Robocop

Production: Canada, 1994.
Cast: Richard Eden, Yvette Nipar, Blu Mankuma, Andrea Roth, David Gardner, Sarah Campbell.

This time we have a movie blockbuster saga (although a temporary success) which became a not so much appreciated television show. In fact, it lasted just for a season.
The first movie about the cyborg policeman was released in 1987. The story was quite original: in the near future, the city of Detroit was affected by a very high criminal rate, and the power was owned by big corporations (in which other criminals wearing ties and suits were often hidden), so that even police forces were

officially property of a corporation, the OCP (Omni Consumer Productions). The fight against crime was particularly hard, and police officers died at a very high rate (and in the “Robocop 2” movie police went on strike too).
So the OCP tried to build an indestructible mechanic policeman, and after first a disappointing experiment they found the right way: they took what was left of police officer Alex Murphy (Peter Weller) massacred by criminals (they saved just the chest with head…) and mounted it on a total-body prosthesis which made him indestructible and invincible. So Robocop was born, a super-policeman with his super-gun (a modified Beretta 93R) and a series of electronic gadgets which helped him for his duty.

Robocop had also three prime directives, very similar to Asimov’s robotic laws: 1) serve the public trust, 2) protect the innocents, 3) uphold the law. But there was a fourth, hidden one, which forbade to arrest an OCP executive, and this warranted immunity towards law for his creators and proprietors.
But Robocop was not only a cold machine: Alex Murphy’s memories and personality had survived, so he was often able to take human decisions every time his program allowed him.
The TV show is in a certain way inspired by the third movie: the OCP has built Delta city, the hyper-technological city scheduled in the movies. Murphy-Robocop here is played by Richard Eden. There’s always a police woman, Lisa Madigan (Yvette Nipar: in the third movie his police

woman companion Lewis, played by Nancy Allen, had died), there’s always a rough sergeant (Blu Mankuma), and an orphan little girl, Gadget (Sarah Campbell). There’s also a new character: Neurobrain (Andrea Roth), holographic projection of a woman made by the central computer of Delta City, result of transplanting the brain of Diana, a young secretary, into the computer itself (the last cruel OCP experiment). Neurobrain soon becomes friend and confident of Robocop (they share the same destiny of bio-mechanical creatures) and being able to control all Delta City she helps him every time she can.
Another character from the movie saga is the OCP chairman (David Gardner), who has remained the chief of a ruthless corporation but sometimes it looks as if he can have some spot of humanity.

The Robocop design is more or less the same as in the movies, created by Rob Bottin, with its most memorable feature, the gun placed under a hatch in the leg.
As a new gadget there is Robocop’s personal car, a 1994 Ford Mustang (not very memorable version of a famous car…).
Elements of that distopian world are not missing, like the OCP television news (with its arranged and censored news), and the “Commander Cash” cartoons, where a disturbing super-hero educates children to buy as many OCP products as they can…
In year 2001 a new series was released, “Prime Directives”, and Page Fletcher was Robocop.
There were also rumors of a movie remake, but nothing has happened so

far.

23 episodes, color, 60'

1) The Future of Law Enforcement - part I
2) The Future of Law Enforcement - part II
3) Prime Suspect
4) Trouble in Delta City
5) Officer Missing
6) What Money Can't Buy
7) Ghosts of War
8) Zone Five

9) Provision 22
10) Faces of Eve
11) When Justice Fails
12) The Human Factor
13) Inside Crime
14) RoboCop vs. Commander Cash
15) Illusions
16) The Tin Man
17) Sisters in Crime
18) Heartbreakers
19) Mother's Day

20) Nanno
21) Corporate Raiders
22) Midnight Minus One
23) Public Enemies

Prime Directives

4 episodes, color, 120'

1) Dark Justice
2) Meltdown