Little Lost Robot

This Isaac Asimov story is set in 2039, when robots will become common place in society. It was originally made for British television and according to IMDB, it's the only episode of "Out of This World" which survives.

A scientist is working and a robot keeps hovering nearby. Without thinking, he tells the robot to 'get lost'...and the robot literally does that. In other words, he disappears and his exact whereabouts are unknown. This is a particularly bad problem as this robot is unique...the first law of robotics has been modified. Instead of 'A robot cannot allow a human to be harmed' to 'A robot cannot actively cause harm to a human'. And, everyone is worried as the robot looks exactly like the rest...and singling out the disappeared robot is no easy task for Dr. Susan Calvin.

This is a decent but unremarkable show. In some ways, it is very good...such as the costumes. But bland sets and a general slowness and sterility of the film make it a lot less entertaining than it should have been.

As the only surviving episode of the series, and one of few existing screen adaptations of Isaac Asimov stories, "Little Lost Robot" is an important piece of television history. Sadly, as an episode in itself, and particularly as an Asimov adaptation, I can't say it's much good.

For a story that depends on them, the robots are a great disappointment. They're very obviously men in suits: big, clunky suits that make one wonder what use such a lumbering machine would be. They never travel above a stiff-legged shuffle, even when they're supposedly racing to the assistance of a man in mortal peril. (It's a good thing we've been told he's in no real danger; I find it hard to believe they'd have reached him in time.) The whole plot depends on the idea that the robots are identical and indistinguishable in appearance and action, but in group scenes no effort is made to have them move in unison.

The author of this adaptation, apparently feeling that the original story was insufficiently dramatic, has added a subplot in which the human characters worry that the "lost" robot, with its non-standard programming, might become a danger, might even be the seed of a robot rebellion. This despite the existence of Asimov's famous First Law of Robotics; at the beginning of the episode, a concern about the alteration of the robot's programming is met with a reassurance that the First Law still renders it incapable of causing harm to a human being. There's never any further discussion of how the First Law might have been weakened or overruled; by the end of the episode, the characters seem simply to have forgotten that there's any such thing as the First Law. So does the scriptwriter.

Another aspect in which this adaptation seems to feel the original story was lacking is in the matter of romantic action. It's annoying, but by the time it becomes obtrusive it's hardly the worst of the episode's problems.

Not recommended.

I saw this on ITV's Out of this World series when I was 11. It was in flickering black and white and seemed really spooky and just like the stories in 'I Robot.' The intro music to the Out of This World series set the theme and the Boris Karloff intro was, if I remember, a bit eerily over the top. Re-reading the Asimov books again, they retain that 'sepia-tint' "could be 'Forties could be 'Fifties" 'nether-world', something that the recent I Robot film missed completely. Killing off Alfred Lanning in the first reel was a classic screw-up and lost the plot, never mind the robot. Where were Peter Bogert, Donovan and Powell for instance. Hell's teeth, the book REVOLVES around their activities and antics. Stephen Byerley doesn't even get a look-in. The film-makers went for style over substance (unlike ITV who tried to stick to the story within the limits of 1960's TV technology.) The 2004 version completely lost that 'spookiness' and pulp-SciFi ambiance that I Robot has on every page.

Told to "Get lost", a robot does so by mingling in with a group of 20 other identical robots. Unfortunately, as this particular robot has had its 'First Law' modified to allow it to permit a human to come to harm, and so must be found. Like a number of Asimov's 'robot' stories, this tale involves solving a problem generated by a robot behaving in a way that is ostensibly contrary to the author's iconic 'Three Laws of Robotics' but lacks the cleverness of the original short story (notably, there is no explanation of the rogue robot's final actions and the real problem of having robots that can allow a human to come to harm is never addressed (especially considering the space-station's logic behind bypassing this part of Law 1 is sound)). Maxine Audley is good as robot guru Dr. Susan Calvin but the rest of the characters are simply ciphers (Gerald Flood is particularly weak as robot hating Black). The robots themselves are awkward and cheap-looking, and some level of suspension of disbelief is required to imagine them moving fast enough to pass/fail the elaborate tests set up to identify the modified tinman. Worth watching as the only surviving episode of the early British sci-fi anthology and for the few minutes you get to spend with the great Boris Karloff.

I was looking for adaptations of Issac Asimov's stories and found this. Since I liked his book I Robot, I was interested in seeing a televised version of any of the stories included in the book and was rather disappointed to find that only a few exist. WIth the limitations of the apparent budget this series had, I can say that they succeeded in telling the same story found in the book. Unfortunately, the story itself might not be the best choice to make an episode from and was rather dull as result. It does not help that the robots depicted here are stiff, boring, and overall uninteresting. If you are a fan of Asimov or the short story, you might find this amusing.