The first thing that will strike you about this episode of the twilight zone is the way it was shot, on video, as another reviewer has already noted. It looks totally different than other episodes because of this format, but I think it's mostly the uneven panning and tilting of the camera that gives the show a feel that it was shot quickly on a cheap set. It reminded me of the look of a show you might see made at your local TV station.
The story is about a family that lives in a completely isolated world, with a controlled environment and man-made robots to do every chore imaginable, leaving the family, basically, with nothing to do but relax. The daughter of the family becomes unhappy with the situation and rebels against it, leaving her father, who created the robots, totally baffled as to her unhappiness and showing that scientifically brilliant minds do not necessarily have the first clue about what makes girls or children happy. How could he have based his life's work on something that would so quickly and so obviously make his wife and daughter miserable?
Then again, we begin to understand why he may have done this when the parents and daughter begin talking about grandchildren, and the mother is visibly upset. It reminds me of a horror movie that I saw years ago (and can't remember the name of anymore) about a family that had numerous children, all well into their 70s and 80s, wandering dressing and acting like children, because the parents so desperately didn't want them to grow up.
At any rate, the father is upset at her request for the windows to be opened and the robots to be dismantled, having devoted his entire life to creating that situation, but ultimately obliges her. I imagine there is meant to be some suspense created when the robots object to being ordered to go and wait for him in his workshop, but I was more intrigued by the apparent fact that, in creating them, he had installed in them programming so that they would talk back, object to orders and/or requests, and argue with him. Strange.
The ending of the episode gives a chill stronger than most episodes, although it makes no sense whatsoever. I won't ruin it (although one IMDb reviewer has already done that), but let's just say we can chalk it up to some serious lack of foresight in the programming department! Still a worthy episode and, because of the different way it was shot, with a distinctly different feel than most of the others.
The story is about a family that lives in a completely isolated world, with a controlled environment and man-made robots to do every chore imaginable, leaving the family, basically, with nothing to do but relax. The daughter of the family becomes unhappy with the situation and rebels against it, leaving her father, who created the robots, totally baffled as to her unhappiness and showing that scientifically brilliant minds do not necessarily have the first clue about what makes girls or children happy. How could he have based his life's work on something that would so quickly and so obviously make his wife and daughter miserable?
Then again, we begin to understand why he may have done this when the parents and daughter begin talking about grandchildren, and the mother is visibly upset. It reminds me of a horror movie that I saw years ago (and can't remember the name of anymore) about a family that had numerous children, all well into their 70s and 80s, wandering dressing and acting like children, because the parents so desperately didn't want them to grow up.
At any rate, the father is upset at her request for the windows to be opened and the robots to be dismantled, having devoted his entire life to creating that situation, but ultimately obliges her. I imagine there is meant to be some suspense created when the robots object to being ordered to go and wait for him in his workshop, but I was more intrigued by the apparent fact that, in creating them, he had installed in them programming so that they would talk back, object to orders and/or requests, and argue with him. Strange.
The ending of the episode gives a chill stronger than most episodes, although it makes no sense whatsoever. I won't ruin it (although one IMDb reviewer has already done that), but let's just say we can chalk it up to some serious lack of foresight in the programming department! Still a worthy episode and, because of the different way it was shot, with a distinctly different feel than most of the others.