Outer Limits: "I Robot"

'''"I Robot." The Outer Limits.''' Adam Nimoy, dir. Showtime, 23 July 1995. Canada: Trilogy Entertainment Group & Atlantis Films Ltd. (prod.) / MGM Domestic Television (dist.). 1995. 48 min. Alison Lea Bingeman, script. Based on Eando Binder (pseud.), "I, Robot" (q.v. under Fiction). Leonard Nimoy, featured player.

In the Department of Robotics in Rossom Hall, Adam Link kills Dr. Link, Adam's creator. Most of the rest of the episode is the hearing to establish whether Adam is merely a dangerous AI robot that should be destroyed—as the military desire—or a "synthetic human," a "thinking feeling being, a person" loved like a brother by Dr. Link's daughter and a person under US law. Hearing uncovers that Dr. Link had lost academic funding and had gotten military funding, to make Adam into a killer robot; Adam, however, had become something of a poetry-loving pacifist. In attempting to totally reprogram Adam, Dr. Link had caused Adam to go temporarily mad and kill him in self defense. Climax of episode has Adam being taken off to await trial, when a large truck bears down on the state's attorney. Adam sacrifices himself to save the prosecutor's life, showing himself capable of "Empathy, sacrifice, love." Adam's "death" also rids the military-academic complex of an embarrassment (our comment). Cf. under Star Trek: The Next Generation in this section, the episode "The Measure of a Man."