A man (the great Jack Warden), who insists that he killed only in self defense, is sentenced to 40 years in solitary confinement. On an asteroid. His only visitors are seen four times a year as they deliver supplies. One of the visitors (John Dehner, who also starred in The Jungle) shows compassion by dropping off a female robot on one trip, to ease the lonliness.
The only problem is that the convict falls in love with the robot, so that on the return trip, when he learns that he’s been granted the long-sought pardon, he doesn’t want to leave. Finding out that he only has 15 pounds of space on the rocket to freedom, he isn’t sure what to do – he doesn’t want to leave his beloved Alicia. So the compassionate Captain does the only thing he can – he shoots her in the face.
Perhaps not the most subtle episode, but not a bad one for the questions that it raises about both our society and ourselves.
This is an eerie and tragic tale, though one does wonder why Corry didn’t just opt to wait a bit longer until the next supply ship came along that was able to take Alicia as well (and the car, come to that)- that way everyone’s happy, and all he’s got to worry about is Alicia’s next battery-change….
This episode was shot in California’s Death Valley in the Summer of ’59, which in the US was an exceptionally hot one- Jean Marsh, who played Alicia, described later how tough the cast & crew found it filiming in such hellish conditions. One of the cameramen developed heatstroke, and she herself passed out more than once due to the heat. Jean later went on to appear in an episode of ‘Dr.Who’ (‘The Dalek’s Master Plan’) in ’66, playing ruthless secret agent Sarah Kingdom- she remains very busy as an actress, and is also a thoroughly nice person.