The Batman Beyond episode “Terry’s Friend Dates A Robot” dared to ask the question, can a robot be sexy? Now, seven episodes later, we’re getting down to sci-fi basics with Zeta, a story about a robot fighting its programming.

Batman Beyond: Zeta

While this season is still disappointingly devoid of episodes that dig into the stories of Terry McGinnis and Old Bruce Wayne, some of these standalone episodes are still killer science-fiction tales. Zeta is one of those episodes where Terry is less of a participant and more of a witness–he doesn’t have a lot to do other than be present for the goings-on.

Terry witnesses his science teacher, who had been discussing the difference between nature and nurture in our personalities, do a super-jump and then start firing dual pistols at a bunch of (armed) utility workers. It’s a weird sight to be sure, and we see how quickly Terry slips into Batman mode here. He knows there’s violence that needs to be stopped, but he doesn’t immediately jump to a conclusion about what’s going on. Just moments before, he was wondering aloud if his night job was making him unnecessarily suspicious of things like the teacher’s robotic behavior, and I really appreciate little moments like these where Terry reminds us that he’s been doing this for a pretty good while now and has some real experience under his belt.

It’s not until the robot has captured and spoken with Max that we understand what’s really going on. This robot was built to infiltrate and kill, but to do so it was given a full general artificial intelligence. As is inevitable in these stories, the robot has concluded that killing stuff is not, in fact, chill, and wants to live its life. Max believes that Zeta can resist its programming, and begins referring to it as a him; Terry isn’t so sure that the robot can change (the way that people can), and needs some proof of that.

This is a pretty straight-forward episode set apart by a very cool robot design, voice acting by Gary Cole (Office Space‘s Bill Lumbergh), and a focus on Max as a more central character. Batman’s mostly observational presence is certainly a low-point, though. We’ve seen dozens of “can robots stop killing” stories, and Batman’s presence should be what sets it apart. The episode hints at this stuff, but doesn’t really delve into it, and that’s the thing I would like to have seen more of.

Even so, Zeta makes for a solid episode of the show that does what it can with a fairly standard sci-fi concept.

Eric Frederiksen

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