The Zeta Project

As a sci-fi series, The Zeta Project takes up the ever interesting question if robots will acquire emotions of their own. In here the government infiltration unit known as Zeta doesn't want to do what it was initially programmed to, search and destroy.

He's at a constant run from government agents Bennet, Raj and West, the former being hell-bent on capturing him because of his belief in the dangerous nature of such robots.

Zeta teams up with an orphan girl on his quest to find his maker to prove him not dangerous. This girl named Ro takes advantage of Zeta's abilities while she traches him to navigate among humans. They play off each other pretty well with Ro's snarky sarcasm and Zeta's shaky understanding of human behaviour giving us some good laughs.

As a spin-off of Batman Beyond the duo also comes across Neo-Gotham and Bruce Wayne and Terry McGinnis in one episode which is nice.

While the animation can be rather flat with little shadow on the characters and a cliff-hanger ending without a satifying conclusion to the overall goal of the series, it is a worthy entry to the DCAU.

i've seen this show a few times by accident, and I have to say, I was well impressed. It's not deep by any means, but its more thoughtful than a lot of cartoons. Ro and Zeta have...chemistry? (Can you say that about a cartoon? Its almost what Roswell could have been. Very good.

A spinoff from "Batman Beyond" (or "Batman Of The Future" as it's known outside North America for some reason - happily, it's not necessary to be familiar with the show to watch this), "The Zeta Project" follows a sentient robot on the run from the NSA (National Security Agency), because he wishes to not be a robotic assassin any more (he's discovered that one of the victims he was assigned to kill was innocent, and that meant any of them could have been innocent). Using holographic disguises - mostly as a Brendan Fraser lookalike - he's joined in the search for the man who played the biggest role in his creation by another runaway, a teenage girl called Rosalie (Zeta calls her Ro, she calls him Zee)...

This premise will be familiar to anyone who remembers "Short Circuit" (and its sequel), Gene Roddenberry's pilot "The Questor Tapes" and "The Iron Giant," among others (and fans of "Robocop" and "Futurama" (home of Bender) note the respective voices of Kurtwood Smith and Lauren "Amy Wong of the Mars Wongs" Tom as two of the agents in pursuit); but fortunately that means it's pretty interesting when we're not dealing with the "Fugitive"-type aspects of the plot. Even more fortunately, we're in WB-cartoon territory - they're usually reliable when it comes to above-average animation for TV, and "The Zeta Project" is no exception, being often exciting stuff and with some good characters on both sides of the fence (particularly the likeable heroes and the eager but often hotheaded Agent West).

Sky One started showing this around the same time "Alias," "Enterprise" (both also on Sky) and "Smallville" (on Channel 4) began in the UK. Though the least hyped, this is the only one I really watch. (Incidentally, my little sister's called Zeta, though pronounced Zee-ta not Zay-ta. As far as I know, she isn't a robot, nor can she change appearance.)

This is such a great watch. This still holds up today with the tech representation and visions of the future. Loved the overarching story. Good scripts drove it along nicely. The characters were original authentic rich and full of depth. They were great. The animation still looks and feels detailed and fantastic. Really enjoyed every single episode. Scandalous that there were only 2 seasons. This had legs to go on for a lot longer and it is a real shame it did not as I would like to have seen more. I can definitely see myself watching it all over again at some point in the not to distant future.

I always thought that Zeta was the best character on BATMAN BEYOND so I was extremely excited when I heard that there was going to be a Zeta animated series. What I got was basically what I was expecting which was fast-paced action sequences, great animation, and a little bit of humor. The show lived up to all of my expectations and I hope that THE ZETA PROJECT stays on the air for a while.