Technical difficulties aside, I honestly considered letting this ride for a week.
Episode 7 was largely about humans. Particularly, it related to human-facing roles with the most potent story being about a Humanoid in a high-pressure job dealing with irate customers, who many of whom don’t want to deal with what they view as a machine. His stress causes him to seek out Dr. Sudo, but perhaps a bigger issue than the original hell job is when it transforms and the customer apology role is outsourced to a pair of specialists who might or might not be robots, willing to put on a hurtful and degrading show for the people who claim to want a human touch.
The other story in episode relates to a family where the old man of the house is rendered nearly vegetative after an accident. He’s a humanoid, so Dr. Sudo can fix him up with some careful work, but the family resists treatment. After a rights organization ultimately presses for the treatment to be done, the old man (painted as a kindly pillar of the community) does come to… and becomes violent towards his son. A treatment gone wrong? No, apparently he was just abusive at home the whole time, hence the reticence to have all the king’s horses and all the king’s men put him back together again.
In a show that has occasionally grappled with legitimate issues regarding human interface with technology, this episode was particularly weak It felt like it was just taking a couple social cases, one related to media coverage and the other customer service, that could be told just as effectively now or twenty years ago as they are in the theoretical future of Gene of AI
Because of this, I’m just sort of hoping that the show’s not outright out of ideas. It needs to not loose too much steam, and right now that’s a significant danger. Just like I’m probably never going to live it, as I mentioned last week, I’m probably never going to hate it… but if it wears down too much then I’m not going to come away being able to recommend it either.