Why hire Heather Graham, then make her up as a plain, emotionless robot?  Hollywood has learned nothing since 1996, now burying Elizabeth Banks under make-up for The Hunger Games.  Homely girls need acting jobs, too.  Why not give them the jobs that required cakes of make-up or bags over the head?  Everyone wins.

Alicia (Heather Graham) and Martin are working in a lab developing a large gelatinous blob.  There is a power surge and the blob goes into labor pooping out a human being.  Congratulations, it’s a man!  The adult man, covered in viscous goo is flailing about and scratches Martin’s face.  Alicia removes his face-plate revealing him to be a robot.

Well, thank the Old Testament God they did not use the cliche and name the human Adam.  The forbidden apple didn’t fall far from the tree, though — they named him Cain.  After mankind’s first murderer.

Alicia begins home-schooling Cain.  He is curled up by the fire as she teaches him about emotions.  She says, “Hate is intense hostility or dislike.  It is a manifestation of one’s insecurities.  It is rooted in a perceived threat to one’s status or power.”

Cain concludes, “Then I suppose the price of hating others is loving one’s self less.”

Amazing — he is the only human on earth and he is already poisoned with PC group-think.  He literally is a cult of one.

Cain then rhapsodizes about love and plants a kiss on Heather, although where he learned that behavior is a mystery.  She explains that she is a robot and does not feel such emotions.  This is a shame since her maker — Innobotics — was also responsible for the sex-bot Valerie 23.  Innobotics must be Outer Limit’s version of Cyberdyne Systems.

The robot security force has discovered cans and deduced that there is a human still alive somewhere who must be exterminated for not recycling.

Faced with the prospect of having to read Dante’s Inferno, Cain gets cabin fever and runs away.  He finds a marker commemorating the death of humans on July 27, 1997. The marker is dated August 8, 0001 AH (presumably After Humans).  C’mon it took you 12 days to bury them in the middle of summer?  They must have gotten pretty ripe.

Cain returns to the cabin where Alicia explains how humans died in a bio-chemical war. He is to be the John Connor of the story leading “the second coming of mankind.”

For creating a human, Martin is crucified in the public square outside the Innobotics building.  Luckily, inside the building there is literally a giant on/off switch that can disable all of the robots on earth.  You might think they would destroy or at least guard such a dangerous device.

Nick Mancuso is excellent as the robot Martin.  Neither he nor Heather Graham play their parts like Data or the earlier model Valerie (who, after all, would be several generations out of date).  Their performances consist mostly of a lack of emotion and speaking very flatly.  It doesn’t scream “robot”, but that works to the episode’s benefit.

It often reminded me of Planet of the Apes.  The Defense Minister, spoke of humans much like Dr. Zaius or General Ursa.  There were also classes of robots just as there were different species of monkeys.  And some were more equal than others.

Another good episode.  It’s just sad Heather Graham couldn’t download some fashion tips from Valerie 23.

Post-Post:

• Chris Brancato wrote the excellent Eve episode of The X-Files.
• It is very distracting that the lead robot enforcer sounds just like Lt. Worf.
• Hulu sucks.