From Agnes - with Love

As so many other episodes, this one opens the way for the Artificial Intelligency which now spreads all over the world, this AI which soon monitor our personal life. Watching such a plot now, in 2025, this story written in the mid sixties, it makes me feel very weird. It is however an amazing tale, more serious than it seems, especially, I insist, from the 2025 point of view, not the 1964. Because from the sixties glance, it is not believable, just fun to watch. This episode was made to entertain, but it is actually stronger, more powerful than this. I hope you won't avoid this excellent tale.

This particular Twilight Zone episode was written for its star. I can't see anyone other than Wally Cox playing the computer geek/nerd in this story, defining such an individual before 'geek' and 'nerd' entered the language.

Before personal computers were a recognized thing such a concept in 1964 wa inconceivable to many. The giant brains were what they thought of back then as the latest in artificial intelligence. This computer has been named Agnes and as if someone programmed it into her she's a jealous woman.

While trying to get data for a proposed Venus space flight, Agnes jumps into Cox's love life as he tries to make some time with Sue Randall.

Oddly enough Randall was in the Tracy/Hepburn film about a giant computer brain Desk Set.

This one is funny enough, but unless you are a fan of Wally Cox I don't think you'll like this Twilight Zone story.

I usually start eye-rolling and lowering my expectations when a Twilight Zone episode commences with goofy music... The comical and excessively light-hearted ones are generally the least pleasing, but "From Agnes with Love" still more or less holds its head above water (unintentionally?) thanks to the topic of machines surpassing the intellect of their creators, manipulating the lives of human beings, and developing emotions. Some of the most haunting Sci-Fi flicks of the seventies have similar themes, like "Colossus: The Forbin Project" and "Demon Seed". Again, though, I sincerely doubt it was ever this little tale's intention to get disturbing, what with its plot of an über-nerd asking romantic advice about how to get noticed by his secretary to what is supposedly the world's most advanced super-computer. The machine - Agnes - deliberately gives the wrong tips because she wants the nerd for herself.

Cute but unmemorable TZ-installment, mainly fun and interesting to see what, back in the early sixties, the perception of a super-intelligent computer looked like: a full room stuffed with panels, buttons, flickering lights, and constantly printing receipts apparently!

This is the story of a true nerd. He has the skills to run a huge computer (of the Univac era). He loves a young woman who works in his building, but he is so darned boring and clumsy, he strikes out over and over. Unfortunately, when he asks his big computer for some help, it spouts out useless, destructive advice. It is manipulating him! There is a sort of charm. It features Wally Cox (Underdog) who made a career of playing bookish little milquetoasts. He does develop a relationship in this episode, but it's not with the girl of his dreams. His frantic shortsightedness is what the episode features. It works to a point. The rest is terribly dated and sort of lacking.

Wow, this episode was a joke. Far from my favorite, far from how I think of the average Twilight episodes since by in large, I really enjoy the Twilight zone. But I did not enjoy this one, except for a few spots where I just laughed at the lunacy of those moments. Wally Cox here was like one of the biggest nerds I've ever seen in an older style show. He really looked like a nerd and he really acted like a nerd. He was that science geek type who worked at an electronics lab. His department was with a talking space data machine. He asks out Milly (Ann Randolf), a beauty who works at his company, and she actually said yes. On the date at his apartment with Milly, she wanted to dance and get romantic and that dork just sat there with his science book opened saying "I was wanted us to keep comparing notes on the neutron status data". I might have not quoted those last three words 100% correctly but who cares? This guy had a real cutie advancing on him and this was how he acts? Then when they start dancing he starts complaining about the sores on his feet? Then he opens the champaign bottle with the end of the bottle pointed three inches from Milly's face and doesn't expect the champaign to spray on her? I did not feel sorry for that nerd when Milly then stormed out, and then the next night reject Wally and shoo him away to spend the evening advancing herself onto a much cooler, more appealing guy. I really wondered what Milly saw in Wally in the first place. Maybe because she thought he'd be such an intelligent nerd, that if she went out with him, he'd make her a lot of money. As soon as she found out he wasn't so smart, look how fast she ditched him to be with a cooler, better looking guy. The rest of the episode delt with Wally talking to the machine asking it about all this technical space data and the machine just wanting to talk to Wally about his love life. An added little running joke about how Wally kept running into the same girl in the hallway giving her each of the things (candy, flowers, etc.) that were rejected from Milly when he tried giving them to her. Then the hallway girl would just shrug, form a weak smile, not say anything and keep walking. The end result in this episode with Wally and the machine was also quite ridiculous.