Air date: December 2, 1960
Jana Loren (Inger Stevens) and her parents (John Hoyt and Irene Tedrow) live in a mansion staffed by five life-like robots (Robert the butler; Nelda, Susanne, and Gretchen the maids; and Jensen the handyman) built by her father, who serve the family's every whim and are practically indistinguishable from humans. Jana keeps trying to do things for herself, but the robots keep showing up and insisting they help out. Bored out of her mind, Jana wants to leave the mansion to experience the world beyond her pampered home life, but her father and the robots say that the outside world is too dangerous. At one point, she loses her temper and shoves Susanne down the stairs, but she just smiles and gets up like nothing happened. Her parents are incredibly lazy and indulge in having their every desire tended to by the robots. Jana begs them to get rid of their mechanized staff before they become vegetables who are completely dependent on them.
Eventually, Dr. Loren relents and dismantles the robots to make Jana happy. Now that they are free from having their whims satisifed in an instant, Jana says she plans to explore the outside world, get married, and have kids, a statement which horrifies her parents. Growing suspicious, Jana looks through the family albums and finds no pictures of herself as a child. Jana comes to the horrifying conclusion that she herself is a robot, created after her parents were unable to conceive a true child. She becomes hysterical, repeatedly slamming her arm against the wall and banister and screaming that she can't feel any pain before she faints. Jana's "parents" are left to wonder what to do now that Jana knows the truth. Sometime later, it's revealed just what the Lorens have done to Jana: they've reprogrammed her to be a maid, who gives Mrs. Loren a shoulder massage.
The Lateness of the Tropes:
- Backstory Invader: The Lorens' android servants have "memories" implanted in their programming, as well as the belief that they have been in their positions for years. All hell breaks loose when Jana figures out that this applies to her too.
- Bottle Episode: The episode largely takes place in the Lorens' living room.
- Cruel Twist Ending: Jana's parents dismantle the robots, marking the instant they finally learn to be self-reliant. Jana had hopes that this would mark the dawn of a new day for her family, where they can go outside and live their lives. Unfortunately, that's before she learns she herself is a robot, and therefore can't live a normal human life like her mother and father. While they decide against dismantling her, they instead wipe her memories and reprogram her to think she's Nelda in order to spare her the pain that the truth brought her.
- Death of Personality: The end of the episode shows that Jana is gone, and Nelda the maid is put in her place.
- Dissonant Serenity: Susanne's smirk after Jana throws her down the stairs shows that something is very much not right. Right after this comes the revelation that she and all the other servants are robots.
- Dramatic Thunder: The episode opens with a thunderstorm going on outside. Besides setting a dramatic mood, it's plot-relevant, as Jana expresses a desire to go outside and experience rain for the first time.
- Fake Memories: Once it's revealed she's a robot, Jana discovers that she has memories of a childhood that never happened.
- Feel No Pain: All of the robots, which just get right back up from whatever accidents they get into.
- Freak Out: Jana, upon learning the truth, topped off with dramatic fainting.
- Grew Beyond Their Programming: Jana's true identity was so deeply hidden within her artificial psyche that she came to hate other robots and desired a family and children of her own. She was presumably never meant to know the truth.
- Gilded Cage: Jana views her home life as this, because she is not allowed to leave for whatever reason and her parents have all but become vegetables dependant on their robot servants.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: Jana's "parents" reprogram her when she learns her true identity, proving that she's only a toy to them. Though it's implied they at least cared enough to do this instead of outright dismantle her.
- Raised by Robots: Inverted. Jana is a robot "raised" by humans.
- Robotic Reveal: Jana discovers that she is a robot given false memories to think that she's always been the Lorens' daughter.
- Staircase Tumble: Jana pushes Susanne down the stairs, who gets back up like it's no big deal and reveals that she and the other staff are robots.
- Tomato in the Mirror: Jana finds out she herself is a robot.
- Video Inside, Film Outside: This is the first of six episodes to be shot on videotape instead of film, in order to reduce costs.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: It's briefly touched upon after Jana's discovery that she is a robot. Her parents insist that they consider her as much a daughter as if she were flesh and blood, but she herself can't accept it.
