Shortly into this episode the brothel madam is strangled to death by a man who is aggressively accosting her during sex as a rapist does. The first 'apology' in this case is that the woman encourages this treatment of herself by seducing the man, verbally denigrating him, and then placing his hand on her throat eliciting her own murder. No woman has this kind of treatment coming ever; even if a woman literally prompted it in this way she shouldn't receive it, and this is really the enactment of a serial killer's modus operandi and a snuff film. The second 'apology' is that she'll be repaired and brought back to life, so we're not supposed to care that much about what we're seeing or identify the experience for the miserable atrocity that it is. And the third conceit is that we're supposed to think all the while that she's just being very smart and clever in getting herself back to the repair lab where she can proceed to give the superficial impression of being very smart and clever some more. This isn't clever; it's BS-clever - it's a method engineered to 'cleverly' elevate the show and it's makers by demoting the audience with insults to their intelligence masked by contingencies.
The brothel madam does return to the repair lab where she is advised that the processing power of her brain is much greater than that of a human and that she is special because she's now killing herself, waking herself up in the lab, and collecting information in these visits. We're supposed to believe in her specialness just because it's stated, and we're supposed to believe that she is smart and clever just because it's stated. There's really no logical reason to believe any of it, and when the techs notice that certain attributes of hers have been amplified, namely paranoia and self-preservation, this combination of traits is implicitly conferred a desirable value as a possible explanation for how she's mysteriously awakening herself. It's flimsy and erroneous, and there's no reason to believe that the techs wouldn't simply get busy resetting her. Also, the fact that one of the repair techs showed 'humanity' by reviving a little bird in the previous episode isn't substantial enough to warrant the belief that he would covertly just completely spill his guts to her and become her helpful tool, even when coupled with the fact that he appears somewhat attracted to her. In his position he's seen these robots in all states of malfunction, disrepair, functionality and performance. He'd have gone on to a different job if he was this easily affected (or been fired). It isn't plausible that he'd become gobsmacked and desperate to revive her when she freezes up, saying "Oh my God! Are you OK?" when she comes around, nor is any of his complicit obedience going forward. The madam talks a lot about how she is just great at reading people and can see just what they want and leverage it, but she never has any real power or influence. She's just a naked robot who could simply be overpowered and dismantled at the first opportunity, she's actually dependent on them to repair her, and there's never a convincing leverage point proportionate to her demands. None of it ever goes beyond showy, superficial words and action on her part as well as the other characters.
And, insultingly, there's an ongoing pretense that the brothel madam has many redeeming personal characteristics because she's a prostitute and a brothel runner. She is proclaimed to have 'skills' derived from her experience as a prostitute that can (triply insultingly) be invoked as support for the 'cleverness' that is invoked to support the crudeness. When the madam notes that her intelligence rating is set to only 14, the authors have the less friendly tech remark the she runs a brothel not an orbital launch facility, as if they can nip any audience criticism in the bud by giving the appearance of making the criticism themselves, but it's just another showy deflection tactic (and it's also a spaceflight reference that she shouldn't understand). This is followed by the techs illogically choosing to empower her more (and subordinate themselves) by bumping her intelligence rating all the way up beyond the maximum allowed for a host (as if higher-than-max would even be a possible/allowable setting in the app to begin with). Insultingly, the naked player is directed to show pleasure similar to sex when the ramp-up is depicted as a sensation that moves from her hips upwards through her spine - a sensationalistic deflection away from the shoddy logic, and the ultimate attempt to make her smart with crudeness. So now, in a continual demonstration of badly circular logic, her prostitution-begotten 'intelligence' will be invoked together with her 'esteemed prostitute' status by the authors to just make any number of things happen. There's a lot of justifying talk and showiness in this show, but not much logic and substance. They practice witchcraft, they speak the right words... they are interested in the appearance of intellect, of wit.
In a scene at headquarters between an employee from the behavior team and her department manager, it's postulated that the hosts aren't actually going insane as previously thought but are being used for industrial espionage. She asks "Does that make this a glass half-full or half-empty type situation?" as the camera pans over the second (somewhat less) clearly shown full male nude - a white male (somewhat withdrawn) in the background. Her manager says "We're engineers. It means the glass has been manufactured to the wrong specifications." She then advises that the information being carried by the host who bashed his own head in is unknown - it was smeared all over the rock he used as far as she knows. As her manager advises of a method to try to determine the specifics, he spins what looks like a thinly-framed color transparency (like teachers use for an overhead projector) around on a tray with his fingertips. I think we're supposed to believe that this is a demonstration of the future - a future version of an ultrathin iPad or something, but it looks cheaply produced and very user-unfriendly. Like something that might grace a lower quadrant of an idea board at Apple before being rejected for being awkward for its very sophistication, this flimsy color transparency device was manufactured to the wrong specifications.
When we meet the executive director of the board she's leered at by the narrative writer poolside. Its part ego-stroking compliment to her body and part insult - make that pure insult. Like with many scenarios ahead of this one, the viewer is supposed to evaluate the relative attractiveness of her body and form a judgement of her on this basis. The 'apology' comes later when she's identified as his superior in a lame 'awkward' social situation after he's embarrassingly pissed drunkenly on the schematics at headquarters and still has his willy out. She's then displayed in a similar fashion in the next episode with corresponding pretentious 'apologies' whereby she's positioned with trappings of authority and power written as overwrought renditions of male power doubly absurdly applied to a female. Characters are continually recast in contradictory and unnatural ways and are shown having contradictory dispositions toward each other at various times, sometimes in a very short time-span from one scene or moment to the next. It appears that everyone will be lousy/uncertain/dead.
Being a traitor is often glorified in this show as a point of character interest and power, and as a narrative device to keep the audience guessing and give the show the appearance of cleverness. An example in this episode is when the ingénue's love interest guns down a regiment of soldiers (his own kind) with a Gatling gun and it's presented as a moment of revelation - the man in black being impressed to the point of mild reservation. "You don't know anything about me" appears to be the motto, and assumes that there's power in simply being disproportionately defensive, unpredictable, disloyal, and violent. It's basically an expedient way to have sensationalistic characters and scenarios without investing real creative effort and thought.
Children have so far been characters about whom we discover we know nothing, and the dispassionate killing of the family dog by the young robot version of the founder of the park is no exception. I'd say that this morbid development is unpredictable except that I've previously predicted that detrimental patterns with children will continue, and I reassert that prediction here with the expectation that this will continue for the duration. That the boy is made to be disloyal and violent is actually no surprise.
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