Firstly I assume that the Asimov credit is this week's joke. I adore Asimov and nothing he wrote is as brainless as this. Even allowing for the age of this, the understanding of robotics shown here is laughable. Seven or eight years previously better understanding was shown on Star Trek.

I know it's not to be taken seriously but this is barely watchable. Poor Robot, unhappy with its lot goes on the rampage. Please tell me it didn't happen.

0/10

@HawkMan47 said:

Firstly I assume that the Asimov credit is this week's joke.

Well, one of the gag credits at least... But if you pay attention, you may find more.

@mad-pac said:

Karl Pruner ... Ian Farve

Tierre Turner ... Zero

Isaac Asimov ... (story)

How appropriate. One was an android, one was a robot, and one wrote "I, Robot" and the three rules for robots.

This week we get our first man-made monster, not some creature from legend but a killer robot, although closer to an android (i.e. made to look human – to an extent). This has been a staple of sci-fi for years, from computers who get too smart or robots who yearn to be human. Isaac Asimov set up a series of rules for robots, but who’s to say they will obey them? Our monster of the week breaks rule number one (A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.) about two minutes into the show. And there was no reason for it; he could have simply knocked his creator unconscious and then escaped. Murder was unnecessary.

Kolchak has a bizarre chase this week: Vincenzo puts him on obituary duty to punish him for taking a day off to fish without telling anyone. But the victim was a dead scientist and his drunken wife hints that he was working on a secret project. Coincidentally, he then gets a call about a break-in at a mortuary and is just in time to see the killer robot tossing people around like tenpins after stealing an oversized makeup kit. Somehow he comes to realize the two are connected. When he checks on a library break-in, he finds a tape of St. Thomas Aquinas that I guess the robot dropped on his way out. Wasn’t that lucky, as it fits along with the tape he saw about ethical behavior in the apartment of the robot’s co-creator Leslie Dwyer? He chases her down and finally confronts the machine – Mr. R.I.N.G. for Robomatic Internalized Nerve Ganglia. To paraphrase a line from AGENTS OF SHIELD, somebody wanted it to spell Ring really bad.

Mr. RING gets a little unhinged when Kolchak asks him who had more of a right to live, him or Professor Walker. But he doesn’t get to go berserk or get his brain fried from the question. The military busts in and shuts him down with a bullet to the head. One wonders why the cop earlier on insisted on not shooting the machine if it was that easy. But I guess earlier they thought they could take it “alive” and just gave up on the idea in the end.

There isn’t much time for debate about the right to live for an android or robot since he isn’t spoken to until close to the very end. He’s just there to throw things around and look scary. There are too many coincidences in the trail leading there for it to be a fun pursuit. There’s not even that much fun in the office conversations. For instance, when Mr. K picked up the phone to call the library to find out who checked out the philosophy tapes, I wanted to see him use a clever ploy to get them to give him the phone number. But they just cut away to him telling us about the reverse phone directory leaving us to assume he pulled a clever con job. That was disappointing, like the rest of the show.

Good scenes:
Carl catches on that someone is tailing him, drives up to his window and tells him to take good notes; they’ll be a test on all this.

Kolchak explains to Tony why it is important for us to know how our government funds are being spent, by using a pie chart analogy. It’s a fun analogy and he actually wins his point with logic. After all, the government shouldn’t be allowed to stifle the press like they clearly do here. One killer robot is hardly a national security issue.

The scenes at the beginning with Carl fighting off the government’s attempts to erase his memory present him in a different light and are well done. And Corinne Michaels does a terrific job at playing the sympathetic scientist trying to treat the robot as a human child just trying to learn.

Bad things: stereotypical behavior by the government and the military. The senator even has a mean-looking secretary who is hardly tough enough looking to actually manhandle anyone. Her mean glance just appears to scare Carl. And the whole look of the robot, just a body suit with a piece of a computer for a face, isn’t very impressive.

I can only give this one 5 depressing thoughts, like that the celebration of a person’s entire life – his or her obituary – is apparently written by the lowest life form in the office.

Amusing note: Last week, when the Goldsteins left the theater, the movie on the marquee was “The Fever – Rated R.” This week, the mortuary being robbed is right next to a theater. The movie playing on the marquee: “The Fever Rated R” Must’ve been a long-running popular flick, huh?

@brimfin said:

@mad-pac said:

Karl Pruner ... Ian Farve

Tierre Turner ... Zero

Isaac Asimov ... (story)

How appropriate. One was an android, one was a robot, and one wrote "I, Robot" and the three rules for robots.

ROBOTIC BINGO!

This time, the show plays with people's innate fear of machines, which must've been particularly great back in the day when electronic computing was still in its infancy.

The Kolchak writers seemed to be attempting to adapt a seemingly large variety of myths to a predetermined story format, so basically all monsters feel the same, but each type of monster and origin is different. I'm still "processing" the information about how the monster wasn't a senseless killer, like in other cases, but instead had a seemingly justifiable reason to act mean. But there have been monsters with good intentions in the show before.

Anyway, at the end we get a little depth in terms of the story presenting the robot's motives to kill, but until then, it just seemed that it was just a bully. All that technology just to produce an artificially created madman. It turns out Mr. RING wanted to be human and even attempted to manufacture a face for himself, with very creepy results. This is an old story theme, as old as Frankenstein, and even older. But that might still have been worth exploring on television back in the 1970s.

And of course, following that old cliché, Mr. RING wasn't able to explain the difference between right and wrong. But it's interesting that this particular question is something I've remembered about this episode quite well (or did I see it in an old movie or another show with a similar scene?), and at that time it got me thinking about it a great deal. However I was really expecting Mr. RING to explode or something by not being able to answer that question. (Somehow that brings to mind the way Number 6 destroyed The General in The Prisoner.) This is such an established trope, that now I can't help think of a similar scene in Archer, but with much more exciting results.

By the way, I was wondering. Could they have built such a robot in 1975? Well, considering that bionics were highly advanced in the 1970s and a bionic man could be built for mere six million dollars, then I'd say, yes, definitely. Especially if you consider that the organization that built Mr. RING was the Tyrell Institute, and as most people know, Tyrell is the name of the corporation that would be building advanced replicants forty-four years later.

I missed the INS office banter, which was quite limited this time. We also didn't have the stubborn police chief/captain/lieutenant/sergeant/etc who had the best intentions but refused to see the truth and would do whatever he could to dissuade Kolchak from doing his job.

Not a very inspiring moment in the series. This time the show only brings us 4 glorified adding machines.

@mad-pac said:

And of course, following that old cliché, Mr. RING wasn't able to explain the difference between right and wrong. ... However I was really expecting Mr. RING to explode or something by not being able to answer that question. (Somehow that brings to mind the way Number 6 destroyed The General in The Prisoner.) This is such an established trope, that now I can't help think of a similar scene in Archer, but with much more exciting results.

That expectation would have been there had Captain Kirk asked him the question. But he would have had to keep talking until the result set in. But I didn't think of Star Trek regarding this ep. until reading that remark.

By the way, I was wondering. Could they have built such a robot in 1975? Well, considering that bionics were highly advanced in the 1970s and a bionic man could be built for mere six million dollars, then I'd say, yes, definitely. Especially if you consider that the organization that built Mr. RING was the Tyrell Institute, and as most people know, Tyrell is the name of the corporation that would be building advanced replicants forty-four years later.

Definitely not as advanced as a fembot. Possibly an early step towards the development of one, though.

Nice catch on the Philip K. Dick reference there. I completely missed it.

The first thing that stuck out to me was that the show had barely started when we got a gross and egregious violation of the first of Asimov's Three Laws: a robot deliberately and lethally harming a human. I definitely didn't expect it to obey human orders (Asimov's second? law) after that.

Really bizarre that the top cop ordered his men not to shoot the thing when that's obviously the only way they could have stopped it. Especially after it had clobbered cops left and right with tactics worthy of The Incredible Hulk.

To me, the story of this one isn't the relatively lame monster that the robot presented, but the pursuit of hidden truth by a journalist against a governmental stonewall. Under the Trump administration Kolchak would have gotten the book thrown at him.

Who allocates funding for the operatives in this? They equip Carl's tail with a '70s car phone as expensive as those were but then put him in a Pinto with it? Must be a real bummer to drive a Pinto to tail a guy in a cool '66 Mustang convertible. Ford Vs. Ford.

"By 1984" it was speculated that computers would rule people. A case could be made that in the mid '70s computers held more sway than in the '80s because people hadn't become completely aware of "Garbage in. Garbage out," and some bureaucratic types regarded them as infallible. But now it's The Singularity that people fear for the same reason. And "When computers rise up, ATMs will lead the charge."--Dr. Sheldon Cooper.

At first, it seemed out of character that after killing the scientist to escape, and then the mailman just for his jacket the robot would simply lurk and watch Kolchak snoop without violence. But then it occurred to me that the moral philosophy tapes must have done some good a scene or two before the lady scientist said so.

To me, the cheesiest thing about this was the way the robot "died" when shot. A good sparky "Vzzvzzvzzvzzt!" would have been much better IMO.

Nice way to kill an hour on a Saturday morning, but nothing special. 5 putty covered masks.

I wrote a much longer post but just deleted it by accident.

I enjoyed this weeks episode. It seems that everyone else agree this is the weakest so far.

I liked the design of Mr RING, his appearance without his mask was very similar to the Westworld movie androids without their faces.
The first mask and his outfit made me think of Jason Vorhees from Friday the 13th and his hockey mask. The scene where he pushes over the cops and rips a fire escape from the wall was very impressive.
Later his moulded mask was very creepy and reminded me of Michael Myers from Halloween.

I thought the reasons for his actions were well thought out. RING appeared to be a weapon as the military were involved and so would be intended to kill. It was clear his moral education was a late addition and was never completed.
This android had no built in directives that we know of, nothing to stop him killing especially when they had added a sense of self preservation.

I appreciated two deviations from the advanced robot trope. The first was his response to Kolchak's moral conundrums. Many computers presented in this time in shows like Doctor Who or Star Trek respond to moral questions or logical loops in a over the top way often malfunctioning or blowing up. RINGS much more understated glances to his educator seemed more realistic.
Secondly he was easily destroyed at the end. An advanced prototype like this is likely to be fragile and certainly wouldn't be immune to current weapons as many futuristic robots often are.

Bob Peters 61 wrote - To me, the story of this one isn't the relatively lame monster that the robot presented, but the pursuit of hidden truth by a journalist against a governmental stonewall. Under the Trump administration Kolchak would have gotten the book thrown at him.

I think this helped the episode greatly. McGavin really conveyed a sense of weariness throughout as his was blocked at each turn. He showed his doggedness finding the person in the room who would talk to him providing him nuggets of info.
His conversation with Tony I felt really reveals why Kolchak does what he does.

There were also some great bit characters this week:

The security guard who was authoritative but polite and came across as someone not to be messed with.

Ms Baum the senators secretary who Kolchak takes one look at and realises this is a fight he won't win.

Mr Carmichael the "Cos-mo-tologist not undertaker" who's shiny appearance, stilted delivery and slow speech made me thing he was a android as well. I did enjoy Kolchak having to process his English pronunciation of aluminium.

A solid episode 7 more horror movie masks RING tried on out of 10

@cloister56 said:

I wrote a much longer post but just deleted it by accident.

That happened to me when I wrote a review then tried to add a quote so I clicked "Quote"... The rest, and my review are history.

The security guard who was authoritative but polite and came across as someone not to be messed with.

He seemed like one of those random characters Stan Lee would play in an Avengers cameo.

The first was his response to Kolchak's moral conundrums. Many computers presented in this time in shows like Doctor Who or Star Trek respond to moral questions or logical loops in a over the top way often malfunctioning or blowing up. Later his moulded mask was very creepy and reminded me of Michael Myers from Halloween.

Speaking of Star Trek, so do you mean Mr. RING looked a little like William Shatner then?

@mad-pac Speaking of Star Trek, so do you mean Mr. RING looked a little like William Shatner then?

Heh, yes now you mention it he looks like both Michael Myers AND William Shatner how strange

@cloister56 said:

@mad-pac Speaking of Star Trek, so do you mean Mr. RING looked a little like William Shatner then?

Heh, yes now you mention it he looks like both Michael Myers AND William Shatner how strange

It's a mystery nobody can explain.