I, Robot

A humanoid robot, named Adam Link is out on trial for allegedly murdering his creator, Doc. The prosecution argue that Adam could have malfunctioned, the defence make the case that a robot cannot lie.

It's a staggeringly imaginative and clever storyline for the time, you can't help but wonder if a 1964 audience had any concept of the advancements in technology that would be made.

It's a very memorable episode, sixty years old, and it still makes you think, makes you wonder if we're going too far with technology.

It's nicely made, I really liked the design of Adam, simple and functional, they didn't go too over the top.

It's perhaps guilty of being a little syrupy and over sympathetic, but that I'm sure was intentional, in a bid to give Adam Link some very human like qualities.

Very well acted, Leonard Nimoy is as cool and collected as always, it's hard to be too critical here.

8/10.

A robot is suspected of murder.

I wish I could like this hour like others obviously like it. The Outer Limits is mostly good but this 49 episode series had six stinkers and this is indeed one of them...to me.

The moment we see the Wizard Of Oz-type "Tin Man" I knew we were in trouble. Perhaps they should have rented out MGM's Robby The Robot as he did the rounds in retro sci-fi TV (Twilight Zone, Lost In Space, Ark 11, etc).

Act one then moves to Leonard Nimoy just before doing Star Trek. Sorry, but I have spent my whole lifetime watching Star Trek episodes/movies so it is just too much of a struggle to see Nimoy as anyone other than Mr Spock. Maybe if he spoke in a different accent and had a beard I could let my imagination go with him.

The hour is not helped by the courtroom scenes and the story as a whole. Sorry, I hate it, but most others like it.

Howard Da Silva stars as a cynical lawyer named Thurman Cutler who is contacted by an equally cynical newspaperman named Judson Ellis(played by Leonard Nimoy) on behalf of a young woman(played by Mariana Hill) whose inventor uncle was killed in his laboratory, and the blame has fallen on a robot he created named Adam who has been captured, and is due for destruction. Cutler gets the robot a trial, but a guilty verdict seems like a foregone conclusion in the unscientific community it occurred in. Can Adam be saved, or at least redeemed? Interesting story about robotic rights vs. human fears works reasonably well, with a fittingly ironic end.

This is one of the best episodes I've seen of the original The Outer Limits, this time the only negatives being those derived from the culture and the time period. It is excessively human-centric, it oversimplifies, there are inconsistencies, it can get over-dramatic and it is *way* too obvious about the Frankenstein parallel(seriously; they literally say it several times), and that all hurts it. This is also essentially black and white, and winds up being preachy; however, after the hicks of the beginning, this does actually give arguments to both sides, and makes those that we are meant to disagree with be more than the standard one-note "evil" types. The writing isn't flawless, but it's pretty good, and manages to be clever(if not every attempt works, and some of it feels smarmy, because banter on the screen was "in" back then), and this does have points presented and lines of dialog that are memorable. Nimoy is cool as always, and the acting in general is fairly solid. While the humor varies a tad, there definitely is a laugh or two to be had in this. The effects are nice enough, and there are great details on the robot suit. I recommend this to any fan of science fiction as a forum in which to express thoughts that might seem controversial. 8/10

This is a nice episode. The problem is too much familiarity. The idea of proving an artificial intelligence is sentient is one of those staples of science fiction. Perhaps Asimov did it first, but the arguments are always the same. There is no question of the power of these things (in this case a really cheap looking robot) is at issue. It has to do with the protections we have from these man-made creatures. Could they have acted violently, given these safeguards? Everything is in how nuanced the trial works, how aggressive the negative forces are, and what the motivations of the bad guys are. Commander Data went through a couple of these on Next Generation an ultimately it seems to be an overzealous soldier type who sees an android or robot as one who does the wishes of others. I've always wondered if we would be so callous if such beings existed, at least in such an advanced state as this. Of course, emotions are frequently an issue to be debated as they seem to be at the separation point. Anyway, the trial is a lot of fun and the episode is quite satisfying.