User Reviews

Originally in 2020 this was a 14 part TV series of incredibly short 10min episodes episodes however i've just watched it on Amazon 2022 where it has been put together as a 2hr film. I watched this off the back of The Peripheral which is a much better show but that is not to say that i didn't enjoy this until the end. The end basically left you expecting more/second season but as a film the ending was awful, no film ends like that. No second season has happened since 2020 and i guess it's not likely to happen now so i feel cheated as this needs closure. Also who makes a TV series of 14 x 10min episodes anyway?

Aisha (Helena Howard) is a student at Merced Tech. In Merced California. She has some issues related to her eyes and sees a psychologist (Emily Mortimer) who tells her she is just human. Her father (Don Cheadle) is a widower. Her school has a android service bots to help the students. She sneaks off to a party where she gets wasted and cut. Aisha discovers she is an android too and consults with a bot in a private mode. Her memory is partially wiped as it has been done many times before creating awkward gaps when talking to the kids about last night. The parent company does not know she exists. They thought she was placed in storage. If they find out, they will turn her off.

This was an interesting science fiction school drama. Helena Howard brought credibility to the role.

Guide: F-word. Brief sex. No nudity.

In general I like quibi shows! But this one it's sucks on so many levels! Practically you have a very advanced AI robots and you're still using normal iPhones and normal iMacs! Jesus! I know there's a limited budget but don't do it if it's limited! Stay on actions series like The Stranger, Survive or horror ones (they're pretty good actually!)!

A blah lil'girl is a android. They try for a darker Black Mirror feel but its just the same thing you saw play out again and again on BattleStar Galactica, "Am I a robots? I can't be but maybe I am? NO!". A waste of everyone's time.

I watched this in one sitting, and thought it was mostly terrific. It's not going to appeal to action fans at all, nor does it play to the common "AI is evil and/or inherently inhuman" trope; rather, it's a very well portrayed intimate psychological drama about a teenager who has to come to terms with the discovery that she's actually a robot, and that much of what she thought he knew about her life is a lie. But this revelation in no way de-humanizes her character - instead we empathize completely with this very likeable young person who suddenly finds herself essentially the victim in a sci-fi Twilight-Zone-esque nightmare scenario, and her personal journey through this forms the main focus of the series. Everything exploring that theme is really well done. It's somewhat reminiscent of "D.A.R.Y.L." (1985), though that was a kids' film and this isn't, obviously. The only glaring weak spot is the subplot involving the robotics company that's "out to get" her, and the two brothers running it, who act like cartoon Bond villain caricatures in every scene they appear in, and whose every action seems more calculated to scream "look at me, I'm the BAD GUY" rather than making any actual in-story sense. As an example, there's a school-assistant robot who a student hacked so she'd, umm... "go down" on him. On discovering this, the *co-head of the company* travels half way across the continent in order to vindictively execute this unfortunate robot, mafia-hit style, with an extra-special anti-robot gun, and where due to a wildly unlikely line-up of unexplained coincidences, he happens to be observed by the protagonist, Aisha, whom he recognizes, which kicks off this sub-plot. Realistically, wouldn't a company who's product had been embarrassingly misused simply send a low-level technician out to retrieve it in a routine and non-dramatic manner, and then attempt to relocate, repair, or re-purpose the presumably expensive robot, rather than shooting it/her in the head execution-style in a public street outside a high school?! And it's also trivially easy to think up several alternate ways Aisha could have been discovered by the bad guys that would actually make logical sense, rather than merely invoking outlandish coincidence... such as, perhaps when she ill-advisedly turned on the WiFi data download that nearly crashed her, it could've shown up on the company's servers as a data request from a robot with an unknown or decommissioned serial number, thus alerting them?) . It really feels like this sub plot was tacked on to a really excellent psychological-drama script after-the fact by a much less talented scriptwriter with no respect or feel for the material at all, just because someone decided the plot needed "more tension" or had to include a thriller element to the story or something - the difference in writing quality (and logical coherence) is just so very jarring. Fortunately, although it *is* critical plot-wise, it only occupies a tiny part of the series' runtime, and thus it's not much of a detraction overall. (Except insofar as *any* plot hole damages a storyline's integrity, of course). Nevertheless it would have been time much better spent exploring more of Aisha's friends' reactions to discovering she's a robot, though. ...Hopefully we'll see more of that in season 2?

I certainly hope there'll be a season 2!

(Just a thought, but perhaps it could mostly sideline the "evil brothers" by having Aisha go to the press about herself? That would not only create lots of drama, but despite the obvious risk, getting public support is also probably the most realistic option she ultimately has to protect herself, unless she wants to live in hiding indefinitely... not to mention being the only way to be able to live "authentically" as herself, to paraphrase what she told Abel.)

I think it's to this show's credit that weeks after watching it, I'm still thinking about Aisha and her travails.

This is a fascinating series of vignettes --each about 15 minutes in length --- that tell the story of a teenaged "girl" named Aisha who discovers by happenstance that she is actually an android. Her "mother" is her literal creator. Her "father" is an academic. He was introduced to her as the daughter of that "single mother." He had discovered earlier, and quite traumatically, that the teen is not a human (some episodes are flashbacks to years past to provide context, so they are not chronological). Due to the loss of his own human daughter, he had developed a bond with Aisha and intentionally formed a family with her and her mother. The first episode starts with the three of them as a family unit residing in Merced, California and Aisha in high school. The layers are then peeled away. We later learn that her program has been wiped clean several times and reset over the years. Unsettling!

It's interesting that the droid's programming is reflective of her human age -- a teen around 15/16 y.o. -- and this limit is what causes the chaos to snowball. She's not Mr. Spock, full of logic and decisiveness and self-reflection, she acts and thinks like a teenager, with all of the angst, anxiety, and frustration that accompanies this age. She does not view herself as a droid, and she gets pretty irate when treated otherwise! We see her have what appears to be true friendships and a sweet love with her father. We see her sexual awakening. We see her manipulate her mother into over-riding the administrative controls that limit her behaviors and movements (in a stroke of genius). The final episodes show her on the run. I thought to myself, well, this can't be good!

The show is thought-provoking. As a parent, I had some uncomfortable moments --- but try to let that wash over you, embrace the awkward and weird! I am looking forward to Season 2!