Overdrawn at the Memory Bank (television Drama)

Overdrawn at the Memory Bank. Douglas Williams, dir. David Loxton, exec. prod., with Stephen Roth. USA: WNET/Thirteen and RSL Films in association with SFTV, (c) 1983, Moviecorp VII. Broadcast 4 February 1985 on American Playhouse on the Public Broadcasting Service. Based on the short story by J. Varley (q.v.).

Television drama. A somber romantic comedy set in a mildly dystopic future world run mainly by Novicorp, Lexicorp, Transcorp—and by HX368, a central global computer with a voice very like that of HAL 9000. The hero can be saved by the heroine only by storing his identity in HX368. The hero's time in the computer is relatively neutral: neither rapturous nor horrific. Cf. and contrast Charlie in the machine in MODERN TIMES, the "Moloch" scene in METROPOLIS, and Flynn in the world of MCP in TRON (all of which see, this Category). See under Fiction J. Sladek's The Müller-Fokker Effect and the works crosslisted there.