member: Rank 3
Mad-Pac said:
I guess I didn't see your response right away. OK, so we can have a break this week then so you can catch up.
No, it's okay. I'm all caught up now. The Saturday appointment I mentioned was unexpectedly cancelled. And as I said, the episode was great, so no harm done. Send me #11 next weekend.
 

Mad-Pac

Member: Rank 5
I remember this episode as one of the good ones. One of the things that called my attention back in the day was the fact the characters had names of countries (Brazil, Rwanda) and the doctor looked like a football quarterback.

When I think of the situation depicted in this episode, I can imagine something like this happening,

"Dr. Brazil, I must get rid of this memory. I can't live with it any longer. It's too traumatizing."
"OK, done."
"Good. I feel much better not having to think of... What was it again? I can't remember. And I must know! Please, restore my memory, Dr. Brazil."
"OK, you got it. Done."
"Oh, no, I made a big mistake. Now I remember why I wanted to get rid of this horrible memory. Erase it, and this time for good, Dr. Brazil."
"As you wish. Done."
"Ok, but perhaps I could handle it if you'd given me a chance to assimilate the incident and its consequences. Besides, not knowing it makes me feel empty, and wondering things that are perhaps worse than the actual event. Please, restore my memory. I won't regret it this time."
"Whatever. Done."
"Oh, no, the horror. The HORROR! Put this away from my mind now!"
Rinse and repeat.

Now I'm wondering, if all that was required was the text to be read back to the patient, why not just use a text-to-speech software? Perhaps they could have said that the doctor needed to reinterpret the narrative in his ow words, or something, so it wouldn't be some direct reading, but an explanation of the events.

What did Frank Daskin do in the Institute anyway? Was he a therapist in serious need of therapy then?

The ending was weird, because with Dr. Brazil erasing his knowledge of his entire work (essentially the memory pen consumed several years of his career), by simply forgetting about it there would be a huge chunk of time erased from his memory and he wouldn't be able to make sense of most of what was happening to him, including why he was practicing his profession in the poor part of town and not in the prestigious Betaville Institute for the Psychiatric Sciences or something.

Still, a great episode, one of the best. It gets 9 robotic parrots made by Sony that I now want to have.
 

Cloister56

Member: Rank 3
Sorry fallen behind again. I'm off today so catching up on this and Catweazle. Had some trouble playing the file via Plex and then somehow managed to delete the entire folder.
Should have it back up soon, I'll get to Catweazle and circle back to this later.
 

Cloister56

Member: Rank 3
Well that took longer than I expected, problems with Plex but seem to have been sorted now.

So some glowing reviews, but did I like it as much? Yes, Yes I did.

Memory and manipulation of it is a frequently tackled topic in sci-fi. Memory erasure features in movies such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and in TV such as Red Dwarfs "Thanks for the Memory".
In all the ones I can remember the lesson has been bad experiences are as important as the good, erasing them seems like a good idea but probably isn't. This seems to be what the host concludes at the end of the show.

The host is a little off the mark at the end, declaring the lesson was about what you become when you lose your memories – but it really wasn’t.
It does seem to be that conclusion is not what the episode reflects except maybe in one aspect. Both of the people we see return to the clinic do so because the absence of the memory caused them problems. Rwanda because she couldn't move on and Daskin because he didn't know what he had done.
The side effect of the returning process, dumping the emotions associated on the reader was a very interesting addition. It makes me think of the idea of Sin Eaters. It also raises the moral implications of what the treatment would do to the readers. Also as with Daskin is it right that a murderer should escape the guilt and recollection of his crime. These are the aspects I think the Host doesn't even touch on in his summary.

There are some holes. Just because you can't remember something doesn't mean it didn't happen so it is going to cause all kinds of problems when people or objects refer to any events you erased.

The ending was weird, because with Dr. Brazil erasing his knowledge of his entire work (essentially the memory pen consumed several years of his career), by simply forgetting about it there would be a huge chunk of time erased from his memory and he wouldn't be able to make sense of most of what was happening to him, including why he was practicing his profession in the poor part of town and not in the prestigious Betaville Institute for the Psychiatric Sciences or something.
Yes, how much collateral memories is it going to remove, is Dr Brazil going to know where he lives now, his PIN number, his Netflix login? How long before he starts to question "What was I up to all those years?" and then pursues the truth. As you say this could create and endless cycle, similar to Memento.

Also the technology still exists, just because the creator doesn't remember there will be all kinds of records and "just a piece of junk" is a working version as there probably will be at the original clinic. Plus as he mentions 100's of people had been treated successfully so as long as they remember their clinic appointment (I bet more than one refused to pay claiming they've never been there) there is evidence it works.

I did expect the revelation to be that Ovid killed his own wife and had erased it from his memory. That might have been a nice twist but what was presented was good too.

Overall best of the series so far.

9 parrots that look like the Polyphase Avatron from Doctor Who The Pirate Planet, out of 10
 
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