Originally airing on 10 March 1988, "Untouched by Human Hands" begins with Michelle entering Austin's warehouse in a sleek black dress. She left in the middle of a date because he said it was an emergency. He tells her about his proof that there are a limited number of palindromic products. While they're talking, an actual emergency call comes from Serendip. There's been a nuclear accident and one of the employees (Brian Kingsley) may have died.
Austin and Mickey investigate suspects and compare clues to figure out if the accident was caused by a mistake, if Brian Kingsley committed suicide, or if he's been trying to fake his death.
This episode provides examples of:
- Beeping Computers: Serendip uses robots for mundane tasks, and they respond to voice commands with beeps.
- Book Ends: The episode starts with Austin telling Mickey about his discovery that there's a limited number of palindromic products, and ends with Mickey asking Austin about palindromic primes.
- Camera Spoofing: The characters don't realize at first that the transmission glitch from when they sent in the robot is due to Kingsley replacing the robot's transmission for one he filmed earlier (which shows him in the room).
- A Deadly Affair: When Brian Kingsley tries to fake his death, he sneaks in a homeless man, has one of the robots kill the guy, and dresses the victim up in his own clothes. This is all to allow him the chance to run away with his housekeeper and his two point five million dollars life insurance policy.
- "Eureka!" Moment: When Mickey points out that Austin can't be aware when every acorn falls, he thinks of tea. That chain of random thoughts helps him realize that there was something wrong with the tea in the radiation lab. The glass of tea in the video was full, but they sent the robot in when it was half-empty.
- Faking the Dead: Austin believes that Brian Kingsley created the accident and left a homeless man that he murdered in the radiation lab dressed in his clothes. However, when Austin sends in a robot to verify this, the video shows Kingsley is lying there in the lab. He doesn't prove his theory until he finds Kingsley (dead) in a crate leaving Serendip.
- Fun with Palindromes: Austin uses a discovery of palindromic math as an excuse to interrupt Mickey's date. At the end of the episode, Mickey asks him what a palindromic prime is, which he defines as a number that is only divisible by itself and eleven.
- The Genie in the Machine: While trying to figure out what happened in the nuclear labs, Austin figures out that there's a flaw in the programming that they use for the Serendip robots; they have an automatic loop function, causing them to repeat previous commands endlessly.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Brian Kingsley supposedly dies in a nuclear accident. Austin later discovers that the scientist actually faked his death by dressing up a homeless man in his clothes and staging the accident. The scientist couldn't bring himself to kill the homeless man himself, so he programmed one of his laboratory's robots to strangle him instead. Unfortunately, he didn't realize that the robot would continue to follow its programming and ended up being strangled as well.
- Insurance Fraud: Brian Kingsley tries to fake his death and leaves his life insurance with his mistress so that he can leave his wife for a younger woman and two million dollars.
- In the Future, We Still Have Roombas: The robots shown in this episode are called "mouse", and they often patrol parts of Serendip Corporation. They can also be reprogrammed for specific tasks, although the tasks must be relatively simple in nature. There's a programming flaw, however; they will endlessly repeat whatever they've been programmed to do.
- In-Universe Camera: Combined with P.O.V. Cam, some of the video from this episode comes from the perspective of a cleaning robot that uses a camera to navigate the building.
- Killer Robot: Brian Kingsley programs one of the robots made by Serendip to strangle anyone in an Intellidyne delivery crate. He uses this to kill a homeless man, but when he tries to sneak himself out, he forgot about the program, and the robot killed him, too.
- Make It Look Like an Accident: To make sure that the insurance pays out, Brian Kingsley sets up the events in the nuclear lab with a programming error.
- Meaningful Appearance: Austin notices something is wrong about the accident when he sees that all of the victim's shoes are unscuffed and hardly worn. The dead victim, however, wears shoes that are so old you'd expect them to be given away. Austin already suspected that it wasn't an accident.
- The Mistress: Brian Kingsley is having an affair with his young housekeeper, and decides to fake his death for an insurance scam so that he can run away to Greece with the money and the woman.
- P.O.V. Cam: Combined with In-Universe Camera, some of the video from this episode is from the perspective of a cleaning robot that uses a camera to navigate the building.
- Sleeping with the Boss's Wife: Brian Kingsley is Howard's CEO. When Brian is discovered dead in the nuclear lab, Harold Putnam is Howard's first choice for a replacement. Harold has been having an affair with Mrs Kingsley, but Austin doesn't know if Mr Kingsley ever figured it out.
