Stickmaker (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
stickmaker) wrote2009-12-25 09:48 am
stickmaker) wrote2009-12-25 09:48 am
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A Bit of Nostalgia
There was an early Seventies TV show I really liked. _The Delphi Bureau_ was a rather eccentric program, with a main character - Glenn Garth Gregory, played by Laurence Luckinbill - who was a nerd before the word took on the current meaning. He was the primary - perhaps only - operative, and rarely saw anyone else connected with the Bureau, that usually being his boss, Sybil Van Lowreen. Glen was reasonably capable in most areas, and had a photographic memory.
This last was used cleverly in the show. In one episode he was shown sample pages of a secure document, a copy of which was being offered for bid. What he saw was not enough to compromise the document, but would let him leaf through what was being sold to verify it was the real deal. More generally, his memory and intelligence would let him pose as an authority in whatever field was needed as long as he wasn't required to apply skill, rather than pure knowledge. (One memorable episode had him trying to take off in a light plane and failing.)
My favorite scene in the show was when a couple of men in white coats were sent by the villain of the episode to get him out of the way. They tried to prove he was crazy by asking questions on obscure topics. "Yeah, it's your memory. You even keep forgetting who you are. Here, let's give it a test. I bet you can't remember the land area of Australia."
Glenn looked off into the distance for a moment and told them. A bit unnerved, they asked another question. And again got an answer. They finally just grabbed him. :-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Delphi_Bureau
This last was used cleverly in the show. In one episode he was shown sample pages of a secure document, a copy of which was being offered for bid. What he saw was not enough to compromise the document, but would let him leaf through what was being sold to verify it was the real deal. More generally, his memory and intelligence would let him pose as an authority in whatever field was needed as long as he wasn't required to apply skill, rather than pure knowledge. (One memorable episode had him trying to take off in a light plane and failing.)
My favorite scene in the show was when a couple of men in white coats were sent by the villain of the episode to get him out of the way. They tried to prove he was crazy by asking questions on obscure topics. "Yeah, it's your memory. You even keep forgetting who you are. Here, let's give it a test. I bet you can't remember the land area of Australia."
Glenn looked off into the distance for a moment and told them. A bit unnerved, they asked another question. And again got an answer. They finally just grabbed him. :-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Delphi_Bureau