Description: Season 5, Episode 20
Air Date: February 14, 1964
Plot Summary: A dorky programmer's love life is sabotaged by his jealous computer.
Review: Valentine's Day was not lost on the TZ writers as they came up with this bizarre love story; though, the story is more comedy focused than anything. You have a computer programmer, named Elwood, replacing a previous programmer working on, I suppose, an AI super computer called Agnes. The last programmer was driven mad by the machine, and the audience will quickly understand why. It would seem Agnes has sentience of a sort and falls for her programmers. Elwood is interested in some busted chick, named Millie, to the dismay of Agnes. Instead of working on getting a man to orbit Venus (because that happened), Agnes flirts with Elwood and tries to sabotage his feeble attempts to win over his love interest. Surprisingly, Agnes is really funny despite "speaking" through text.
Elwood is another potato pancake-type who doesn't realize Millie is not interested. As you might guess, it doesn't take much effort for Agnes to trick Elwood and set Millie up with some pretty boy. Now, you may think this episode will go in one of two different directions, but it ends up going a third route. You'd think maybe Elwood would somehow love Agnes back but that doesn't happen. What I thought would happen was that this background chick Elwood kept giving Millie's rejected presents to would actually fall for Elwood, but that didn't happen either. The episode opts to make Elwood go crazy from Agnes' jealousy, similarly to the first programmer, and they have to replace him with Millie's pretty boy. In other words, it is implied this is a cycle with Agnes ruining the lives of any programmer she falls for. This episode was ahead of its time in a lot of ways despite the ridiculous handling of the material. I think this story could have been a hell of a lot more interesting if they made it a serious introspection. Oh well. It was funny for what it was, but I wouldn't go as far as to say it was a genuinely good episode.
This was one of the biggest joke episode of the series, this, The sounds and silencers, and The mind and the matter. I guess they were attempts to be funny, but instead came across stupid. My opinion anyway.
ReplyDeleteElwood really looked nerdy, and acted very nerdy too, kind of Revenge of the nerds like. He was your typical stereotypical computer science geek who needed his "alive" machine Agnus to "talk" to him, and they were supposed to be discussing complex outerspace data.
Once Millie, who was really cute, comes into Elwood's view, he's hopelessly nerdstruck from her beauty. He asked her for a date, she unbelievably said yes, and then of course Elwood nerds it all up and completely spoils it. She was wanting to drink and dance, and this geek refuses to and insists with his science book open to discuss with her all the neutron space data notes or some shit, then complains about the sores on his feet two seconds after she gets him to dance with her, and then sprays Champaign all over her face because the clueless nerd opens the bottle with the end of it pointed three inches from her face. I sure as hell didn't blame her for ditching him and movin on the much cooler, less awkward pretty boy as you called him. Then she coldly blows him off again when he comes back to Millie at the stud's apartment. I still don't blame her. She also blows off him giving her candy and then flowers while then handing it to that hallway girl who takes them, smiles weakly, shrugs, and continues walking never saying a word to him. The rest of the episode is based around Elwood trying to get Agnus to help him with all the scientific space data and Agnus not responding and only wantinh to respond about Millie. Then Agnus "freaking out" with the machine spiting out paper making extra noise with Elwood losing it in the most ridiculous way calling it a fem fatel. What a joke of an episode.
This was one of the biggest joke episode of the series, this, The sounds and silencers, and The mind and the matter. I guess they were attempts to be funny, but instead came across stupid. My opinion anyway.
ReplyDeleteElwood really looked nerdy, and acted very nerdy too, kind of Revenge of the nerds like. He was your typical stereotypical computer science geek who needed his "alive" machine Agnus to "talk" to him, and they were supposed to be discussing complex outerspace data.
Once Millie, who was really cute, comes into Elwood's view, he's hopelessly nerdstruck from her beauty. He asked her for a date, she unbelievably said yes, and then of course Elwood nerds it all up and completely spoils it. She was wanting to drink and dance, and this geek refuses to and insists with his science book open to discuss with her all the neutron space data notes or some shit, then complains about the sores on his feet two seconds after she gets him to dance with her, and then sprays Champaign all over her face because the clueless nerd opens the bottle with the end of it pointed three inches from her face. I sure as hell didn't blame her for ditching him and movin on the much cooler, less awkward pretty boy as you called him. Then she coldly blows him off again when he comes back to Millie at the stud's apartment. I still don't blame her. She also blows off him giving her candy and then flowers while then handing it to that hallway girl who takes them, smiles weakly, shrugs, and continues walking never saying a word to him. The rest of the episode is based around Elwood trying to get Agnus to help him with all the scientific space data and Agnus not responding and only wantinh to respond about Millie. Then Agnus "freaking out" with the machine spiting out paper making extra noise with Elwood losing it in the most ridiculous way calling it a fem fatel. What a joke of an episode.