Masters of Science Fiction #3: “Jerry Was a Man” preview

Published August 18th, 2007 in Television Tags: Anne Heche, Malcolm McDowell, Masters of Science Fiction.

This week’s short story to get the Masters of Science Fiction treatment is “Jerry Was a Man”, written in 1947 by seven-time Hugo Award winner & Science Fiction Grand Master Laureate Robert A. Heinlein. It stars Emmy Award winner Anne Heche (Psycho, Men in Trees) and Malcolm McDowell (A Clockwork Orange, Mr. Linderman in Heroes), and is directed and written by Academy Award Nominee Michael Tolkin (The Player, The Rapture).

In the future, Mr. and Mrs. Bronson Van Vogel are the seventh-richest couple in the world. Pleasure is their only work; mundane or dangerous chores are done by anthropoids. All the anthropoids - a few strands of human DNA, grown into a baby and fused with plastics - are named “Joe.” Somehow, Mrs. Van Vogel’s dormant compassion is awakened by a Joe named Jerry. What traits would prove that Jerry is, indeed, a man?

Watch the promo for it here, as well as the following preview clips. I particularly enjoyed the courtroom scene in clip 2, where the testimonial oath has amusingly been adjusted to accommodate for all religious deities. Although, to my disdain, I heard no mention of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Masters of Science Fiction: “Jerry Was a Man” - preview clip 1