Fan Mail Keyhole #2:
At first glance it seems incongruous that senior citizens would fancy high-tech kids, but that view, we found out, missed the forest for the trees. It wasn't Vicki the android which appealed to them, but Vicki the quaint, pretty, proper and oh-so-dainty little maid "grandchild," and the idea of even a proxy angel waiting on them and acting to their whims was just absolutely enthralling to them. Peculiarly, they didn't like Vanessa too much ("too normal"). When we talk about Vicki in regard to seniors, it's primarily Vicki from the pilot to early season two most referred to, which means (then) 9- to 10-year-old Tiffany's tiny size and doll-like effect (which most viewers took for 8 or even 6) falls neatly into that age range which Madison Avenue and modeling agencies regard as a girl-child's "peak cuteness." This cherub-nymph range has also long been recognized by historical artists and clothes designers and makers of expensive collector porcelain dolls. By the same token, boys lost out as robotic valets or objects of charm or affection. One of our "gray fox" associate producers believed Vicki's attraction to her peers might be that, in a sense, she has the perpetual innocence of a baby and the sympathetic charm of a vulnerable but terminally naive child. Be that as it may, ironically unlike most moms, SW's senior fans generally didn't forget Vicki wasn't a real girl and were surprisingly accepting of her technical limits and mechanical nature and weren't so deep into bestowing androids with emotions as many mom viewers were. Just Vicki's "prim little lady" effect seemed enough to satisfy and titillate most seniors. A good explanation of why seniors were so receptive of an android-robot likely comes from simple long experience to accomplished impossible feats; many lived to see achievements spanning from Charles Lindbergh to Neil Armstrong.
Beyond the fancy, the technical possibilities of a real-life android "granddaughter" utterly enchanted seniors, the majority being pretty unabashed in saying that they'd furnish whole wardrobes and even bedrooms for their own little Vicki, as though playing a full-sized dollhouse. I know a few little girls who've spent (rather, who wheedled moms to spend) over $100 just on outfits for Barbie, and when you see women literally spending thousands on collectible porcelain dolls from QVC and the like, the notion of an adult towing a cute little Vicki over to JCPenney to buy out the Little Miss section isn't all that incredible to me anymore. Some seniors were pragmatic beyond sentimentality and took hard-core utilitarian views. One chronic mailer fan in Ocala, Florida, broke down the economics of how a senior citizen co-op could invest in a single Vicki (assuming a Vicki cost $100,000) to replace "grumbling and thankless" jaded watch nurses and aides. This nurse-servant justification for willingness to spend up to $50,000 for a Vicki (rather than, say, on a luxury car) for quite a few seniors is the linchpin that'll really justify the market of a domestic android. Seniors generally were more willing to see an investment benefit in a combination nurse/security guard/helper/cook/pet and companion wrapped in the unintimidating form of a pretty child robot. The episode "Grandpa Lawson" drew a large response on this premise. In this, Heathkit and several other "home robot" manufacturers in the early 1980s severely miscalculated what manner of robot and capabilities the public wanted. Bluntly put, they didn't do their market research. The cool reception HERO-1 and others received at the marketplace is VERY misleading in gauging the demand out there. An R2-D2 vacuum just isn't going to hack it being attractive or "family-friendly", but a comely android can, and it's going to be a fascinating world when the technology gets to speed and infects other social realms. If we think PCs are changing things, just wait till the first domestic androids arrive on the scene.
Beneath their tickled fascination with Vicki, there was also quite a bit of heart-wrenching pathos in reading these letters, that though most seniors loved their grandkids and nieces, more than a few were somewhat rueful that they'd lost the charm of a Norman Rockwell childhood. They bitterly saw such hard-bitten swearing child stars as Jodie Foster, Linda Blair and Tatum O'Neal as pop denim models to the death of childhood grace and femininity as they knew it. You read again and again senior regrets that there were almost no differences between nieces and nephews, and grandsons and granddaughters. It was pretty sobering to read that so many were disillusioned by their grandkids when they should've been adoring, yet as they "confided" to us in their comments of the show you could sense that maybe the third generation really doesn't pay them that much attention and more often than not, unwittingly or not, throw up their noses at their elders. For some of these seniors it was the first time they ever wrote to anyone besides the creditors and Social Security office because their own kids, not to speak of grandkids, hardly ever wrote or called back. To these elders, likely sitting alone at the tube, Vicki-type androids were a fanciful option and way to recapture that proper, mannerly granddaughter they never got (though not with the same intense romantic pines moms displayed). The same was expressed by those who implied that the charm and confidence of an "intelligent" Vicki can't be reproduced by comfort surrogates such as animals, the general "advantage" in owning Vicki to shut-ins and nursing home residents most often cited being that "the nice kids they ship in from orphanages always have to go home when the sun goes down, and dogs and cats can't talk back."
I'll stick my neck out and say that when android technology reaches the Vicki level (or rather, somewhat beyond it, since SW portrayed an android without real pseudo-personality features to "converse" as would a real companion à la AI programs such as "Cyc"), child androids might well become staple "accessories" at senior centers who can bring news or medicines and charm to doting residents who'd shun nurses and attendants out of pride, distrust, or bitterness. The positive response and awards "The Wonder Worker" received from pediatricians and teachers about the concept of availing inconspicuous "expert system" child androids to reach and help diagnose troubled kids who'd shy adults hint that something similar might work at the senior end. Since changing social attitudes and intra-family regard are usually more difficult and take longer to achieve than technological progress, I think this will happen long before many elders and grandparents no longer need cherish animals or androids to proxy their own relatives.