Mars Machines
Entry updated 26 February 2024. Tagged: TV.
US animated online tv series (2024). Positronish Productions. Created by Lavie Tidhar and Nir Yaniv. Directed, animated and scored by Nir Yaniv. Written by Lavie Tidhar. Cast includes Digger Mesch, Russell Wilcox and Anne Wittman. Seven 4-6 minute episodes. Colour.
Initially conceived by its creators as a sort of Waiting for Godot on Mars, with a clear nod to Thomas M Disch's The Brave Little Toaster (1986 chap; filmed 1987), the series' two main protagonists are a toaster (Mesch) and a coffee pot (Wilcox) uneasily cohabiting in a kitchen on Mars. They are joined in later episodes by Bianca (Wittman), an answering machine. As the series progresses the secret pasts of its protagonists are gradually revealed, as does the external threat of Dr Novum (see Novum), a Palmer Eldritch-like entity (see Philip K Dick) apparently intent on stalking the protagonists. A final showdown briefly transports the three appliances into a Virtual Reality simulation to face up to their nemesis – and themselves.
The series appears to be at least nominally set in Tidhar's extended Central Station universe. Various sf concepts are humorously explored; one episode, for instance, literalizes the metaphor of Nick Bostrom's paperclip maximizer thought experiment. A secondary character glimpsed several times is a Robo-Pope derived from Clifford D Simak's Project Pope (1981). A sense of existential ennui pervades despite the jokes.
Although created earlier than Tidhar and Yaniv's Loontown (2023), Mars Machines' release was delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic and appeared in 2024. [LTi]
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