Mann & Machine

Put this sci-fi series in context. This ran in 1992 between Star Trek TNG season 5 and 6. Aired within weeks of Alien 3 release, months prior to Universal Soldier being in cinema. It was thrilling watching this on TV for this then 12 year old. I recently sat down to watch some lo-fi VHS recordings of this series and set my expectations to low. As of now (December 2021) this series has not (to my knowledge) been released for purchase or for streaming. After watching I was surprised at how well it holds up in terms of entertainment. The main trope here: The anti-android cop gets an android partner and over time grows a mutual respect and even affinity. My issues: There is no profound sci-fi here. The CGI is 1992 television level. The fight choreography film strategy seemed to be a shaky cam + 1.25x speed + blur effect. It's only 9 episodes. Hopefully this will eventually be released in a high fidelity format. If you want to watch a very similar series (made 20 years later) check out 'Almost Human' (2013)

In the future a cop gets a beautiful female robot as his partner. this is an experimental project. Detective Mann knows he is being monitored, so he has to be careful, If she were a real woman and they were not being monitored, he would fall head over heels in love with her. However he fears he would look foolish if he showed his true feelings for her. The audience was not fascinated with this and the show got poor ratings.

Wonderful early 90s show.

Full of life and with great performances.

It's really too bad that NBC changed its mind about its commitment to Dick Wolf at that time and dumped this show and South Beach into the Summer so they could kill them without really giving them a chance. Both shows were extremely well-made and would have been big hits if they had been given any support by NBC.

Later Law and Order's ratings picked up and dick Wolf became again their knight in shining armor.

It's also too bad for Yancy Butler who ended up doing awful movies and shows like Witchblade, and for David Andrews who is only now seeing a well-deserved career revival.

I remember watching this back in the early 1990's when, aside from the Star Trek franchise, there was very little in good sci-fi on TV. This show had some good potential that, unfortunately, never got explored. The vision of the future was well done (one of the better semi-dystopian interpretations on TV since Max Headroom), and the ongoing chemistry between the two leads was pretty good. Never intended to be "the bionic woman" that one reviewer labeled it, Yancy Butler does well as the new-model robot/android, with the right touch of unintentional sexuality in a character just learning the nuances of actual human interactions (esp. between the sexes). Plus, they didn't bring on all of her artificial abilities all at once, instead developing them - and the relationship between the two leads - as they went along. (The scene where she takes out her eyes, and her partner's reaction, comes to mind as an example.) Would it have survived if they'd given it the full season to blossom? In the TV environment of the day, probably not, but it probably would have fared better today on the cable landscape.

Being of the generation that was too young to have watched the Bionic Woman, I was just getting into SF when Mann & Machine came around.. *Wow* what a great show. Until Mann & Machine, the only android character on TV that I was accustomed to was Data from Star Trek and even then as young teen, I was absolutely fascinated by his journey to and among humanity. Mann and Machine neatly addressed my android fascination by following Eve in her learning of humanity, and to me this was by far the most interesting part of the series. Today's equivalent (albeit in a different setting) might be Kyle XY. I think that the cop show genre worked well, as did added that addicting little "will they or won't they" that seems to be present in so many cop series that have male and female partners.

Since Mann & Machine, technology has made huge advances (check out the Actroid Robot on YouTube), and Sci Fi is becoming more mainstream. I think that this concept still has a lot of potential and hope that someone out there decides to give this idea another go, it could do really well.