\"Only by pride cometh contention.\" - Proverbs 13:10

\"Come on and be my party doll...come on and be my party doll...\" - \"Party doll\", performed by Buddy Holly

The \"Gerald\" character was played by Gordon Gould. (Not to be confused with the man of the same name who apparently invented the LASER.) Gould was often a \"second banana\" character who was with the RMT from its first year (I heard him as a doctor in \"Wave of terror\" from 1974) to its last (he was co-lead character with Norman Rose in the very sullen \"Sand Castles\" (by Elspeth Eric) in 1982). In a similar role like this one, he played the recalcitrant scientist who helped Nat Polen find a deadly, flawed invisibility formula in the RMT\'s \"I thought I saw a shadow.\"

As for the \"I, robot\" rules, that\'s fascinating. The only problem was, Amelia was essentially an extension of her \"uncle\", Dr. Arthur Moore, who was playing by HIS own rule rather than Asimov\'s, and that rule was:

\"You (Amelia) will do what I want, when I want it, and HOW I want it.\" He was a very prideful man.

Steve, I think we\'re alike in how we see things...I said that this and \"Star Sapphire\" haunted me the most of all the RMT episodes, and they both did leave somewhat a bitter taste in my mouth (and you\'ve pretty much agreed with me on the latter point).

With \"Sapphire\" the reason was obvious: the hints, in whatever form, of child abuse, and to a lesser extent of a husband who was ready to kill his wife. (Both sins were intertwined.) With \"Life Blood\" (which my then 11-year-old daughter tipped me off to) I had to listen to this a few times to get a clearer picture of why I was bothered.

Respectfully said, in my reply above I said \"Life Blood\" was inspired by the TWZ \"The Lonely\" but was essentially reversed. (When you get to watch it you\'ll see what I mean. I can still remember Jack Warden\'s character, a convicted murderer, imploring his friend: \"It was self defense\"...and I believed him. And this was a tremendous TWZ episode. You felt for both Warden\'s and Jean Marsh\'s characters.

In the end, the only sympathetic character in \"Life Blood\" seems to be Gordon Gould\'s Gerald, but...

- Note how Amelia, in one dinner outing with Ralph Bell\'s character, almost breaks down into tears (effectively almost humanizing her) when he says one particular thing. Note how he in turn almost breaks into laughter. Who is the emotionless, robotic one there? Up to that point, he seemed to show about as much emotion as her, and it was telling that his happiest moments were when she seemed to be the most hurt.

- Note how Dr. Arthur Moore (in conjunction with thoughts above) says Amelia\'s purpose is \"to please men\" (Precisely what \"The Lonely\'s\" \"Alicia\" was apparently created to do). Note how even when she\'s not doing something good, (as near story\'s end) she\'s STILL trying to please any man who asks her.

- I also got to thinking back of the times how, when I was young, filled with hormones, unmarried and quite foolish, I would have LOVED to have hooked up with Amelia.

- Note, last of all, how quiet Amelia is in her final moments on the show. Then I realized...that\'s exactly how quiet she was when Dr. Moore was showing Dr. Gerald the very thing which gave this RMT show its title.

(BTW, here are shots (no pun intended) of \"Alicia\'s\" final moments in \"The Lonely\", where as I recall she was as quiet as \"Amelia\"):


I personally don\'t think in our lifetimes (or ever) we\'ll ever have an Alicia, or an Amelia. I think women, and humans, are just too complex of God\'s creations to be duplicated.

But even though I can\'t put it into words, yet, Steve, I think at the bottom of this what really got me was summarized by Gerald, when he was trying to calm Ralph Bell\'s character after the latter man was exploding into violent rage. \"Don\'t get mad at her, she\'s just a robot.\" It was like when one sees someone about to fly into similar rage at a child or (no similar value intended) a pet when they\'ve accidentally spilled something, wet on something, or whatever. You know the child or animal just made an innocent mistake but they\'re about to face some overly harsh wrath because of it.

Then again...she did indeed start \"dating other men\", according to Gerald.

More directly, Amelia seemed virtuous, but I tend to think, according to the script, that she did indeed end up spending some time alone with Bell\'s lecherous character at his friend\'s apartment after he gave her the ring she wanted. (And either she gave in to him only up to a point before their marriage, or she was one SERIOUSLY lifelike woman. Hmmmm...)

Sorry for the long response, Steve. I think the \"rage\" paragraph above is really what ended up haunting me on this. That, and the fact that (according to this) there was so much promise in the creation of Amelia, but her creator just wasted it on his own prideful ambitions. She was, in the end, still just a pawn caught up between two prideful men, one lecherous and one vengeful. And while she did some things that weren\'t good, one wonders whether she had any more capability to judge and choose right and wrong that the machines we\'re typing on to post messages on this forum.

BTW, John Beal was cool...<br>