The Thin Man TV episode "Robot Client" (1957)

Written by Devery Freeman and directed by Oscar Rudolph (father of director Alan Rudolph), "Robot Client" is a tepid attempt at light suspense comedy, and barely evokes the special qualities that glistened in the original 1934 Thin Man. Neither MGM player Peter Lawford nor former Warner Bros. actress Phyllis Kirk (House of Wax) come even a mile near the characters played so brilliantly by William Powell and Myrna Loy; even the new Asta pooch functions as a predictable cutaway, reacting with rehearsed barks, or running to sheltered corners and anthropomorphically covering its eyes.

The show managed to last two years (1957-1959) on NBC, which perhaps indicated the level of blandness TV audiences were willing to digest over a half hour as former film stars appeared in predictable scenarios. Barely a hint of sexual naughtiness resides in this particular episode, and the plotting is lame to a glaring fault: Lawford already discovers why Robby the Robot couldn't have murdered a scientist, but he repeats the test a second time solely because the writer needed a scene to bring the investigative couple in contact with the real killer.

Of course the mystery is quickly solved, but the real curio of the episode is what lies beneath its blandness: Nora Charles is more of a housewife with a fifties sense of sexual shame (Loy's Nora had none, and was damn proud of her attributes, true wit, and intellect); Nick doesn't imbibe in any libations and sleeps in a separate bed; and in keeping with the pro-smoking ideals of the era, a close-up of Nick's hand at the remote control for MGM's now lobotomized Robby the Robot is centered, so that a fuming cigarette keeps the show's sponsor happy.

At least John Green's theme music is snappy.

Mark R. Hasan (2006)