Main cast: Kimberly Elise (Tilly Vee), Clifton Collins Jr (Frendon Blythe), Garwin Sanford (The Judge), Daryl Shuttleworth (Otis Brill), Matthew Walker (Augustus), and Stephen Hawking (The Host)
Director: Darnell Martin
Little Brother is based on Walter Mosley’s short story of the same name, and the screenplay was written by Mr Mosley himself. Aside from the basic premise, though, everything here has been sized up into bigger and… well, let’s just say that bigger always isn’t better in this case.
In the future, all criminals face trial in a “court” overseen by a program that is a composite of various different “personalities”. In other words, the AI is both the judge and the juries. It is this court that prisoner Frendon Blythe is determined to get the better of, as he’s going to prove once and for all that he’s innocent of the murder they accused him of. This isn’t going to be easy, because computer programs don’t recognize context, circumstances, and nuances – even if you kill in self-defense, for example, it still considers you a murderer so you will be executed.
Obviously, the take home message of this episode is that the very human ability to feel empathy can never be replaced by even the best AI in existence. Oh, and cops suck. Pretty standard sci-fi genre messages, in other words.
The problem with this episode is that the whole thing doesn’t work as a TV show. This is a story that requires the bulk of the drama to take place inside Frendon’s head, and given that this is an episode of a TV show instead of a multi-million-dollar blockbuster film, the limitation of the medium makes it hard for the story to come alive properly. I get instead a cocky guy arguing in front of a monitor – not exactly compelling drama, this. Perhaps recognizing this issue, Mr Mosley and director Darnell Martin opt for the worst solution possible: have a wide-eyed, naïve officer, Tilly, in the scene so that everyone else can deliver their exposition to her and, in the process, dump a whole lot of information on the viewer too. This is a problem because, one, it makes Tilly look stupid and two, the exposition train keeps coming all the way to the final second of the episode.
Also, the characterization of Frendon feels ill-suited for a story of this nature. He’s portrayed as this cocky, know-it-all type who still wins even when it seems like he has lost – it’s hard to feel empathy for a character with such an obvious plot armor. I feel that this story needs a tragic hero rather than what Frendon turns out to be, to bring out the maximum pathos and feels.
At any rate, the entire episode has quite the botched execution. Clifton Collins Jr and Kimberly Elise give their all, but it’s no good. The episode has already shot itself in both its kneecaps due to the decisions made by the screenwriter and the director.
