Robot

Original air date: February 8, 2003
Writer: Susan Bolch and John May
Director: Stacey Stewart Curtis

Guest Stars:

Actor's name Character played

Nigel Shawn-Williams The Observer (Gonferd R. Pimikin)

Connor Lynch Kid

Elizabeth Young (uncredited) The Cooke

Upstairs, in the hallway, Lucas stands ready with a tennis racket. A machine catapults a tennis ball at him, Lucas misses the pitch and the ball goes into the net behind him.

“I wasn’t ready.” – Lucas.
“heh, you weren’t but Sir Hurl-a-lot sure was.” – Vaughn.

Marshall resets the arm of the robot as Corrine walks up, asking what else it does. Vaughn replies that it also works with hockey pucks and baseballs. The robot launches another ball at Lucas and he again misses the shot. Lucas comments he’s going to take up ping pong instead.
Vaughn inquires what Corrine’s robot does. Corrine informs that it currently only spins in circles because Josie, who was supposed to have gotten up early to work on it, but Corrine suspects Josie overslept. Marshall purposes the idea that Corrine let him and Vaughn work on her robot. He imagines putting a saw on it and adding body armor. Vaughn then throws in the idea of adding a jackhammer to theirs.

“And then name it “Pounder”?!” – Marshall.
"Then put those two in a ring and you’ve got some serious carnage.” – Lucas.

Josie walks up from the stairs, where Lucas is standing, and Corrine comments about Josie being late, disorganized, and messy. Josie, not letting the remarks faze her, adjusts some wires on their robot and it starts moving in a straight line. Josie says she figured out what was wrong with it while she was sleeping as Corrine points to the robot going down the stairwell. Everyone peers over the railing as loud crashing noises ring in the hall beneath them.

In the cafeteria, Lucas and Marshall are eating as Josie sits down at the table. Josie says deal with the problem of fixing the robot. Marshall and Lucas tease her about how she intends to fix the robot and Josie responds by telling them what would really be fun would be to cover them in napkins and smother them in ketchup.

“And how exactly are you going to deal with it?” – Lucas to Josie.
“The same way she deals with pizza crust. She just feeds them to the couch.” – Marshall.
“Or with magazines she just builds the world’s tallest stack.” – Lucas
“Or like laundry just lets itself combust.” – Marshall.

Meanwhile, Principal Durst and Professor Zacharyackary hover over a notice about an observer coming to Blake Holsey High. They are puzzled to what the observer is supposed to be observing, the notice does not say. Professor Zachary figures that maybe it is nothing but Principal Durst is worrying, claiming one of those “I’m sure it’s nothing” inspectors closed their sister school the previous year because of sanitation issues.

"Blake Holsey has to be perfect! We can start with your office Professor Zackary. It always looks like a hurricane hit it in there." - Principal Durst to Professor Zackary

Corrine walks into the science room where Josie is working on the robot. Corrine is a bit angry that a CD Josie returned to Corrine was covered with nacho cheese. Josie, however, is able to draw Corrine’s attention to the robot. It has made a lot of progress. Josie is quite impressed with how well the robot will be functioning.

“It’s going to make order out of chaos.” – Josie to Corrine.

Later that day, the robot is picking up the mess around Josie’s bed as Corrine walks in. Corrine comments that while the room is clean, the stuff is still disorganized. Corrine tests Josie by asking her to retrieve certain things, which Josie does swiftly and with efficiency. Satisfied, Corrine walks out, dubbing the robot “Robo-Josie.”
(In the scene, we see Josie wearing one white sock and one black sock.)

“Look, I know where things are. Just cause I don’t organize things alphabetically and color coded with sticky notes, like someone I know, doesn’t mean I’m hopeless.” – Josie to Corrine.

Down in the Cafeteria, Principal Durst is panicking to clean up the place. She even takes the food out of a student’s hand and wipes the table with her scarf, which she throws out. She comments to herself why they are having Sloppy Joes when everything needs to be so clean.

“Hey! I was eating that!” – kid.
“You were finished.” – Principal Durst.

As she turns around, she is confronted by a man in a suit. He introduces himself as Gonferd R. Pimikin, the observer sent to make a report on Blake Holsey High. Principal Durst inquires to what exactly he is inspecting. He comments that first he’d like to inspect lunch. Going to the cafeteria chef, Principal Durst orders her to create another meal. The Chef gives Principal Durst a dirty look when Principal Durst isn’t looking.

“Scrape the meat off two Sloppy Joes, warm up yesterday’s spaghetti, mix the two together and fix it out on a nice plate. And do something creative with that awful apple pie.” – Principal Durst to the chef.
“How does Spaghetti Bolognese sound?” – Principal Durst to inspector.
“And just this once, wear your hairnet!” – Principal Durst to chef.

      Upstairs, Josie has finished her homework. Looking up, Josie sees the robot has scattered her things across her bed. Josie goes into the basement looking for more circuits to better the robot. What she does not see is that the box she is looking through has a “Pearadyne Industries” sticker on its side.
      Back in the Cafeteria, Principal Durst pours coffee for Mr. Pimikin. She is surprised to see him not writing anything down. Mr. Pimikin tells her that the meal was very good but not relevant to what he is inspecting. He walks off to conduct his observations.
      In Josie’s room, the robot has cleaned and organized everything. It is actually making decisions of where to place things. Corrine compliments the robot. She then places her papers and binder on her bed. The air from the binder opening blows the papers onto the floor and the robot retrieves the papers but heads towards the trash can, rips them up, and throws them away. Corrine is angered because she didn’t save the file. Josie figures there is a problem in the programming and goes to reboot the robot but the robot. The robot struggled to get away from Josie but Josie manages to turn off the robot. The robot won’t turn back on however and Josie and Corrine go in search of Lucas to get more batteries, figuring the batteries in the robot died. After they leave, the robot turns back on and rolls out of the room.

In the hallway, the robot is out of control, crashing into the walls. Lucas manages to cut the wires of the robot to cut its power supply but the robot continues to function and rolls out the door. Josie, Corrine, Lucas, and Marshall give chase.
At that time, Principal Durst talks to Professor Zachary about her experience with the inspector. It is apparent he isn’t with the health department. As they approach the stairs, they notice Mr. Pimikin measuring the banister. They are bewildered by this until they realize he must be a safety inspector. Both approach Mr. Pimikin who points up to the walls, inquiring about cracks in the walls. Principal Durst and Professor Zachary quickly fabricate a story about the cracks being historic, created by monks in the early 19th century.

“He’s not from the health department at all. And I wasted Spaghetti Bolognese on him.” – Principal Durst to Professor Zachary.

The robot enters the school again, heading for the cafeteria. Marshall is first at the door when it slams shut. Josie, Lucas, and Corrine, are next on the scene. Josie opens the door and the kid from earlier runs out with ketchup and mustard streaks on his shirt. Josie finds the situation humorous. Corrine exclaims that she only thinks it is funny because the robot is exactly like Josie. Josie denies that, claiming that she isn’t that bad.

“Ah!! It’s armed with ketchup!” – Kid.

Principal Durst wanders into the Janitor’s residence. Rubber gloves and socks hang from clothes lines. The place is dark. The Janitor turns on a light when Principal Durst comes close enough, startling her. She finds him reading which confuses her because there were not any lights on. She orders the Janitor to find any safety problem, no matter how small, and fix it. He swiftly heads out on the task.

"Chaos theory? Why read about it when the school's living it?" - Principal Durst to the Janitor.

      Back in the school, Josie walks into her room. She is looking for the manual. After stepping on her CD, she finds the manual covered in cheese sauce. Josie is beginning to understand what Corrine feels like.
      The robot has escaped the cafeteria and is messing up the hallways. Marshall says that the robot is nothing like Josie because it is random in its way. Josie believes that the robot is just like her when Corrine defends Josie by saying that Josie has an order to her disorganization. They connect her with Chaos theory which states that a chaotic system may appear disorganized but has its own pattern. Professor Zachary figures that when Josie rebooted the robot, the robot defaulted to an extreme version of Josie. Trying to predict what the robot would do next, Josie guesses that she would mess with Principal Durst and the inspector. Professor Zachary, Corrine, and Vaughn go off to find them while Josie tells Lucas and Marshall that she needs their robot to go after hers.
      The robot has cornered Principal Durst and Mr. Pimikin. They are hiding behind a table. The inspector is horrified. Peering up from behind the table, the robot squirts Mr. Pimikin with the ketchup and Principal Durst with the mustard. Corrine Vaughn can only watch.

“I think it’s appalling that the principal of a school would allow such a thing.” – Mr. Pimikin to Principal Durst.

Josie, Lucas, and Marshall come in with the modified robot, one with a saw blade and hammer. Lucas’s and Marshall’s robot strikes Josie’s robot and then makes a run out into the hallway, Josie’s robot in pursuit. Lucas and Marshall run their robot down a stairwell, leading into the basement. Josie’s follows through, crashing down the stairs. Josie explains that she approaches things like a game but she knows when to stop, Robo-Josie didn’t.

The inspector reports his findings. He states that there were unusual gravitational readings in Professor Zackary’s office and the Janitor’s residence. Victor Pearson, who the inspector is talking to, thinks about the findings.

Episode notes:

Explaining cracks to the inspector, Principal Durst and Professor Zackary say they are historical, made by monks. Blake Holsey High is filmed in Canada on the Auchmar estate. It once housed a monastary.
From this episode, Ralph Chiaravalloti and Bill Mather were nominated for the award Outstanding Achievement in Sound Editing – Short Form in the 2003 Directors Guild of Canada Awards.

Personal thoughts:
Here we see that good vs evil is not really how this show functions. Principal Durst's life at Blake Holsey is seen again but on a higher scale than we saw in Lifetime. Principal Durst and Professor Zachary work together, not like they are forced to to keep the school running but more like because they are normal co-workers. We notice that normal school issues do occur along side abnormal things that happen and that things.
One of those filler episodes that allows you a look at what the other side (for Principal Durst, at least) is like so we see the bad side isn't just planning on how to wreck the student's lives.
Rating: 9/10