Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site mit-eddie.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!security!genrad!mit-eddie!barmar
From: barmar@mit-eddie.UUCP (Barry Margolin)
Newsgroups: net.tv
Subject: New show: Automan (minor spoiler)
Message-ID: <1058@mit-eddie.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 16-Dec-83 01:33:05 EST
Article-I.D.: mit-eddi.1058
Posted: Fri Dec 16 01:33:05 1983
Date-Received: Sat, 17-Dec-83 02:33:01 EST
Organization: MIT, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 22

I watched the pilot episode of a new ABC series tonight: Automan.  Any
computer professionals (and anyone else with any intelligence) will find
this incredibly silly.  It is a clone of the movie "Tron", only in
reverse: it is about a video man in the real world.  Desi Arnaz, Jr.
plays a police detective computer hacker (he makes the kids in "Whiz
Kids" look normal) who writes the "Automan" program, which generates a
living hologram that looks like a normal head on top of a glowing,
sparkling, blue body (sort of like a permanent "Star Trek" transporter
effect).  He is accompanied by a glowing blue star called "Cursor" (the
cursor on the computer terminal he uses is star-shaped!); he likes to
chase women and he also draws three-dimensional objects which become
real (e.g. Automan's car which goes at amazing speeds and makes
non-inertial starts, stops, and 90-degree turns).  Automan has one
problem: it takes so much energy to keep him going (he somehow draws on
the energy in the local power grid) that he can only stay alive at
night, when people aren't running too many electrical appliances.

Anyway, if you enjoyed "Tron" you can probably stand "Automan".
-- 
			Barry Margolin
			ARPA: barmar@MIT-Multics
			UUCP: ..!genrad!mit-eddie!barmar