Donald Pleasence is an old man with a young wife. He is on death row, facing execution for killing that wife. It is a future time when robots are all over the place and the classic science fictional dilemma of when a machine can also be consider sentient is brought into play. Out of jealousy, this man arranged to have a replacement android made of his wife after she has an affair with a young man. He can then kill her and life goes on with the new one. When he awakens on the day she appears, he changes his mind, but the forces at work don't allow that. They also have a great prejudice against robots and he represents how things have gone wrong. He "kills" the robot and his wife is still alive, but they need to make an example of him. This is a disjointed, confusing episode, but there are some interesting features to the argument it makes.
4 Reviews
"You're killing me for a murder I didn't do!"
classicsoncall21 December 2021
Warning: Spoilers
With each passing day, a story like this seems more and more likely to be plausible with the advances being made to make robots mimic humans. But given the way this story played out, it seemed entirely irrational that George Hill (Donald Pleasence) would be arrested, put on trial, and found guilty of killing a robot wife! It's even laid out very clearly that the replacement wife made for him didn't require the termination of his real life wife, something he wasn't willing to do when the time came for him to do so. The story might have made more sense if George were put on trial by a robot judge and jury, but since he wasn't, the conclusion is bound to be as confusing for you as it was for me.
Ahead of it's time, still a bad wife as a robot!
blanbrn7 September 2020
"Punishment Without Crime" episode 7 from season 2 of "The Ray Bradbury Theater" is one that's ahead of it's time and it's still with a grim and dire outcome for the central character. George Hill(the late great and legendary Donald Pleasence("Halloween") is a fed up husband who finds out about his much younger beautiful wife's affair so he has a plan. For it's time the episode does seem a little strange and ahead of it's time, still George visits a company that specializes in making clones like robots just like humans in this case one just like George's wife. However the game does not go as planned thinking he can program her different she's the same which leads to bad news for George. Overall pretty good episode nice work as always from Donald.
Stellar
flgrovez10 September 2019
Donald Pleasence never disappoints and the rest of the cast are equally good. This is the norm for Ray Bradbury Theater. What sets this apart is the non linear story line, the lack of a concrete explanation to every detail, the complex moral issues involved. This is not typical television fare, it reaches much higher and it achieves it. If you want all the t's crossed and all the I's dotted and need to be spoon fed easy answers to all your questions during an episode or a movie, then this is not for you. If, however, you like being challenged and like having questions to mull over after all is said and done, then this is definitely for you.
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