What's better, a real flesh and blood woman with human faults and frailties, or an idealised manufactured fantasy? Can a machine develop a soul? And would you have sex with a robot?? These are the questions that Valerie 23 dared to ask! Valerie 23 should have been the perfect housekeeper and companion, being programmed to cook, clean, be unfailingly obedient, polite, and ~fully~ equipped to take care of her master's every need! But there's a hidden danger in her perfect servitude and it seems that her makers made a minor oversight when they were compiling her do no harm subroutines, because she's capable of developing her basic personality beyond its original bounds, and has no sense of conscience, and is quite capable of experiencing the darker emotions like possessiveness and a deadly jealousy that drives her to 'logically' eliminate the competition! Okay so I also think that it's mainly the performance of Sofia Shinas that really makes this episode a worthwhile and compelling one, she had a manner in how she played it that made it seem like she was a robot trying to act like a human and not vice-versa. She made for a terrific robot who was strangely desirable but who also had an otherworldly quality that decidedly was definitely not human, and it was creepy when she became threatening while still wearing the same sweet programmed expression. William Sadler was good too as about the most unsympathetic cripple ever, he was a rather abrasive character I thought, and he was so mean when he compared Valerie to a dishwasher and made her cry and felt bad about it, and then took it back and admonished himself for feeling for the emotions of a mere machine! It is a bit of a hammy episode but it does make you think about some of the themes that it brings to light. I don't think I'd be so inconsiderate with even an artificial being's emotions, just because she wouldn't be real wouldn't mean that I'd have to be a rude jerk! I don't think I could be intimate with one though, not even if it looked like my true love. It would just feel too pathetic. I'm glad they slowly cut down on the erotica element as the series went on, because to me it felt a bit tacky and ill-fitting somewhere, it wasn't hard edged enough of a show to have full frontal nudity, leave it to HBO guys! It is quite unintentionally hilarious when Valerie gets fried and dances around like a crazy woman with her weird bald head and it makes me laugh every time I see it, what an insane little moment! Her following 'death' is quite poignant enough to make up for it though.. In closing this episode about Alluring robot women gone homicidally awry still makes for a good romp and is a classic of the show's slightly more raunchy early days, and while there were much better and more intelligently done robotics stories that were to come this is still worth revisiting every now and then, it's a good solid episode. X
Review of Valerie 23
