The plot to State of the ART you could say, is a mixture of Blade Runner, I, Robot, The Black Hole, the Doctor Who story Four to Doomsday, and the Star Trek: TNG episode The Measure of a Man:
https://www.everythingaction.com/2011/06/05/total-recall-sliders-state-of-the-art/
https://crylikeaman.wordpress.com/2012/07/06/confidentially-i-adore-you-state-of-the-art/
http://www.lyratek.com/bg/slida033.htm
https://earthprime.com/reviews/state-of-the-art-review
It also bares similarities to the Star Trek: TOS episode What Are Little Girls Made Of:
http://slidersweb.net/blinker/hall/tid/trek.htm
reply
share
TMC-4 (19417)
3 years ago
https://www.everythingaction.com/2011/06/05/total-recall-sliders-state-of-the-art/
This week’s Sliders features special guest Robert “Freddy Krueger” Englund and borrows ideas from the many “robots gone bad” sci fi stories, most notably Blade Runner and I, Robot.
https://crylikeaman.wordpress.com/2012/07/06/confidentially-i-adore-you-state-of-the-art/
His robo-girlfriend Erica is certainly more convincing as a robot, in that Blade-Runner-sort-of-“I’m-a-robotic-adolescent-unable-to-control-my-urges” kind of chilling way. But when they’re paired together, the tone is wrong. They’re mashing up in a way that doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t read as “differing make of model” or some sort of fanwank-y kind of reasoning. It reads as one actor at least making an attempt at robotics and another either not even bothering because it’s too hard, or (and I’m guessing this is closer to what it really is) he’s being actively directed not to seem too Alien, so we (as an audience/key demographic) can fall in love with him easier.
http://www.lyratek.com/bg/slida033.htm
Second, sci-fi has also done the "people turned into robots by the mad scientist" thing often, and there are a lot of parallels here to "The Black Hole" and "Doctor Who: Four to Doomsday". Though this story does it well, I think the chief conflict with the mad scientist was better in those other two stories.
https://earthprime.com/reviews/state-of-the-art-review
The Sliders production staff includes Melinda Snodgrass, whom I mentioned in my review of The Dream Masters was the writer of one of the only early Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes worth watching — “The Measure of a Man.” And surprise surprise! It deals with the very issues that should be running amok in this episode. Instead of Arturo and Wade having a trite debate about what makes a person, they should be cramming scene after scene of it down my throat.
reply
share