The Amnesia Cliche - Good or Bad?

[Princeton]

The movie was told back to front, with the end at the beginning, and after playing out a scene you'd see what happened before that, then before that, and so on, until you discovered what was actually happening. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time.

Kinda reminds me of a Stephen Sondheim musical called MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG. It's about a team of songwriters but starts at the end of their career after they stopped speaking to each other. Then the end of the show starts when the songwriters meet each other. Then there's another musical called LAST 5 YEARS about a failed marriage and when the show starts, the wife is at the end of the marriage and the husband is at the beginning. But at the end of the show, the time periods are reversed: husband at the end, wife at the beginning. As you can imagine, these are both very depressing shows.

But back on-topic: The only TV series I can think of that did a passable amnesia episode was the 1960's "Addams Family".

 

[D'Snowth]

Oh, I forgot, there's been a couple of episodes of M*A*S*H that did amnesia plotlines in peculiar ways...

One episode featured a casualty brought to the 4077th who had suffered a head injury, and everybody thought he was trying to act crazy to get a Section 8, but he believed he was Jesus Christ. Then another episode where a medic who could very well have made an excellent surgeon himself returned to camp, looking at his dogtags, not knowing if it' really his identity, or where he is, or anything, until Sidney Freedman the psychiatrist hypnotized him, and as it turned out, his amnesia was brought on by shock and trauma that his kid brother, whom he promised their mother he'd let nothing happen to him, was killed in his bunker.

 

[mr3urious]

Hey Arnold! handled this pretty well as the amnesia was treated more realistically.

Helga gets hit on the head with a baseball and gains amnesia (losing her memories, but not turning into a different person like in so many other shows) while Arnold helps her out with everything, but when she recovered it from the next day after waking up (rather than getting hit on the head again, which is more likely to cause further trauma), she unconvincingly fakes it after hearing from her mom that Arnold helped her, all while calling him names like "Archibald", "Arliss", and "Arlo".

Eventually, Helga finds out that this is taking up all of Arnold's time with his friends, so she sets him free... by slipping near a drinking fountain and conking herself on the head, Hollywood style.

 

[CensoredAlso]

Oh I forgot all about that Hey Arnold episode, such a funny show, Helga was a great character, lol.

A couple of super hero shows (Wonder Woman, Greatest American Hero, and possibly Batman) tried changing it up by having the characters not get complete amnesia, but just forget that they're super heroes (while the world is in great danger, naturally, lol).

 

[Dominicboo1]

I agree with Slackbot, there are times when writing amnesia scenes are so unrealistic, that the cliche becomes a bad thing... like whenthe character comes to, not to ask who are they, or where are they, but when they awaken as a completely different person altogether... like, wasn't there an episode of The Flintstones where Fred had amnesia, and thought he was some kind of English gentleman? Also, I was once a part of an RPG at another forum where we used the amnesia cliche in a similar manner where one of the characters woke up thinking she was a princess being rescued from the tower she was locked in.

The only ime I remember the amnesia cliche being used in a creative/original way was with Sid & Marty Krofft actually: they were so over-budget and were losing so much money on H.R. Pufnstuf, that they couldn't afford to film the final episode, so they did an episode where Jimmy came down with amnesia, and both Pufnstuf and Witchiepoo are trying to get him to remember who he is: with a series of flashbacks of previous episodes.

I think, all things considered, I could go either way wirh the amnesia cliche... would I look for a chance to write it into my work sometime in the future? Probably not, but that's no guarantee that any character of mine may end up with amnesia at one point or another.

EDIT: heralde ziffeled me.

Ha ha I remember that episode of HR Pufnstuf. Let me see other episodes with amnesia
Green Acres-Who's Lisa. Lisa is upset with Oliver for not taking her to the opera or something like that, and she later loses her memory and keeps asking Who's Lisa but remembers Hank Kimbel.
Fraggle Rock- Bobber Gorg. As we all probably know Boober loses his memory and believes he's a gorg.
I remember a Tom and Jerry cartoon where Tom loses his memory, but I forget the title.
One Mama's Family epsiode has Naomi losing her memory and Mama tricking her into household chores. Hope this helps!