BackTrekking returns again to look back at the real-world inspirations of classic Trek episodes!

Star Trek is the future . . . so where are all the robots? Nearly every artificial intelligence that Enterprise encountered during its five-year mission got blasted, talked to death, or both (usually after a smooch from Captain Kirk). Gene Roddenberry was a humanist in every sense of the word and the vision of a utopian future for humanity that he wanted to portray had little room for any artificial beings or aids; he wanted humanity to pull itself up by its own fleshy bootstraps. Nevermind the fact that automated manufacturing, self-regulating computer systems, and financial algorithms already made up the backbone of the economic and social prosperity that we enjoyed in the late 20th century. How much more would the utopia of the Federation in the 23rd century rely on robots and AI for economic regulation? Doesn't matter 'cause Kirk just told them to jump off a cliff.

So robots, mostly, were relegated to villains and boogiemen on early Trek, from the unfeeling Nomad, to the devious Ruk, to the all-too-human M5 computer. Still, the galaxy couldn't be in danger every week, and as Trek stretched its comedic muscles in its second season, robots on the show found a new role: comedic straightmen. "I, Mudd" finds returning ne'er-do-well Harcourt Fenton Mudd the captive ruler of a planet of androids who are programmed to serve and study humanity, whether humanity likes it or not. It's a chilling premise, but the episode instead milks it for comedy, as our normally stoic crew acts (or over-acts) unhinged to exploit the robots' reliance on logic and the directives of their programming.

Russian-American author Isaac Asimov wasn't afraid of a robot-filled future, nor did he think that a "rise of the robots" would be a cold, emotionless tide. Instead, his short stories and novels are filled with human-like robots who wrestle with their responsibility to serve humans but protect themselves, to emulate their creators but remain frustratingly behind them. Positronic robots are, by design, unable to harm humankind but one can imagine that someday their mission to serve humanity could be updated to include, like Mudd's androids, a measure of control in the relationship. On this episode, we compare and contrast the episode "I, Mudd" with its namesake, Asimov's seminal 1950 short story collection, "I, Robot". We talk about Asimov's unornamented prose, his vision of a world that robots will save whether we like it or not, the complex implications of the seemingly simple Three Laws, looking to "The Wizard of Oz" for a classic Trek antagonist, the friendship between Asimov and Roddenberry, poking fun at your own show, "Take my wives . . . please!", engaging "Trickster" mode, Leonard Nimoy: Robot Lawyer, red hair as characterization, missing out on a robot "Citizen Kane", the ancient "I, Robot" arcade game, and Mark Zuckerberg comes up more times than we're comfortable with.

66 and 99? NICE

Here's that Asimov story link we promised
https://www.publicbooks.org/asimovs-empire-asimovs-wall/

Join us in the Just Enough Trope Discord!
https://discord.gg/EAx5VGX

Tweet at the show or your hosts with your suggestions for future episodes!
http://www.twitter.com/backtrekking
http://www.twitter.com/ka1iban
http://www.twitter.com/gooeyfame

Check out the other shows on the Just Enough Trope network!
http://www.justenoughtrope.com

Theme: Disco Medusae Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/