The Lonely (Season 1, Episode 7)

Matt Stokes and Patrick Perot go through the seventh episode of The Twilight Zone: "The Lonely."

Jack Warden plays Corry, a man wrongfully convicted of murder and sentenced to a most fiscally irresponsible imprisonment: solitary confinement on a faraway asteroid. His only human contact comes every three months, when space merchant marines spend 15 minutes on his asteroid delivering him supplies. He's lonely, folks. But that's about to change when he's given a miraculous gift: an artificially intelligent ladybot. But can a robot (or, as they repeatedly say it, "ro-but") replace a human being? What is a human being, anyway? And how remarkable is it that this 70-year-old episode maybe predicted a future world of romantic AI chatbots?

"The Lonely" originally aired November 13, 1959; directed by Jack Smight; written by Rod Serling; starring Jack Warden, Jean Marsh, John Dehner, and Ted Knight.

Source: "‘I felt pure, unconditional love’: the people who marry their AI chatbots" by Stuart Heritage | The Guardian (2025) - https://bit.ly/4oHvrPd

Music credit: "Something Is Coming" by Rural Route Nine. listen on Spotify (https://bit.ly/3QzvDQE), Apple Music (https://bit.ly/3DaYsQl), or YouTube (https://youtu.be/EErrn2Zt9mA).

Listen to Matt's movie podcast, Load Bearing Beams. New episodes out every Friday, a deep-dive into a different movie every week. Listen on Apple Podcast (https://bit.ly/45fA9IW), Spotify (https://bit.ly/3tk7FAr), or YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@loadbearingbeamspod).

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