pedanther

As the only surviving episode of the SF anthology series Out of This World, "Little Lost Robot" is an important piece of television history. Sadly, as an episode in itself, and particularly as an adaptation of the Isaac Asimov story, 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. (Feigned, fortunately for him; 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. For Susan Calvin, a woman whose main character trait is that she gets on better with robots than with other human beings (and that other human beings get on better with robots than with her). Annoying, but by the time it becomes obtrusive it's hardly the worst of the episode's problems.

Not recommended.

I do, however, recommend the Youtube channel I found "Little Lost Robot" on. (Thanks to lost_spook, who found it first.) It's stuffed with classic British TV SF, not all of which can be as disappointing as this. (Two... no, three words: Nigel. Kneale. Eeeee!)