Perhaps the most downplayed but subtly volatile situation posed on Small Wonder was parking Vicki in her junior jock pubescent "brother" Jamie's bedroom. Of all themes driving salacious "X-rated" Small Wonder fanfic on the web, this was it.Naturally, a sitcom geared for a younger audience was able to gloss over the ramifications by non-admission, but the real world isn't that blind or innocent.The initial reason for Vicki's placement in Jamie's room was three-fold; 1. Vicki was a "child" so fit in a child's room; 2. Vicki was regarded as "just" a quasi-toy by Jamie; 3. spared production expenses from erecting a set specifically for Vicki. View #3 was a minor but pivotal factor behind Vicki's berth in Jamie's room in lieu Small Wonder's shoestring budget. Sets are expensive. Early on there was an idea of converting a conveniently whipped-up "guest room" into Vicki's new bedroom (a redress of Harriet's room which in turn was Ted and Joan's room) but the idea lost steam in the shuffle. One might wonder what Child Services case worker Mrs. Fernwald would've thought of "adopted" Vicki sharing her brother's room. In the real world, knowing such as Fernwald were always on the prowl checking out Vicki's welfare in a new family would've had a real Ted and Joan scrambling to slam together some sort of special quarters for Vicki, even a converted closet. That the series went so long without Fernwald or the Brindles or Reggie wondering where Vicki slept was one of more unreal and asinine situations in the show. Since Vicki represented a marketing potential of at least a hundred million dollars, you'd think the Lawsons would've scraped up a measly few thousand to erect Vicki a bedroom to safeguard her secret from potential competitors. But of course, Small Wonder's launching audience wasn't expected to be so logical, though you'd been hard-pressed to get away glossing over that situation in FAMILY TIES.View #1 is more related to the perspectives of the producers than that any real Ted or Joan Lawson would hold since the early targeted audience were juveniles/teens. An early pilot draft originally had Vicki stowed in a niche in the living room closet where her support computers were later housed but it was decided throwing her into Jamie's room was a cute touch and would incite a more immediate exchange between the two. Still, it begs the question of what was anyone thinking of by the example of stowing what by all appearances is a wholesome little girl in a budding teen boy's bedroom? The presumption was obviously that most of the audience would simply view Vicki as case #2, mostly as toy, but again it is an awfully naive view that a preteen Jamie would only regard Vicki as a souped-up oversized doll sterile and devoid of having any subtle passive influence on humans. The perfect fidelity of Vicki's human appearance is central to her inconspicuous role passing as daughter and sister, and the same would apply marketing any real-life ADA since it's unlikely one looking like a vinyl-skinned doll (much less R2-D2) with unnatural proportions and appearance would seem cute or normal to its owners after the novelty wore off. Along with this physical fidelity comes the various perceptions people would have of her, much as people would of another. In Vicki's case a very attractive, indistinguishably human female child. In Small Wonder, particularly the first season, Vicki's behavior was a very accurate portrayal of how a real ADA would act, availing the current state and competence of kinesthetic management and persona-emulation A.I. which comprises her social interface (as opposed her primary executive task execution programming or her core robot "self", which defines her basic labor assignments and task manipulation and articulation; weren't for her persona-emulation program, Vicki would act like a stiff and wooden automaton, much like a car assembly robot in human form). Much of Vicki's demeanor (or "body English" as it were) would've been derived from a database of action-capture footage of real live models performing various everyday simple tasks and motions. So, depending on how sophisticated these programs are and how smoothly her myo-servo muscles perform, outwardly Vicki might resemble a very reserved, taciturn, but very attentive child and it wouldn't take much effort to utterly forget she's really a machine.The question foremost in storing Vicki in Jamie's room is whether she poses too perfect a human replicate for a young pubescent boy with perking hormones to simply dismiss as an appliance or a toy. Like the perfect hypnotized subject, Vicki presents to any young boy the ultimate "play doctor" partner (primarily as a petting object since she's only externally anatomically correct); totally docile, obedient, and obliging. She has no will, conscious, sense of morality, shame or modesty. She doesn't blab and will permanently keep and encrypt or delete an experience if so ordered. The knowledge that Vicki's non-biological and has no "mind" or true feelings to bruise or traumatize or have qualms about adds a notch of guiltlessness that'd encourage Jamie's response to Vicki's affect. Also, that she's physically very comely can only exasperate Jamie's pose of brotherly disinterest in her. So would he or does he? Jamie certainly has ample opportunity and privacy to carry out any wanton whimsy in his bedroom, so the question is, assuming he is like most boys his age, would he willfully and spitelessly move on his own "sister" or does he regard Vicki enough as one not to?That Jamie regards Vicki as somewhat "higher" than just a machine leaks in several episodes. In the pilot a casually curious Jamie asks Vicki up front whether she knows anything about the birds and bees then dismisses her ignorance. In "Nerd Crush" Jamie grudgingly pecks Vicki on the cheek to show her what a kiss is and he promptly wipes his mouth in normal sibling aversion -- but why if she's "merely" a toy? In the pilot he asks her to turn her head (which she does literally) so she doesn't see him undress because she looks too much like a real girl and this is the crux of the problem. Vicki doesn't appear like a vinyl-skinned oversized "Chatty Cathy" doll; in nearly all respects Vicki appears every bit true as any human child. Enough to pass the scrutiny of neighbors when in a bathing suit or trading clothes in Harriet's bedroom. Enough to even pass the cursory inspection of a nurse in "The Pool". Certainly more than enough to overwhelm Jamie's senses and Vicki's incongruous mechanical fact to him and maybe stir unbrotherly notions in his head. Moreover, Jamie has seen Vicki unclothed countless times, in fact there are several episodes where we know that he's dressed her himself. Under such circumstances it's nearly impossible to believe that his imagination hasn't been teased more than a few times unless Jamie harbors different sexual persuasions. Maybe the issue of piquing Jamie's instincts or curiosity wouldn't come up were Vicki less real looking, but such would only betray her true robot identity.One question we must ask is does Jamie have any moral inclination to curb responding to those whimsies or instincts. Does he regard her as enough of a sibling not to act on his impulses? Here we're taking a leap of faith that Jamie regards Vicki far beyond what her A.I. cognition is capable of in that he respects her "privacy" or her sense of self or sees her as a sovereign entity or "person." We have a very unique situation to postulate here, mostly hinging on how well Vicki effects the personality of a real person. If she did so well enough it might provoke some guilt or misgivings in Jamie to leave her be, perhaps akin to a boy in the presence of a lovely but severely retarded new stepsister whom would obediently conceal any of his abuse. On the other hand, were Vicki blatantly too inhumanly mechanical Jamie might not feel so too discouraged. Generally on Small Wonder, Jamie's view of Vicki evolves from being a early pal/sister to a pet/servant as his appreciation of girls grows. Before mid-series he is unabashed at ordering her around or tinkering with her access panel to get his way. His feelings become more confined to seeing her as property to be watched and protected than true affections. He does care about her, but mostly along the lines of affection for a pet, though her apparent human form makes her far more inviting to fully bloom and execute those feelings than one would with a cat or dog (though farmboys have been known not to be so discriminate with sheep).One must ask were Ted and Joan beyond dumb for stashing Vicki in Jamie's room and the answer must be a resounding "Yes!". It was a very dumb thing to do. Most parents separate brothers and sisters sleeping in the same room by six-years-old, so nearly instinctive is the precaution. It's a no-brainer that young curious siblings will one time or other "play doctor" and you can only stretch the innocence of that game so far. One clue we have that both parents didn't simply hold a purely household "appliance" regard of Vicki is the fact that she doesn't putter around the house without clothes on. People have no problem with naked dolls or pets or babies about the house, so why should a robotic household device be any different? Why would a robot need any clothes, more to the point, why spend good money buying it new clothes unless you've severely personified it. Moreover, they paid for Vicki's passage on vacations and plane trips and restaurants when they could've left her home like any vacuum cleaner. These are expressions of bonding and affection equivalent that given to very close pets at the least. So for all practical purposes we can pretty much dispense with the idea that Vicki was parked in Jamie's closet under the guise of a toy; her quasi-human status was acknowledged and served. So why doesn't this strike Joan or Ted?Creator Ted can be partially excused since he has been intimate with Vicki since her first transistor and she resembles nothing more to him than an incredibly complex ambulatory computer sheathed with a comely latex shell. Joan, on the other had, hasn't been rendered jaded to Vicki's hidden technology; even Vicki's dorsal access panel is semi-unreal to her, less a reminder to her of Vicki's hidden top-to-toe technology than as a implement to "help Vicki stay well," rather along the lines of a child receiving insulin shots. Joan holds a far more intimate personification of Vicki than the others and unabashedly regards Vicki as a kind of surrogate foster daughter. She knows that Vicki is a "tool", but in Joan's eye that's just one side to Vicki, like a child knowing the piano; Vicki's other side being the materialization of Joan's daughter-wish fantasy. Joan takes Vicki shopping and picks whose clothes just like a daughter, so there is definitely a semblance of a daughterly regard going on here. So it begs the question of why would Joan allow Vicki to be stashed in Jamie's room? Blind trust in Jamie that no adolescent wonder would pop into his head? Maternal inexperience? Producer oversight? For such a sharp fox it seems highly unlikely that Joan would simply overlook Jamie's reaction to having a totally convincing female peer sharing his bedroom. Maybe Joan's far less perceptive than her intelligence pretended.There is another possibility for Joan's seeming nonchalance (though it's not implied in the series) which is that Vicki has been programmed a "modesty integrity" parameter that triggers a "beat it bro'!" contact avoidance response if a certain percentage of her skin surface is touched or exposed by a specified person. While ideal in theory, it's doubtful such has ever been implemented for reasons cited above. This said, in turn there must be some safety mechanism in place to inhibit Vicki from acting provocatively in Jamie's hormonally susceptible presence. Though totally devoid of any primal sexual instincts or impulses, Vicki has a superb capacity for imitation and impersonation to expand her persona-emulation heuristic database so to "learn" to act more natural in the human world. Unfortunately, this capacity is indiscriminate and the same ability to perfectly mimic Joan's moves at cooking dinner or gardening can render a hypnotist or Marilyn Monroe or Mae West with night club quality effect as demonstrated in "Computer Date" and "Jamie Lawson, P.I." and "Look Into My Eyes". Automatically disabling Vicki's persona-emulation mode in Jamie's room would prove a prudent course along with locking out any "X" cable TV channels.An interesting speculation that pops up is what would've other Lawson siblings thought of the Vicki-Jamie situation. It's very likely that human sisters would've been very protective of Vicki (likely kept her in their room) regardless her robotic fact; at the least how their brothers treated her would've subtly reflected their regard and feelings toward them. Also, most human sisters would've been very unamused knowing that a brother was happily "messing around" with a representative peer. Girls are also more sensitive to the care and welfare of "lower" creatures and would probably feel a sympathetic affinity towards Vicki as a hapless exploited "kid sister". Vicki's family-friendly persona-emulation programming would give her the apparent "personality" of at least a two-year-old, which is becoming enough to touch a girls' compassion of protecting an overgrown "baby sister." On the other hand it's unlikely brothers would've had a different regard of Vicki than Jamie had for reasons of affirming macho social attitudes, innate male dominance, and having a fun time. An inevitable question that must be asked are the consequences of Jamie "getting caught" with Vicki by his parents. The parents are caught in a peculiar bind here; do you punish Jamie severely for taking advantage of a docile "sibling" or do you dismiss his transgression as no more serious than his exploiting a vacuum cleaner? Berating and chastising Jamie automatically raises Vicki's status from a "soulless" robotic aide to a near life-form with appropriate relevance and "humane consideration". Is this beneficial for a young boy's psyche? Is it good for the parents to hold a household appliance in such high esteem? If you shrug off Jamie's action as "boys will be boys" then what does that say about contributing to his unusually early and possibly considerable erotic experience and view of his female peers?Thus, in closing, the ramifications of a real-world Vicki could invite some unexpected family stresses that neither pets nor people present, and with it an adjustment of how we see quasi-humans and judge another. As the years counting down to a real ADA decrease the questions posed here will be more than merely academic.
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