>Enough of the "Inspector Gadget" talk! Let's discuss a more interesting
>robot show: "Big O". Much of this series revolves around the interactions
>between the human and android characters, especially that very special
>relationship between our hero Roger Smith and his lovely robotic live-in
>assistant, R. Dorothy Wayneright. Neither Rogor nor Dorothy seem comfortable
>about discussing their feelings towards each other, although their actions
>clearly indicate a special bond between the two. The subtlety of this
>romance that dares not speak its name gives the series a lot of its appeal.
>
>Robot romance seems to be a common theme in anime. Entire series are based
>upon this premise: "Chobits", "Steel Angel Kurumi", "Oh My Goddess". This
>theme is so common that it has developed its own set of cliches.
>
>For example, when the drawbacks to human / android marriage is discussed,
>how often have we heard the old canard about how the human will grow old and
>die, while his/her robot mate will remain young and beautiful? Did you ever
>stop to think that in real life, machines age even faster than humans? Think
>about the PC you had 10 years ago -- would you really want to use it now?
>How about your 1997 TV set? Your car from 10 years ago? Your 1990's video
>game console? Let's face it, people can cope with new technologies much
>better than machines can. People can move from writing Pascal programs for
>MS-DOS to writing Java programs for the net, but a 286 machine will always
>be a 286 machine. It's surprizing that fear of the robot's aging (in the
>form of obsolescence) has never made it into the robot romances. Several
>comedies have dealt with the issue of machine aging: "Futurama" /
>"Obsoletely Fabulous" and "The Brak Show" / "Obsolescence Day" episodes come
>to mind, but can't think of a anroid love story where this issue arose.
>
>So perhaps a possible "Big O" storyline will have a storyline where Roger
>and R. Dorothy go to Massachusetts and make their relationship legal, but
>then their wedded bliss is spoiled by Dorothy's concern that Roger will dump
>her for a new model with a blu-ray hairband.