The Outer Limits (TV Series) I, Robot (1995) User Reviews

What makes us human?

[Bored_Dragon · 8/10 · 29 January 2019]

Self-conscious android kills its creator, but does not remember it. The prosecution is trying to force its destruction, while the daughter of the murdered scientist sees it as a brother and hires a top lawyer to save it. This SF courtroom drama deals with the question of whether artificial intelligence can be considered a personality and have equal rights to people of flesh and blood. The story is very well told, the acting is on an enviable level in relation to most of the series of this type, and the episode finale, although already seen cliché, is quite effective. One of the best episodes of the first season.

8/10

A Little Too Formulaic

[Hitchcoc · 8/10 · 18 March 2014]

While I enjoyed this, there was conspiracy theory element that just didn't work for me. Of course, updating the story is perfectly valid and Leonard Nimoy's lawyer is an interesting figure. But I was expecting a little bit of leftover from the Isaac Asimov stories. This story doesn't pretend to follow the Laws of Robotics, even though it shares its title with the Asimov collection. Actually, this was more remindful of "Miracle on 34th Street" where the court must decide if Santa Claus is real. The piece of artificial intelligence here is very engaging and lovable, but apparently has been betrayed in some way. The issue of whether a machine can have emotions and human mores is what this is about. What makes this more interesting is that in order to undergo a murder trial, there must first be a hearing to see if "Adam" can be treated as such a human. If you saw the first effort in the original series, you know that there are some real contrivances at work and it comes off like a simple children's story with a formulaic conclusion. Not a great effort but not a bad one either.

Dr Spock goes to trial as attorney defense of an organic Robot!!!

[elo-equipamentos · 7/10 · 20 December 2022]

The Outer Limits series both old and the new one amazes me deeply, especially in this odd episode starring by the unforgettable and charismatic Dr. Leonard Spock Nimoy as defense attorney in a bizarre case when he has to defend a sort of advanced an Organic Robot with human feelings as love, pit and sorrows, however when he goes mad killed his own creator Dr. Link, he was arrest and send to court room to decide between disassemble and scarp for good, but turns out that the Mina Link the own daughter of the dead Dr. Link asking for to save the friendly Robot, asserting that he wasn't the guilty by the his father's murder.

Along the trial many hidden evidences come to surface, including the use of the Robot for military purposes, whereby is fully stablished by the solids paperwork, ultimately it will be up to judge what end will be the defendant, aside all oddity to judge a Robot even with extreme similarity with human beings the subject just holds true in science fiction series only, probably we can envisage it in a distant future where the mankind shall breaks many barriers concerning the advanced technology what is to came, fine episode!!

Thanks for reading.

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First watch: 2022 / Source: DVD / How many: 1 / Rating: 7.5.

Unfocused Sci-Fi Courtroom Drama

[Sandsquish · 4/10 · 9 February 2009]

While this is an improvement over the Outer Limits' first try at dramatizing this story, it still doesn't work well because, this time around, it's just an odd melange of ideas that don't reinforce each other.

Presumably, the issue at hand is whether artificial intelligence will deserve human rights, but the show, instead, plays around with whether the robot's lawyer is just a cocky cynic who wants to mock the justice system or a crafty advocate who uses misdirection and mockery to defend his client. Yes, that's all kinda interesting, but the authors never bothered to tie it into the show's theme, so, why did they spend our time on it?

And instead of finding ways to dramatize the robot's "humanity," it shows us how humane the robot's best friend and surrogate sister is. Okay, she's cool, but what about the subject of the show?

And instead of asking the audience to see the injustice in creating an artificial intelligence, and then denying it any rights, the show pulls a bogeyman out of its hat by blaming the robot's actions on its secret military sponsors. But why even go there? It's just a cliché that doesn't address the point of the show.

This episode never really went anywhere because it forgot where it was going right after it started.

Much too PC

[because-of-him · 1/10 · 5 July 2019]

The episode is way too politically correct. The acting is very good, especially by the lawyers. Leonard Nimoy does so well that we forget that he played an alien for years in Star Trek episodes. The problem starts with the far advanced robot, who has fixed eyes and no mouth. If you look at robots in 2010 and beyond, they have eyes that, in the least, blink. But, the most egregious portion of the episode is the absurd conclusion by the judge that the Constitution is organic to the point of applying the 1st and 2nd Amendments to a clump of metal and wires. Such 'judgment' is the height of hubris that brings the rating down.