I’m back with the second article in my ongoing series about robots, supercomputers, and cyborgs. In the first article, 14 Awesome Movie Robots You’ve Forgotten, with a nod toward Isaac Asimov and his Three Laws of Robotics, I set up a few laws (which I decided to give the mantle of ‘Tim’s Laws’) to limit the scope of the article (which let’s be honest, could spiral out of control) while still keeping with the theme of robots presented across the length and breadth of scripted science fiction. With this latest article, I need to establish a new set of laws based on those wonderful, mechanical television robots. Tim’s Laws for this article are as follows:
I’m only factoring in robots, no cyborgs, such as the Daleks in Doctor Who – that is a separate article. The robots here are from television history, no movies – that is also a separate article. I’m only looking at robots that have been built to have a human form (androids) or ones that exhibit obvious human qualities, like R2D23 from Star Wars.
Also, I’m only interested in ‘bots that have had a significant role to play in the shows they were in, no one-shots, like many presented in Doctor Who. I’ll be including only one entry from each show (so there’ll be one entry for Lost in Space, etc) and I’m not including robots in kids shows, animated shows, or ‘bots that were puppets. They’ve gotta be the real deal.
That’s it. Let’s get started. Here are 12 great robots (with a couple extras thrown in) from television.
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32 Comments
There was a red headed sex robot on The Outer Limits reboot. Man, that was good TV!
I try to watch the reboot once in a while but have never enjoyed it much. Sounds like I’m watching the wrong episodes.
metal mickey? :)
I was excluding robots from kids shows, but Metal Mickey might just make my sequel. I’ve left out several great robots from movies and TV, so I am currently writing another article.
Metal Micky Dolenz? Or am I being thick?
No Kryten from Red Dwarf?
I couldn’t figure out if he was a robot or a cyborg, but based on memory I decided on cyborg. I was listing him in my upcoming cyborg article unless someone (like you) tells me I’m wrong about him.
Dunno if anyone pointed this out yet, but Kryten was specifically not a Cyborg but a robot. The only other life in the universe other than Humans were Gelfs, which are genetically engineered life forms, and Agonoids, which are essentially cyborgs that hate humans. Kryten on the other hand was purely robot… thats why he had to make his artificial penis!
Kryten was a robot, but the Bionic Woman was a cyborg.
No Vicki from Small Wonder???
No Viki from Small Wonder?
Congratulations! You’re the first person to come up with a robot I had never heard of.
You obviously DON’T know what you’re talking about. Twiki from Buck Rogers is obviously a robot and not an android and so is Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation. An android is flesh and blood, The replicants from Blade Runner being the best example.
Dude,
World English Dictionary
android (ˈændrɔɪd)
— n
1. (in science fiction) a robot resembling a human being
However, you are still incorrect…
“Infused with emotions in an attempt to improve upon the Data design, Lore quickly turns evil. I guess Roddenberry thought humans might just be inherently evil, eh?”
Lore was built prior to Data. Data was an attempt at a more stable android…
Good article! I usually never comment, but I thought I would in this case. I don’t understand why some people find it so necessary to try to pick someone’s writing to pieces; and then to be wrong on top of that! Look up Brent Spiner along with Data and you will see the words Android come up just as often as your search words!
So, yeah…..dude! (I’m a girl so I don’t know if I can actually use that.)
Ummm… nice article but I take issue with a few things:
1. Kryten from Red Dwarf was a robot, not a cyborg. There were cyborgs in the series, but Kryten wasn’t one of them. The Cylons (esp. the first one in Caprica) are arguably cyborgs given that human personalities have been implanted into (at least some of) them.
2. Star Trek TOS… one of my favorite episodes, “The Foundling” had a robot as the title character. There were several other robots in the original series, if you care to look.
3. As mentioned above The Outer Limits had that red-headed sexbot, but there were others throughout the series.
4. In addition to the Buffybot and Ritterbot you mentioned, there were two made by Buffy’s geeky arch-nemeses. One was in an episode I believe was called “I Was Made to Love You,” and the other one was in the episode in which Buffy was hit with an invisibility ray (I think).
I DO explain why I went with Kryten as a cyborg in my article about television cyborgs, but in short I said he has some organic matter in his brain and in one episode was turned into a full human by a DNA machine. I used those items to S-T-R-E-T-C-H my definition of cyborg so I could get him in the article.
The rest of your suggestions are decent additions to the list. I’m working on an EVEN MORE TV ROBOTS article that will include a couple more obscure guys.
The Foundling? Do you mean The Changeling? That wasn’t an android; it was the combination of two probes. There wasn’t a TOS ep called The Foundling; sorry. Luckily, before I made a complete fool of myself by going from memory – it’s been a *long* time since I watched TOS, and I’m so into Doctor Who right now I’ve kinda forgotten a lot – I went and quickly checked the ep guide, and discovered that you are right; there are androids in TOS, including one of the best of the comic eps, I, Mudd. I count three eps, including I, Mudd, though I try to forget Requiem for Methuselah, cause third season, by and large, sucked. Oh, God, did it.
I’m bummed the Cybermen didn’t make the cut, although the K-9 and Muffit II love made up for that.
I am surprised Summer Glau’s version of the Terminator was left off the list.
Cameron was a cyborg, living tissue over a metal endoskeleton, just like the Arnie models.
Neeeerrrrrrr,.. WRONG,…
The Flesh covered versions of the Terminators are not true Cyborgs.
Cyborgs start out as people, and then get bits added, so Steve Austin, Jamie Sommers, Motoko Kusinagi, and Marcus Wright from Terminator Salvation
Machines covered in flesh, such as the T-800, Cameron, and the Redheaded sexbot listed above, are Gynoids.
Data and Lore are ‘Humaniform Androids’, which is Androids made to look like humans, but without real flesh and blood.
C-3PO is a regular Android.
The T-X and T-1000 blur the lines by being able to reshape themselves, but are best put in the same catagory at Data/Lore.
The NDR model that becomes Andrew Martin is a pain, because it starts as a Humaniform Android, gets developed in to a Gynoid, but gets called a Robot and legalised as a Human.
And then there’s those fraking numbered Cylons.
WHERE IS BENDER FROM FUTURAMA ON THIS LIST? HE IS THE BEST TV ROBOT EVER CREATED!!!
Well, I do mention that I’m not including robots from animated shows. Bender is great, and so is Rosie the Robot from The Jetsons.
Awesome.
No Kryten from Red Dwarf? This list is invalid!
hasn’t anyone mentioned TRENT from the 1964 Outer Limits episode DEMON WITH A GLASS HAND, written by Harlan Ellison? He definitely belonged on your list… And Limits, in every incarnation but its first, was jammed with bots: Trent, Adam Link, Valerie 23, Mary 25, Moloch, Simon, Gideon…
What about Himi on Get Smart. Himi was awesome
No dalek? No Cameron from terminator: the sarah connor chronicles? You dissapoint me sir.
Just to add to Robby the Robot list of appearances: he also appeared in an episode of Wonder Woman (“Spaced Out”, as “himself”, at a sci-fi convention, in the story, even being a small part of the plot of the story, rather than just a random cameo), in 1979. ;)
I missed that one. Good job!
There’s been a lot of robots, cyborgs, etc. mentioned recently in these comments. Most of them appear in some of my other articles in this series (such as Trent from Demon With A Glass Hand, Kryten, Dalek, etc.). Summer Glau’s character will appear in a future article.